The EmPOWER writing techniques and Executive Functioning

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The EmPOWER writing techniquesand Executive
Functioning
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Goals for Understanding

• Why writing is such a difficult task (in brief!)
• How EmPOWER helps scaffold the process of writing
• The six steps of EmPOWER
• My own experiences with using EmPOWER in my
  teaching

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What was the hardest paper you ever wrote and why?
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How EmPOWER helps

• Teaches an internal dialogue that helps students
  self-regulate
• Each step prompts a question
• Each question prompts a strategy

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Evaluate What do I have to do?

• Helps students understand exactly what they are
  being asked to do
• Provides a strategy to break down the language in
  an assignment
• Prompts students to look ahead and estimate how
  many sections they are being asked to write

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Make a Plan How do I do it?

• Translates words in an assignment into a genre of
  writing
• e.x. compare persuade
• contrast give information
• summarize give an opinion

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E and mP

• These are two critical steps that most techniques
  neglect
• They address deficits of students who have
  difficulty planning how to start.

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Organize Use the 6 Brain Frames

• Brain Frames
• 6 basic patterns of language and thinking
• Visual
• Flexiblestudents draw them
• Can be used for reading comprehension
• O step takes the burden off of working memory

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Work

• Utilizes paragraph and essay templates to
  scaffold thinking
• Teaches strategies for
• Writing a thesis
• Writing an introduction/conclusion
• Elaborating individual ideas

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Evaluate Self-assessment

• Provides editing and revision guidelines which
  scaffold the development of metacognitive text
  analysis
• Teachers can adjust rubrics to target specific
  skills

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Rework

• Provides a step so that students know they must
  take time to make their changes
• After they make changes, they can celebrate!

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Final Comments

• EmPOWER is a teaching ROUTINE not a PROGRAM
• A teacher can use any content area curriculum to
  teach EmPOWER
• EmPOWER can be used with students from grade 2
  college and beyond
• EmPOWER was created to service ALL students, not
  necessarily those in Special Ed