What it is. Structure is the arrangement of the parts, decided before any sentence is written.
Why our test works. A child who cannot answer in one phrase has written a paragraph that does several things or nothing. Asking what it is FOR — rather than what it is about — forces a functional answer: it introduces, it gives the first reason, it answers the objection. That vocabulary of PURPOSE is what turns a road map from a list of topics into a structure.
Leans on. Grade 5's road map planned a paragraph. This plans a piece.
Watch for. “It is about the causes” is a topic, not a job. Push for the verb.
Read and use Structure from Essay Voyage, pp.23–27. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher reads the key passage of Structure aloud with the book open and models the move it The class reads Writing Book 6, p.49 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U1 set 1: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher reads the key passage of Structure aloud with the book open and models the move it teaches on one sentence. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class applies the move from Structure to two sentences together, checking against the book's own example. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 6 to page 49 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: In your notebook: apply Structure to three sentences of your own, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read out one sentence that uses Structure. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: An essay has parts, and each part has one job.
“It is about the causes” is a topic, not a job. Push for the verb.