What it is. The end effect is what a piece leaves behind after it is finished.
Why our test works. Endings are the part of writing children think least about and readers remember most. The test has two halves on purpose: the first is a genuine response, which they can always give; the second makes them find the MECHANISM, which is what turns a reaction into something they can reproduce in their own writing. It also arms Grade 7's project, where the *so what?* ending was set in Grade 6 and now has to be made to land.
Leans on. Grade 6's conclusion answered 'so what?'. This makes it land.
Watch for. Accept the feeling, then insist on the words. Without the second half this becomes a lesson in having opinions.
Read and use The End Effect from The Writing of Literature, pp.75–78. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher reads the key passage of The End Effect aloud with the book open and models the mo The class reads Writing Book 7, p.54 — 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.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher reads the key passage of The End Effect 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 The End Effect 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 7 to page 54 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 The End Effect to three sentences of your own, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read out one sentence that uses The End Effect. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: What a reader is left holding is decided by the last line.
Accept the feeling, then insist on the words. Without the second half this becomes a lesson in having opinions.