What it is. The road map begins by narrowing a topic to something finishable.
Why our test works. Every previous project arrived with its scope set by us. Grade 8 hands that over, and the universal failure of a first self-defined paper is a topic four times too large — producing thin coverage of everything and command of nothing. Tying the test to the LENGTH AVAILABLE makes narrowing concrete and arguable, where *is it too big* is a matter of opinion a thirteen-year-old will always answer no to.
Leans on. Grades 6 and 7 planned pieces whose topics we set.
Watch for. Do not criticize ambition. Redirect it from breadth to depth — the same enthusiasm on a smaller question makes the better paper.
Plan the road map of the explanatory project. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher shows the road map with today's slot named, and models plan the road map on the cl The class reads Writing Book 8, p.65 — 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 U17 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 shows the road map with today's slot named, and models plan the road map on the class piece — one slot only, so the model is followable. 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 works the same slot on the shared piece, then reads two versions aloud and says which is clearer and why. 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 8 to page 65 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: plan the road map for your own piece, double-spaced so there is room to correct.
You close on the exit direction — Read the one sentence you are most sure of. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: You are not given the task now. You define it.
Do not criticize ambition. Redirect it from breadth to depth — the same enthusiasm on a smaller question makes the better paper.