I How to “How-to” A Versatile Form Inspires Writing across the Curriculum

C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G A N D T H E C O M M O N C O R E
How to “How-to”
A Versatile Form Inspires Writing across
the Curriculum
OLIVIA BIRDSALL
Vintage telephone etiquette primer, 1951.
I
t is a truth universally acknowledged
that we all know how to do stuff. Whether
it’s tying our shoelaces, keeping a houseplant
alive, spelling our names, making new friends,
speaking French, or cooking spaghetti, we all
know how to do something. Lots of things, in
fact. Which is why, when I asked a group of fourthgraders in the Bronx to come up with topics for the
how-to articles we were going to write—things that
they were experts in, or that they just knew how to
do—I was shocked by the responses I received.
“I don’t have anything to write about,” several
students insisted.
“I don’t know how to do anything,” a few others
moaned.
“Did your brother dress you and brush your
teeth and chew your breakfast this morning?” I asked
Angelica.
“No,” she said, smiling.
“Does your teacher do your homework for you?
Or throw the baseball for you when you are the pitcher at a baseball game?” I teased Fernando.
“No way!”
Olivia Birdsall is the author of the award-winning young adult novel
Notes on a Near-Life Experience. A senior language lecturer in the
Expository Writing Program at New York University, Birdsall also teaches creative writing for t&w in New York City public schools and at the
Sarah Lawrence College summer writing program. She dreams of being
able to write how-to’s for making a perfect pie crust and jet-lag-free travel.
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“Well, then, it looks like you might actually know
how to do more than you think,” I told them.
“Yeah, but we don’t know how to write it down
and make it an article,” Angelica said.
I told them we could work on that part, but that
the first step was just to write down at least three
things that they knew how to do, or that they liked
doing, or that they were good at.
T
he Common Core State Standards require students to take what they’ve learned in one subject
and combine it with skills or knowledge from other
subjects in order to reinforce learning in all subjects.
However, its re-contextualization, re-phrasing, and
re-arrangement of skills and knowledge has left many
of us feeling the way my students did: as if we don’t
know anything, or as if what we know doesn’t translate into what the Common Core requires. But we
teachers know a lot, and meeting the Common Core
standards may not be as daunting as it seems.
I teach how-to lessons a lot because they are so
versatile. These how-tos can be written in the form
of instructional articles, essays, recipes, poems, comic
strips, or storyboards. With a little imagination, howtos can be effectively adapted for science, social studies, history, and language arts classes. They are an excellent means of helping students to develop ordering
and sequencing skills, discover and show cause-effect
Winter 2013–2014
Olivia Birdsall
[These lessons] allow students and teachers
to practice the kind of cross-curricular crosspollination that the Common Core standards
encourage. How-to lessons have Common Core
written all over them!
relationships, use transitional and sequential phrasing, and ensure that students can transfer information into their own words. And they allow students
and teachers to practice the kind of cross-curricular
cross-pollination that the Common Core standards
encourage. How-to lessons have Common Core written all over them!
To see other lessons on using creative writing
to support the Common Core, go to
www.twc.org/magazine.
Anatomy of a How-to
Here are the f ive basic steps of writing a how-to.
You can write this list on the board, or print it
out to distribute to students in class.
1. Introduction: Every how-to exercise should
begin with a few sentences about what is being
taught and why. The introduction should pique
readers’ interest in the how-to, and entice them
to keep reading.
2. Ingredients/Materials Needed: Have
the students make a list of all of the materials needed to complete the how-to. It is often
helpful to leave extra space in this list, so that
overlooked materials can be added as students
write the directions for their how-tos.
3. Directions: The descriptions of the steps for
completing the how-to should be clear, concise,
written in a logical order, and use effective sequencing and transitional language. Depending
on the grade and subject level, teachers may
want to require that a certain number of vocabulary words, mathematical and scientific
concepts, historical facts, plot points, etc., be
included and explained.
4.Tips/Suggestions: Throughout a how-to,
tips for modifying the activity to suit different
needs, tastes, and preferences can be given.
5. Conclusion: Once the directions have been
given, how-tos should end with a few sentences
of encouragement, and ideas about the possible
outcomes, uses, or implications of the how-to.
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Teachers & Writers Magazine
In The Classroom
How-to
Lesson Plan
OLIVIA BIRDSALL
H
ere are the basics steps I follow when I present my how-to
lesson plan, along with examples
of how I used this lesson with my
fourth-grade students. I include
some suggestions for modifying
this lesson for different subjects and different writing
forms at the end of this article, but the possibilities
for variation are endless.
Materials needed
can be successful in the new tasks I ask them to undertake. Part of my strategy is to make sure that they
are aware of what they already know, or know how
to do, that will help them in the new task we are undertaking. I like to ask students to help me review
the skills we already have. In the case of my fourthgraders, I asked them to remind me what we learned
in previous classes about details, why they were important, and how to choose which details to include
in a piece of writing.
Review anatomy/basic steps of how-tos
• A model how-to (Try to find one that works
with the subject you’re working in. See the list
of ideas for models at the end of this article.)
• Any materials associated with your model howto (should you choose to do an activity as part of
reviewing your model)
•Blackboard/SmartBoard
•Chalk/Markers
• Writer’s notebook/paper
•Pencil
Directions
Connect how-to lesson to prior lessons/
knowledge
It’s important to me that students believe that they
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After we review the importance of details, I ask my
students what they know about how-tos, and we discuss the basic steps (shown on the previous page),
writing them in the correct order on the board.
Demonstrate or review a model how-to
With my fourth-grade students, I chose to model
a how-to by demonstrating making a peanut butter
sandwich, writing out the steps with the students as
I proceeded. Before I began making the sandwich, I
asked students to help me brainstorm a list of materials. Initially, they said I’d only need peanut butter,
bread, and jelly. But, when we moved on to the directions, we realized that we’d left out a knife and plate,
so we added them to our list.
Winter 2013–2014
Olivia Birdsall
I called on various students to give me directions,
Give students time to write their own
and through a comical series of trials and errors, the
how-tos
importance of details was reinforced. For example,
Depending on the grade level and subject, graphic
when the first student I called on told me to, “put
organizers can be used for this. With my fourththe peanut butter on the bread,” I smeared a line of
graders, we reviewed the basic anatomy of the
peanut butter across the top of an entire loaf of bread.
how-to (Introduction, Materials, Directions, Tips,
This led to students giving much more detailed inConclusion), discussed how to organize the page, and
structions throughout the rest of the demonstration.
wrote the how-to without a graphic organizer. I like
“Take one piece of bread and spread a layer of peanut
to circulate throughout the room to answer questions,
butter over one side of it.” We wrote these instrucmake suggestions, and offer encouragement while
tions on the board, discussing the chronology of the
students write.
instructions, sequencing and transitional language,
clarity and specificity as we went along.
Invite students to share their how-tos with
I asked my students to write out this how-to in
the class
their writer’s notebooks as I
This aspect of how-to-ing is
made the sandwich, encouragThe
how-to
is
a
fun,
novel
my favorite. Students get to
ing them to put the instructions into their own words, and
means of helping students share their unique voices, their
expertise, and their hard work
add their own details and tips
to
process
the
stuff
that
with their classmates.
as well. You can also distribute
copies of a model, go over it
they are learning, organize
e know how to do a lot
with students, and have them
it, and put it into a new
of stuff, and we have
take notes on it (marking the
parts of the how-to, underlin- form, using their own words the capacity to learn and do
even more. The how-to is a
ing good use of details, vocabuand imaginations.
fun, novel means of helping
lary, transitional words, etc.) as
students process the stuff that
you read and discuss it. I enjoy
they are learning, organize it, and put it into a new
doing this demonstration because I get to share the
form, using their own words and imaginations. My
sandwiches I’ve made with students as they write (I
fourth-grade students wrote basic how-tos about evmake enough for the class in advance).
erything from throwing a perfect spiral in football, to
making scrambled eggs, to making new friends. They
Assign or give students time to choose a topic
wrote about topics with which they felt comfortable
for a model how-to
while enhancing the informational writing skills emDepending on the subject and desired learning outphasized in the Common Core. But the how-to also
comes for this activity, you may choose to assign topoffers infinite possibilities for imaginative variations,
ics to students rather than letting them select their
as well as further cross-curricular work and core curown.
riculum enhancement.
Because my demonstration took the majority of
the class period, I ended the first class session by askVariations
ing students to brainstorm and list at least three ideas
for their own “how-tos.” With a brief demonstration,
Variations on the How-to Form
it might be possible to move on to the next step in a
Although the how-to seems straightforward, its wellsingle class period.
W
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Teachers & Writers Magazine
In the Classroom
known formula actually opens up a wonderful space
for play and imagination. In addition to the standard
form, how-tos can take the form of:
•poems: www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/
poem/30299
•recipes: www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_
boil_and_eat_lobster
• comics or storyboards: wikihow.com/make-a-comic
• short stories: www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/
specials/moore-writer.html
• and even plays, songs, or films.
Using the How-to in Various Subjects
Science: Writing how-tos can help students master
the concepts they are learning in science class and see
their applications in the world beyond the classroom.
Students can write step-by-step descriptions of metamorphosis, photosynthesis, chemical reactions, the
classification of living organisms, and other scientific
processes. More advanced grades and students can
identify the practical applications of what they learn
in the classroom and write how-tos that demonstrate
scientific concepts at work (e.g., the changing states
of matter seen when boiling water to make rice or
spaghetti). Writing about scientific experiments and
discoveries via the scientific method can also be seen
as a how-to of sorts.
Social Studies: When it comes to social studies, writing a how-to can help students better understand the
people, places, and events they are learning about,
by asking them to process the knowledge differently.
Students can write how-tos based on political events,
movements, and trends (how to start a revolution,
how to build a pyramid, how to get the right to vote,
how to write a constitution). These types of how-tos
can help students find patterns across history, see relationships between the past and present more clearly, and understand the implications and relevance of
what they are studying.
Language Arts: Because they are such great tools for
re-thinking and re-framing information, how-tos
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can be used to re-frame and reinforce what is being
taught in the English classroom as well. They can be
assigned as book reports or as a means of accounting
for the plot of a story (how to solve the mystery of
the old clock, how to survive the Hunger Games);
character development studies (how to stop being a
wimpy kid, how to grow up); a way of accounting for
patterns in literature (how to be an epic hero, how
to construct a tragedy); or a means of defining important terms, philosophies, or ideas (how to write a
simile, how to be an existentialist).
Online How-to Models
and Demonstrations
How to Make Stuffed Celery Sticks
www.howtodothings.com/food-drink/how-to-make-stuffed-celerysticks
A simple recipe, helps students to focus strictly
on specificity and sequencing.
How to Make a Sun Print
www.timeforkids.com/files/homework_helper/aplus_papers/
HowtoArticleSampler.pdf
Science model, can be modified to include explanations of the scientific phenomena at work.
How to Create a Credible Villain in Fiction
www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Credible-Villain-in-Fiction
Literary model, can be modified for specific
characters or character types, or to discuss a book
through its literary genre.
How to Do Long Division
www.coolmath4kids.com/long-division/long-division-lesson-1.html
How to Start a Revolution
www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Revolution
Great for a history or social studies unit on the
French, American, Russian, Egyptian, etc. revolutions/uprisings.
Winter 2013–2014