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• How to conclude an essay | Interactive example

How to Conclude an Essay | Interactive Example

Published on January 24, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 23, 2023.

The conclusion is the final paragraph of your essay . A strong conclusion aims to:

• Tie together the essay’s main points
• Show why your argument matters
• Leave the reader with a strong impression

Your conclusion should give a sense of closure and completion to your argument, but also show what new questions or possibilities it has opened up.

This conclusion is taken from our annotated essay example , which discusses the history of the Braille system. Hover over each part to see why it’s effective.

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

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Table of contents

Step 1: return to your thesis, step 2: review your main points, step 3: show why it matters, what shouldn’t go in the conclusion, more examples of essay conclusions, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay conclusion.

To begin your conclusion, signal that the essay is coming to an end by returning to your overall argument.

Don’t just repeat your thesis statement —instead, try to rephrase your argument in a way that shows how it has been developed since the introduction.

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Next, remind the reader of the main points that you used to support your argument.

Avoid simply summarizing each paragraph or repeating each point in order; try to bring your points together in a way that makes the connections between them clear. The conclusion is your final chance to show how all the paragraphs of your essay add up to a coherent whole.

To wrap up your conclusion, zoom out to a broader view of the topic and consider the implications of your argument. For example:

• Does it contribute a new understanding of your topic?
• Does it raise new questions for future study?
• Does it lead to practical suggestions or predictions?
• Can it be applied to different contexts?
• Can it be connected to a broader debate or theme?

Whatever your essay is about, the conclusion should aim to emphasize the significance of your argument, whether that’s within your academic subject or in the wider world.

Try to end with a strong, decisive sentence, leaving the reader with a lingering sense of interest in your topic.

The easiest way to improve your conclusion is to eliminate these common mistakes.

Don’t include new evidence

Any evidence or analysis that is essential to supporting your thesis statement should appear in the main body of the essay.

The conclusion might include minor pieces of new information—for example, a sentence or two discussing broader implications, or a quotation that nicely summarizes your central point. But it shouldn’t introduce any major new sources or ideas that need further explanation to understand.

Don’t use “concluding phrases”

Avoid using obvious stock phrases to tell the reader what you’re doing:

• “In conclusion…”
• “To sum up…”

These phrases aren’t forbidden, but they can make your writing sound weak. By returning to your main argument, it will quickly become clear that you are concluding the essay—you shouldn’t have to spell it out.

Don’t undermine your argument

Avoid using apologetic phrases that sound uncertain or confused:

• “This is just one approach among many.”
• “There are good arguments on both sides of this issue.”
• “There is no clear answer to this problem.”

Even if your essay has explored different points of view, your own position should be clear. There may be many possible approaches to the topic, but you want to leave the reader convinced that yours is the best one!

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This conclusion is taken from an argumentative essay about the internet’s impact on education. It acknowledges the opposing arguments while taking a clear, decisive position.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

This conclusion is taken from a short expository essay that explains the invention of the printing press and its effects on European society. It focuses on giving a clear, concise overview of what was covered in the essay.

The invention of the printing press was important not only in terms of its immediate cultural and economic effects, but also in terms of its major impact on politics and religion across Europe. In the century following the invention of the printing press, the relatively stationary intellectual atmosphere of the Middle Ages gave way to the social upheavals of the Reformation and the Renaissance. A single technological innovation had contributed to the total reshaping of the continent.

This conclusion is taken from a literary analysis essay about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . It summarizes what the essay’s analysis achieved and emphasizes its originality.

By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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Your essay’s conclusion should contain:

• A rephrased version of your overall thesis
• A brief review of the key points you made in the main body
• An indication of why your argument matters

The conclusion may also reflect on the broader implications of your argument, showing how your ideas could applied to other contexts or debates.

For a stronger conclusion paragraph, avoid including:

• Important evidence or analysis that wasn’t mentioned in the main body
• Generic concluding phrases (e.g. “In conclusion…”)
• Weak statements that undermine your argument (e.g. “There are good points on both sides of this issue.”)

Your conclusion should leave the reader with a strong, decisive impression of your work.

The conclusion paragraph of an essay is usually shorter than the introduction . As a rule, it shouldn’t take up more than 10–15% of the text.

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8 Ways to Scaffold Writing for English Learners

b y Valentina Gonzalez

Scaffolds are temporary supports meant to be released when no longer needed. Think of buildings that are under construction. When the building is in the early phases, more scaffolding is necessary to sustain the structure. As the building progresses, less scaffolding is needed. Finally, before the construction is complete, the scaffolding is removed.

Scaffolding our instruction for students, English learners or not, is similar in theory. Assessing when and where the scaffolds are needed, and removing them at the right time is critical. Keeping a scaffold for too long can create a crutch for some, and students may become dependent on scaffolds that remain too long. The goal of a scaffold is to support students toward future independence.

These 8 writing scaffolds can be implemented in any grade level or content area:

1. Sentence Frames

Sentence frames are highly structured. They are basically sentences with fill in the blanks that support students at earlier stages of language proficiency. Here are a few examples of frames:

The ___has ___sides.

The ____revolted against the___.

A ___is larger/smaller than a ____.  

2. Sentence Stems

Sometimes sentence stems and sentence frames are used interchangeably. However there is a difference between the two. As shown above, a frame provides a tight grammatical structure. A stem, on the other hand, is as the name indicates, just the “stem” or base of a sentence and not a whole sentence. Students must continue the thought. Sentence stems give students just enough structure to begin more elaborate writing. Here are some examples of sentence stems:

Based on the experiment, I can conclude that…

In the beginning I thought…, but now I think…

One way that ___and ___are alike is that….

On the other hand, they are different because…

3. Mentor Texts

Mentor texts are also known as exemplars. They are models of high-quality writing for students. While adult-authored books or articles are often a main source of mentor texts, it is also effective to use high-quality student-authored examples . One teacher I know would save the original student samples of writing to use as exemplars. Another made digital copies. (Either way, always be careful to remove any identifiable information such as names.) Mentor texts set students up for success because they show students what the target is, which makes it much easier to achieve. Sometimes using student-created exemplars makes the target seem more attainable for students.

4. Interactive Word Walls

Interactive Word Walls (IWWs) are large, thematic or unit-based graphic organizers filled with rich vocabulary and visually supported with graphics and real objects. IWWs are often co-created with students rather than premade by the teacher. They can be used as scaffolds for writing in all content areas because students can easily take the language from the unit-based word wall and use it in their writing.

5. Model Writing

Model writing is similar to the Read-Aloud; in fact, some call it Write-Aloud. When we write in front of students in real time, we have the opportunity to “think aloud” and model what effective writers do mentally. This helps to make the writing process visible for students. Students see how an idea moves from the abstract to a concrete piece of writing. Modeling writing in all content areas helps students develop the language of the domain. For example, when we model how to write a lab report, we can share with students the language structures and academic vocabulary that scientists use. This modeling process supports students as they go off to write on their own.

6. Quick Writes

Not every piece of writing students do has to be lengthy. In fact, quick, daily writing is an effective way for English learners to practice writing in a low-stress setting. Long essays and pages of writing can be intimidating for students who are learning the structures of the English language. What’s the saying? “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Breaking a task into small chunks (or “chunking” the task) makes it seem doable. A Quick Write is a short writing task—usually about 3-10 minutes. Author and teacher, Larry Ferlazzo writes about the power Quick Writes, or Micro-writing, holds for ELs here in an article for ASCD . He shows how this type of writing can improve English learners’ confidence and language proficiency.

7. Language Experience Approach

The Language Experience Approach has been around for a long time. It is a method of shared writing in which students and the teacher write together after a shared experience. This is actually one of my favorite techniques because it builds community, models writing, and increases student participation and engagement. Students listen, speak, read, and write.

Begin by sharing an experience (like a field trip, science experiment, movie, book, etc). Next, have students talk about the experience with partners or a group, and come up with sentences to share with the teacher. Then lead the class in creating a text about the experience on chart paper (or under a document camera) as students share their sentences with you. After you write each sentence, have the class read it aloud chorally. (This provides tons of reading practice for fluency.) When the shared writing is complete, the class rereads the whole piece. Finally, lead the class in discussing organization, revision, and editing. Students can suggest adding and deleting sentences and decide to change words or punctuation. To see an example of what this can look like, check out Carol Salva’s use of LEA here !

8. Mentor Sentences

Think of a mentor in your life. Who did you imagine? Someone you look up to? Someone you try to emulate? Mentor sentences are sentences students try to emulate. Jeff Anderson, author of Mechanically Inclined and Patterns of Power writes about the effectiveness of mentor sentences. The sentences that we choose can come from Read Alouds or we can make up our own sentences using information relevant to our students and our class.

For instance, suppose we had a visit from the fire department and the kids couldn’t talk about anything else. So my mentor sentence may have been, “ While waiting anxiously to hear all about the apparatus, a crowd of kids huddled around the fire truck .” First I read it aloud, and then we read it chorally. I then invited students to discuss the sentence with their partner or in groups. What did they notice? What did they observe about the sentence? I called on a few students randomly. Some noticed that there was a comma. One student said that the sentence was in the past tense, and we asked how he knew. He said,  “Because the word ‘huddled’ ended with an -ed.” Another student said that it looked like two sentences stuck together. We talked more about that and discovered that the first part of the sentence wasn’t a complete sentence but a phrase. Finally, the students wrote their own sentences modeled after the mentor sentence. Some students used this frame:

While waiting ______to hear all about the_____, a crowd of ___huddled around the ____.

One student wrote: While waiting eagerly to grab all the kibble, a crowd of dogs huddled around the food bowl. To add to it, he drew a group of dogs around an empty food bowl.

If you have students who struggle with writing, try some of these scaffolds to support them along the way to independence and success!

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15 thoughts on “ 8 Ways to Scaffold Writing for English Learners ”

Thank you for the informative blog post! It’s so helpful to have ideas and strategies organized in a clear concise list! These are incredibly practical ways to get all students speaking and writing. Especially now that students have almost an entire school year worth of shared experiences to talk and write about. Buenísimo!

Excellent tips! I really appreciate your effort. I was looking for such great ways to help my students enhance their writing skills. I will share this with my colleagues as well.

These are such good ideas. I will certainly make use of them to help my students get better at writing.

wonderful and awesome ideas thank you

• Pingback: 8 Ways to Scaffold Writing for English Learners | BroadyELT

Great tips. I love how they compare scaffolding in the classroom to a house being built. Great visual to refer back to.

Thank you for all of the information. I forget about short, daily writing as an important building block, even with my seniors.

Glad to have the sentence stems, I could print these out and have them around the room. I also feel that the quick write would be beneficial to sum up the days lesson.

I tried Quick Writes and Sentence Stems before and my ELL students loved them. I liked the idea of Interactive word wall for Physics class

I tried Interactive Word Walls last year and it was very helpful with the commonly misunderstood extensive/intensive, heat/temperature, etc. Used it for a couple of units and then dropped the ball – going to try and do more with it this year.

Loved using the interactive word wall last year. This is a great list for reminders of how to effectively engage all of our learners in science literacy.

Having students read Mentor Texts would be extremely helpful in creating and improving their skills. The ESL student would relate more to someone their own age and experience.

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I really appreciate this great work ,i will implement thèse stratégies with my learners so as to boost their writing skills

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• My Storyboards

Scaffolding for an Essay

Imagine a teacher, Mr. X, decides that by the end of the semester, his class will read Lord of the Flies and write a five-paragraph essay that discusses the significance of three symbols and how they change over the course of the novel. That is a daunting task, so Mr. X plans to scaffold the assignment for his students.

Scaffolding Writing Assignments

Identify skills.

In order for Mr. X to scaffold his writing assignment, he would first make a list of the skills necessary to complete the task (“Write a five-paragraph essay that discusses the significance of three symbols and how they change over the course of the novel”). He knows that his final project or goal is the starting point for planning. First, he would ask himself, “What do my students need to be able to do in order to meet the goal?” and, just as important, “What can they do now?”.

Mr. X has determined that his students must be able to:

• Interpret the text - identify the symbols and their significance in the novel
• Explain their ideas - discuss how the symbols changed over the course of the novel
• Compose an essay - complete all steps of the writing process

Interpret the Text

Next, Mr. X will break this set of skills down to less challenging skills and tasks that will allow for direct instruction of the skill and provide a tool or framework to act as a guide.

Mr. X asks himself, what do students need to know and be able to do in order to successfully interpret the text? Based on his experience with his class, he knows they can have a difficult time comprehending new vocabulary. Sometimes he worries that students aren’t seeing the bigger picture, and he knows they have trouble making connections between characters, actions, and motivations. These skills will aid in the overall interpretation of the text. He would also like to provide direct instruction on symbols : what a symbol is, and how to identify symbols.

Define Key Terms

Mr. X decides to address vocabulary at the beginning of each chapter. He will provide a vocabulary activity from Storyboard That prior to reading. The vocabulary activity allows students to create an image to support the acquisition of new words, makes an excellent reference for students as they read, and provides a tool for studying.

Summarize Plot

Mr. X feels that with such a lengthy novel, it is important to ensure students are keeping up with their reading and comprehending what they read. Mr. X has his students complete a chapter summary activity. Each chapter summary provides a space for the student to summarize the chapter with an image as well as space for writing a summary. Students can do the activity on the computer, or can fill it out by hand. Mr. X can check the summaries after a whole group reading or independent reading and learn what each student understands and what they need more clarification on. Reviewing the chapter summary prior to reading the next chapter is a great way to reinforce what they learned and clarify any misconceptions they might have. It will also be a great tool when students sit down to brainstorm for their essay!

Identify Character Actions and Motivations

The characters, their actions, and their motivations drive the plot in Lord of the Flies and are linked to many of the symbols Mr. X’s students will come to learn about. Because of that, Mr. X wants to spend some time focused on this topic. Mr. X will use the Characters, Actions, Motivations tool that he made on Storyboard That. Students will be able to update their pages as they read independently, working in small groups or during whole group instruction. The structured page of Storyboard That’s character chart allows for flexibility in grouping and pace. Mr. X will be able to check in with students as they work or have set due dates for each character. Mr. X can print out blank storyboards with lines to be filled out by hand, or he can let his students use this storyboard as a template in their own accounts.

Define and Identify Symbols in the Text

Mr. X plans to spend about half of a class period (30 minutes) directly teaching his students about symbolism and providing them with examples of symbols prior to reading. He plans to give them an opportunity to read a short story or poem to practice identifying symbols independently. However, he would like students to identify symbols as they read the novel. He is going to provide them with a Symbols page. He plans to work with the class on the first two or three symbols they encounter. Once they have demonstrated the ability to work independently, students will be able to complete this page on their own as they read at home or during independent reading time. Since the storyboard structure provides a built-in example, students are more likely to accurately complete their work. Mr. X likes that he can quickly check comprehension during class time.

Explain Ideas

In an effort to maximize the development of their skill-sets prior to the writing process, Mr. X would like his class to begin gathering and analyzing information about the symbols they find – specifically the way each symbol changes over time and the significance of those symbols. Both of these skills require direct instruction and most likely will take some time to develop as Mr. X teaches his students how to think. To aid in this endeavor, Mr. X will employ the use of the Symbols Analysis page. This page provides a framework for Mr. X’s students and will help them to achieve independence and a sense of autonomy as they work. Mr. X is able to check in with his students at any moment to see how they are progressing and if they need support or clarification.

Compose Essay

Once the class has completed the novel, the students can begin their research - just kidding! Their research is done! Since Mr. X put such careful planning into his lessons and the tools he provided for his students, the research is already filed neatly. That is not to say the hard work is over. Mr. X’s class is ready to move onto composing an essay.

Mr. X’s students are a varied bunch and although many of them have experience writing, he has several students who are new to his school who seem to have more limited experience and haven’t exhibited knowledge of a system or framework for writing that they are familiar with. To ensure they are all on the same page, Mr. X is going to oversee each phase of the writing process, provide due dates for each step, and check in with students individually as the need arises. Over the course of the year, as they become more comfortable with this framework, Mr. X will be able to grant the class more freedom while still maintaining the ability to check in and provide support at any point.

Collect Information

The first step in the writing process is brainstorming. Mr. X likes using the Brainstorm activity on Storyboard That. Since it begins with images, students who have difficulty with word recall or letter formation will have a visual to prompt them as they write. Mr. X finds that because they did so much work leading up to this point, the students are able to recall information quite readily or are able to find it in their notes as needed.

Organize Information

Mr. X shifts the class to the Outline stage of writing once he feels confident the class is prepared to transition. Mr. X models how to use the Outline page for each of the paragraphs: introduction, conclusion and one page for each of the body paragraphs. (He may also provide students with another outline worksheet depending on their needs.) He then allows them to work in class while he observes and provides support as needed. Once each student's work is approved by Mr. X, they are given the go-ahead to begin their rough drafts. Some students prefer to type their drafts, while others are more comfortable printing their rough drafts. The rough draft of the essay is edited first by the student and then by Mr. X.

Critique Work

Once the student feels they have a quality final draft, the student uses the Essay Rubric page for a final draft. The Essay Rubric is turned in with the final draft so that Mr. X can score the essay on the same page. That way, students can see discrepancies in their self-grading and learn how to properly critique their own work.

Create Finished Piece

Finally, the work is ready to be published. Mr. X’s students love the ability to create an original image on Storyboard That to accompany their final draft. Mr. X enjoys their enthusiasm and enjoys their sense of accomplishment.

Summary of Steps and Tools Used by Mr. X

Goal: Write a five-page essay that discusses the significance of three symbols and how they change over the course of the novel.

Although Mr. X is an English Language Arts teacher, scaffolding is useful across curricula. These tools and strategies can be modified to suit the needs of history, science, and foreign language classes. Anywhere a large cognitive task is required, a scaffolded approach can aid in the academic development of the student and their understanding of course material.

How to Effectively Use Sentence Starters or Frames to Scaffold Students' Sentence Construction in Essays

Introduce sentence starters or frames.

Familiarize teachers with the concept of sentence starters or frames as scaffolds for students' essay writing. Explain how sentence starters can support students in constructing coherent and well-developed paragraphs by providing a structure for their thoughts.

Select Appropriate Sentence Starters or Frames

Provide teachers with a range of examples and templates for sentence starters or frames that align with the specific goals and requirements of the essay. Ensure that the sentence starters effectively prompt students to develop and expand upon their ideas while maintaining clarity and coherence.

Model Sentence Construction Using Starters or Frames

Demonstrate to teachers how to model sentence construction using the provided starters or frames. Emphasize the importance of modeling varied sentence structures and encouraging students to use the starters as a springboard for their own ideas and expressions.

Scaffolded Practice Activities

Design scaffolded activities that allow students to practice using sentence starters or frames in their writing. Provide opportunities for students to gradually gain confidence and proficiency by using the starters in controlled and guided writing exercises.

Gradually Reduce Reliance on Starters or Frames

Explore strategies for gradually reducing the reliance on sentence starters as students become more proficient in constructing their sentences. Encourage teachers to gradually remove or modify the starters, prompting students to develop independent sentence construction skills.

Promote Transition to Independent Writing

Provide guidance on transitioning students from scaffolded practice to independent writing. Share techniques for fostering students' ability to construct sentences effectively without relying on explicit starters or frames.

Frequently Asked Questions about Scaffolding Writing Assignments

How does scaffolding help me to organize my ideas effectively.

To scaffold your essay ideas effectively, you can use several strategies including brainstorming, outlining, using graphic organizers, providing evidence, and revising and editing your essay. Outlining helps you to ensure that your ideas flow logically and cohesively. Graphic organizers can help you to see relationships between different ideas and identify any gaps or areas that need more development. When developing your ideas, make sure to provide evidence or examples to support your arguments. This can help to strengthen your arguments and make your essay more persuasive. Finally, be sure to revise and edit your essay several times to ensure that your essay effectively communicates your ideas to your reader. By using these strategies, you can create a well-structured and persuasive essay.

How will these scaffolding activities make my essay stand out from the rest?

Overall, scaffolding activities can help you to create a well-structured, persuasive, and unique essay that stands out from the rest by helping you express your ideas with clarity, persuasiveness, creativity and personalization. You can achieve clarity by using scaffolding strategies like outlining or using graphic organizers. Persuasiveness can be achieved through providing evidence and giving examples. Scaffolding also frees you to be more creative with your essay format and structure and allows you to incorporate your own unique perspectives and experiences through personalization.

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• Original article
• Open access
• Published: 27 November 2019

Scaffolding argumentative essay writing via reader-response approach: a case study

• Mojgan Rashtchi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7713-9316 1  

Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education volume  4 , Article number:  12 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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The variety of activities and techniques suggested for improving the writing skill shows that EFL/ESL learners need scaffolding to gain mastery over it. The present study employed the reader-response approach to provide the assistance EFL learners require for writing argumentative essays. Five upper-intermediate EFL learners in a private class participated in the qualitative case study. The participants were not selected from the fields related to the English language and did not have any previous instruction on literary texts. During the treatment that took 20 sessions, each session 2 h, the participants read five short stories. Different classroom activities were used as sources of information, which helped the researcher to collect the required data. The classroom activities consisted of group discussions, writing tasks, and responses to the short stories that helped the learners to reflect on the short stories. Think-aloud protocols helped the researcher to learn about the participants’ mental processes during writing. The semi-structured interviews provided the researcher with the information necessary for a deeper understanding of the efficacy of the classroom procedure. As the results of the study showed, successful writing requires manipulation of meta-cognitive strategies and thought-provoking activities. Although the findings of the study cannot be generalized, they can inspire EFL/ESL teachers and material developers to seek a variety of procedures in their approaches to teaching writing.

Introduction

EFL/ESL learners encounter enormous challenges for mastering the writing skill, which is essential to learning the English language. One source of the problem is traceable to the learners’ inefficiency in self-expression. Usually, language learners do not know how to verbalize their ideas, nor do they know how to organize their thoughts and write about a subject. In writing classes, learners not only should be instructed on the mechanics of writing, but also they should be taught how to use thinking skills. As Kellogg ( 1994 ) argues, “thinking and writing are twins of mental life” (p. 13), and writing requires tasks such as problem-solving, decision-making, and reasoning. Writing about what one knows, as Kellogg argues, is a self-discovery as much as it is one way of communication with others. However, excellence in writing requires excellence in thinking and requires systematic thinking ( Paul, 1993 ). One should be able to arrange one’s thoughts in a progression that makes it accessible to others.

High-quality writing, then, is produced by someone with specific standards for both thinking and writing. As Lipman, Sharp, and Oscanyan ( 1980 ) assert, “if the thinking that goes on in a conversation is densely structured and textured, that which goes in the act of writing can be even more so” (p. 14). For successful writing, student-writers not only should express viewpoints but also they need to provide logical reasons, support their ideas, and organize them. Therefore, one requirement in teaching writing to EFL/ESL learners is to employ techniques and strategies that can enhance the thinking skills of the student-writers. The reader- response approach in the present study was implemented to do so.

Besides, one issue that Iranian EFL learners confront is the difference between the organizational patterns of English and Persian argumentative texts, which magnifies the challenge they encounter while writing. As found by Ahmad Khan Beigi and Ahmadi ( 2011 , p. 177), Persian paragraphs are circular, metaphorical, and follow “Start-Sustain-Turn-Sum” structure, whereas English argumentative essays are straightforward and linear and follow “Claim-Justification-Conclusion or Introduction-Body-Conclusion” pattern. Also, contrary to English students who write “monotopical” essays, which add “unity to the overall paragraph organization”, Iranian students tend to use more than one topic sentence and thus write multi-topical paragraphs as the result of the influence of different organizational patterns of English and Persian (Moradian, Adel, & Tamri, 2014 , p. 62; Rashtchi & Mohammadi, 2017 ). Thus, reflection and response to literary texts were manipulated to help the EFL participants in the present study overcome the two-fold problem they might encounter in argumentative essay writing.

Using literature is by no means a novel idea in ESL/ EFL classes and has been extensively discussed by several scholars in the field (e.g., Gajdusek, 1988 ; Oster, 1989 ; Spack, 1985 ). The present study differs from the previous ones due to its underlying assumption that employing a scaffolded reader-response approach can change writing “from an intuitive, trial-and-error process to a dynamic, interactive and context-sensitive intellectual activity” (Hyland, 2009 , p. 215). In this endeavor, reading short stories and creating personal interpretations could shape the participants’ viewpoints, organize their thoughts, and help them produce compositions that conform to the English language structure.

Literature review

The role and use of literature in teaching writing have been a source of controversy in the studies related to the writing skill. Belcher and Hirvela ( 2000 ) in their comprehensive article about employing literature in L2 composition writing found the manipulation of literary texts in writing classes to be questionable, demanding further exploration despite all efforts to link writing and literature. One way to connect literature and writing is Rosenblatt’s ( 1938 ) reader-response approach that Belcher and Hirvela refer to it as one way, which can reduce the problems of using literature in the classrooms. Spack ( 1985 ) also maintains that in writing classes reading literature encourages learners “to make inferences, to formulate their ideas, and to look closely at a text for evidence to support generalizations” which leads them to think critically (p. 721).

Furthermore, Shafer ( 2013 , p. 39) maintains that if teachers decide to use literature in writing classes, “it should be approached in an inclusive, reader response method so that students have the opportunity to transact with the text and shape it.”

The reader response approach employs literary works in the English language classes and focuses on the reader rather than the text or as Rosenblatt ( 1976 ) conceptualizes, considers a creative role for the reader (p. 42). Therefore, it gives value to the reader as the driving force who can create meaning (Grossman, 2001 ) and provide new interpretations to a literary text. As Smagorinsky ( 2002 ) argues, in the reader-response approach, learners enrich the topic under scrutiny by their “previous experiences” and thus establish an “understanding of themselves, the literature and one another” (p.25). A critical characteristic of the reader-response approach is perspective-taking. According to Chi ( 1999 ), literary texts are not for teaching form and structure; preferably, they are a conduit of encouraging learners to read critically, to extract their understanding of a text, and as Rosenblatt ( 1985 ) maintains, to organize their thoughts and feelings when responding to them. The unique characteristic of the reader response approach, which values the readers’ interpretations of a text due to emotions, concerns, life experiences, and knowledge they have can connect literature and writing.

A review of the related literature shows that the approach has been employed in English language classes to examine its effect on learners’ understanding of literature as well as on developing linguistic and non-linguistic features. For example, Carlisle ( 2000 ) studied the effect of creating reading logs on the participants’ reading a novel while Gonzalez and Courtland ( 2009 ) explored how by the manipulation of the reader-response approach for reading a Spanish novel, the participants could learn the language, appreciate the cultural values, and improve their metacognitive reading strategies. Dhanapal ( 2010 ) reported that using reader-response could enhance the participants’ critical and creative thinking skills. Also, Khatib ( 2011 ) used the approach for enhancing EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge and reading skills though she could not find a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups. In another study, Iskhak ( 2015 ) reported that the participants’ personality characteristics and L2 speaking and writing improved as the result of participating in reading a novel and responding to it.

The researcher was particularly interested in examining how the participants’ mental processes after reading and reflecting on literary texts could help them in writing. She used group discussions and personal reflective writings as stimulators of thinking ability that seem to be responsible for creating good-quality essays. Thus, the reader-response was viewed as a starting point that could stimulate reflection, and if scaffolded by group discussions and writing tasks, it could enhance the elements of thinking necessary for providing argumentation in writing. Moreover, the classroom procedure was intended to help the participants adjust their essays to the rules (related to mono-topicality) of English writing. Multiple forms of data collection were employed for the present qualitative case study whose purpose was to describe a “phenomenon and conceptualize it” (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2003 , p. 439).

Contrary to what is suggested by scholars regarding the occurrence of qualitative studies in natural settings (e.g., Creswell, 2013 ; Dornyei, 2007 ), this research was conducted in a classroom. The justification, according to Gall et al. ( 2003 , p. 438), is that in occasions where “fieldwork is not done, the goal is to learn about the phenomenon from the perspective of those in the field.” Thus, the following research questions were proposed to fulfill the objectives of the study:

RQ1 : How does the reader-response approach operate in writing argumentative essays?

RQ2 : How do the participants proceed with writing argumentative essays after reading short stories?

RQ3 : How do the participants’ essays before and after the treatment compare?

Participants

Participants were five Iranian EFL learners who participated in a private writing class. Table  1 shows their demographic information. As the table shows, they had studied English for several years and had started learning English from childhood.

Meanwhile, all of them were attending language classes in different institutes in Tehran at the upper-intermediate level. However, they asserted that they needed individual instruction in the writing skill. The participants did not have any significant academic encounter with the English literature before the study.

The teacher was the researcher of the study. Her B.A. degree in English language and literature, the literature courses she had passed as the requirements of her M.A. and Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics had provided her with a background in English literature. Additionally, teaching literature courses such as Oral Reproduction of Short Stories, Introduction to English Literature, and English Prose and Poetry in the university where she was a faculty member, had drenched her with the necessary knowledge to instruct the classes. Besides, teaching writing courses for more than 15 years, and publishing papers related to the writing skill gave her insight regarding teaching the skill.

Data collection

The researcher triangulated the study by different types of data obtained from several sources. First, an English proficiency test consisting of 20 vocabulary items, 30 structures, and three reading passages each followed by five comprehension questions extracted from TOEFL Test Preparation Kit ( 1995 ) was used to ensure the participants’ homogeneity regarding the English proficiency level. The reason for using an old version of the test was to control the practice effect, as the participants were familiar with more recent versions.

Also, the participants were expected to write an essay on “ Is capital punishment justified?” as both the pre and post writing tests in 250–300 words which could help the researcher have a clear understanding of their writing ability before and after the treatment. However, the researcher did not intend to go through any inferential statistics, as the study was a qualitative one.

To select a controversial topic of writing which could persuade the student-writers to provide argumentations, the researcher prepared a list of ten topics and asked ten colleagues and ten students to mark the most challenging one. Thirteen of the respondents selected the topic related to capital punishment. Some of the other topics were, “Do we have the right to kill animals ?” “ Education must not be free for everyon e,” and “ Internet access must be limited. ”

A writing rubric (Allen, 2009 ) was used for correcting the essays (Additional file 1 ). The rubric considers four levels (No/Limited Proficiency, Some Proficiency, Proficiency, High Proficiency) across five characteristics of originality, clarity, organization, support, and documentation. The participants’ scores were obtained by adding the points for each level of writing, ranging from 1 for No/Limited Proficiency to 4 for High Proficiency. The researcher and a colleague of hers who had also taught writing classes for about 10 years rated the essays. They negotiated on the merits and shortcomings of each essay and finally agreed on a quality mentioned in the rubric.

The next source of information was students’ reflective responses written after reading the short stories. In these responses, the participants attempted to relate the stories to their personal experiences or write about their feelings, thoughts, and attitudes toward the stories.

Think-aloud protocols were also used as an instrument for data collection. Although according to Bowles ( 2010 , p. 3), “requiring participants to think aloud while they perform a task may affect the task performance and therefore not be a true reflection of normal cognitive processing,” its positive outcome cannot be denied. As Hyland ( 2009 , p. 147) sustains, despite criticisms against think-aloud protocols, they are used extensively in different studies since “the alternative, deducing cognitive processes from observations of behaviour, is less reliable.” Thus, the participants were trained on thinking aloud before the data collection, and then during the study, they were encouraged to report their thought processes while engaged in writing.

Another tool for data collection was a semi-structured interview conducted after completing the circle of reading each short story. The interviews were recorded and analyzed to enable the researcher to explore the participants’ learning experience (Additional file 2 ).

The researcher selected five thought-provoking short stories of high literary merits to initiate class discussions and elicit responses from the participants. The stories were The Lottery (Jackson, 1948 ), The Rocking Horse Winner (Lawrence, 1926 ), The Storm (Malmar, 1944 ), The Last Leaf (Henry, 1907 ), and Clay (Joyce, 1914 ).

Furthermore, the researcher prepared some tasks based on each story to help the participants practice writing and thinking skills (Additional file 3 ). Section A of the tasks required the respondents to organize the sentences according to the sequence of occurrence in the story. Section B asked the students to complete some incomplete sentences with “because,” and Section C consisted of “ WH” questions. Both sections required the learners to think and reason. The participants were expected to complete the three-step tasks after reading each story.

The classes were held in fall 2018. The instruction took 20 sessions, each week, two sessions, and each session 2 h. Before the advancement of the study, the researcher explained the classroom procedure and obtained the participants’ consent regarding the teaching/learning procedure. Then they took the general proficiency and the writing tests to provide the researcher with an estimation of their English language level. In the three subsequent sessions, the researcher gave instructions on English essay writing and discussed the characteristics of an excellent essay. The samples of high-quality and weak essays presented during the instruction could elucidate the characteristics of argumentative essays. The first short story ( The Lottery ) was introduced in session four, which the learners were asked to read before the succeeding session.

In class, first, the researcher asked the participants to take turns and read the story aloud because as Gajdusek ( 1988 ) argues, “many clues to meaning are conveyed by intonation and other expressive devices available” (p. 238). Then some time was allocated to the reflection on the story that could lead to the intellectual involvement of the participants. In the next step, the class followed group discussions through which the learners struggled to verbalize their responses to the story. In this stage, the researcher encouraged talking about viewpoints and emotional states that the learners experienced after reading the story. Following Sumara ( 1995 ), the researcher took part in the discussions to show some of her understanding from the text, although she tried to be concise and give most of the discussion time to the learners. Through comments and questions, the researcher intended to encourage the participants to share ideas with classmates.

After the group discussion, which usually took about 45 min, based on the reader-response treatment, the learners wrote about their feelings and views without trying to stick to the rules of writing such as organization, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, and the like.

In the subsequent session, the researcher asked the student-writers to refer to their notes before doing the tasks. The tasks had a twofold purpose. First, they aimed to help learners organize their thoughts by reflecting on the story. Second, they enabled the learners to relate the stories to their personal experience and understanding. Once the participants completed the tasks, they were invited to agree about a topic more or less related to the theme of the story and start writing a five-paragraph essay. The researcher corrected the essays based on the writing rubric and returned them in the next session (Additional file 1 ). While the learners were involved in writing, each session, the researcher asked two or three of them to participate in the think-aloud process.

The third session was devoted to interviewing the learners. Each interview took about five to 10 min. The participants started re-writing their essays based on the corrections after the researcher explained about their mistakes and errors. Table  2 summarizes the order of presenting the stories and topics attempted in the class.

Table 3 demonstrates the classroom procedure in each session.

The researcher used the data derived from group discussions, reader-responses, think-aloud protocols, and interviews to answer the first and second research questions. For answering the third research question, the quality of the essays written before and after the treatment was compared.

Group discussions

Before reading the first story, the participants were cynical regarding the usefulness of reading literature. They believed that the texts were too complicated; reading them was time-consuming and required skills different from the ones necessary for writing. However, after the first group discussion on The Lottery , they were excited. Some of the comments were:

“ The discussions help us express the feelings and emotions [which were] there inside but couldn’t find their way out, ” “ Classes lower my anxiety,” and “While reading, I felt I was in a different world forgetting [my problems].”

The discussions began with some challenging questions written by the researcher on the board. As the classes proceeded, the participants showed interest in the activity by listening to classmates, expressing viewpoints, and providing arguments. After reading the Lottery , Nima said:

“ I was shocked when I read the story, the name of the story implies something good, but something awful happened … how amazing! ”

Maryam added:

“ It’s like life when you expect good things and bad things happen .”

Azin looked at the story from a different perspective:

“ How selfish people can be, exactly like what happens nowadays, we keep silence until something injures [us].”

And Melika believed:

“ Others’ miseries are a relief for us … how cruel human beings can be, and this is true even in today’s civilized world.”

When reading Clay , Nima said:

“ I was expecting something unusual to happen, something which needs thinking and interpreting , I was sure clay implied something…not expecting .”

Ali asserted that he could understand literature better, could go beyond words, think more profound, and analyze the events in the short stories. The group discussions showed that the participants connected themselves with the stories and characters, and although they were unfamiliar with the English literature, they started appreciating the literary values of the stories.

Another advantage of the classes was the mental relief they caused as reflected in Melika’s words:

“ It is interesting to read about people who do not worry about the messages on their cell phones!”

One crucial point in the class discussions was the improvement of vocabulary knowledge. The participants sought to use words and phrases they had encountered in the stories. They asserted that reading and discussing literary texts helped them remember words with more ease. Besides, the discussions gave them self-confidence in self-expression and overflow of feelings. Maryam emphasized the role of group discussions in shaping her thoughts:

“ They [group discussions] were constructive; made me think and get familiar with others’ views … sometimes you think there is only one way of looking at something … then you find out … issues which you had never thought about before .”

Sharing ideas gave learners the courage to reason, evaluate, justify, agree, and disagree. Expressing agreement and disagreement regarding an issue was an achievement for the learners because it helped them while writing essays.

Another advantage of the group discussions was that they enhanced attention to the details. As the classes proceeded, the participants were conscious of the details mentioned in the stories, and tried to relate them to the plot and characters of the story and tried to infer the meaning they implied. For example, Maryam said:

“ The storm has a double meaning; it refers both to the weather and her inner feelings.”

Melika mentioned:

“ Drooped shoulders show how anxious she was .”

Azin referred to a sentence from the story (But now, alone and with the storm trying to batter its way in, she found it frightening to be so far away from other people) and stated :

“The storm inside her was destroying the image she had built of her life...now she was trying to find someone to stick … watching the imaginary heaven breaking … into pieces.”

The following excerpt is an example from group discussions on Clay to show how the class progressed in answering the leading question: “ How do you feel about Maria ?”

Azin: I think she is an unmarried middle-aged woman … I sympathize with her. Maryam: Why? … … .. why sympathize ? Azin: Because she is not married. Maryam: Is not being married a reason for sympathizing with someone? Melika: No, not marriage … … but loneliness … .. she was very lonely . Ali: Melika is right. Loneliness is too bothering, especially for the old; old age brings worries for people. I always try to show my concern for the elderly. Nima: Good thing to do . But I think some sort of sadness was around her which made me very sad, too…the writer implied kind of nothingness … … after so many years working she had nothing to be happy for. Azin: I do not agree, why nothingness … such is life, 1 day we come [to this world], and 1 day we must go … .this tells us to enjoy life. Maryam: Azin is right. Life is a blessing; we should enjoy every minute of it. Teacher: Let’s try to conclude. Nima … .please, the keywords were loneliness, sadness, marriage, life, and happiness.

Reader-responses

The responses promoted the participants’ focus on the stories. They pointed toward their inner feelings, judgments, preferences, and thoughts about the themes of the stories. They had addressed themselves and the characters and had put themselves in their place. They had used both questions and statements in the responses. Two responses to the Rocking Horse Winner by Maryam and Azin are as follows:

“She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them.” There are hundreds of people who can’t have children, you are lucky...Sometimes … we cannot realize how lucky we are, I am most [ly] like that … I should not be !”

“ … they had discreet servants, and felt themselves superior to anyone in the neighbourhood.” Feeling you are superior can destroy you … this is what kills human beings. When you think it is your right to have everything and … you forget others … sometimes others deserve but don’t have as much as you .”

Overall, the responses facilitated remembering the sequence of events in the stories. The tasks, together with group discussions, helped the participants organize their thoughts, and thus avoid recursive or cyclical writing. For example, on the first topic, “ The negative role of traditions in our life ,” Melika wrote:

“ Traditions can have both positive and negative roles in our lives. The negative role of traditions is most of the time more dominant though positive roles can be mentioned, as well. The negative role of traditions can cause ignorance, unawareness, and cruelty. Traditions can change the direction of people’s lives and force them to choose ways that are not appropriate. However, traditions can bring about good things, too.”

The writing is recursive as it repeats the idea of negative and positive aspects continuously. However, comparing Melika’s first writing with the last one, “ Superstitions should be abandoned ,” shows her improvement in expressing her idea clearly:

Superstitions are the result of [a] human being’s ignorance. People resort to them when they cannot find solutions to their problems or are not strong enough to face the disasters they encounter.

Additionally, the tasks enhanced reasoning and looking for evidence among the learners. For instance, Ali’s writing on the first topic not only shows his tendency to repeat the same idea but also reveals his lack of reasoning and thus relying on “educated people” and “scholars” to prove himself:

“Educated people never show a tendency toward traditions. Scholars believe that traditions are not scientific, and in today’s world, we must pay attention to scientific findings to solve our problems. The scientific developments help us to be able to live in this modern world.”

However, his introductory paragraph on “the role of motivation in life” showed some argumentation in developing his writing:

“ Motivation seems to have a positive role in our life and can help us to do different activities with less effort and more energy. For example, when we are interested in completing a project, we do not feel tired, but we think about the sense of achievement we will gain .”

Think-aloud protocols

As stated above, think-aloud protocols mainly focused on the participants’ thinking processes while they were engaged in writing. In each writing session, two or three learners participated in the think-aloud procedure. The researcher sat beside one of the participants who had agreed to take part in the thinking protocol. S/he explained the strategies s/he was using or accounted for his/her thought processes. All participants’ voices were recorded by their permission and transcribed for further analysis.

The analyses of the protocols showed that all participants first tried to take a perspective regarding the topic of the writing. The most frequent strategy was self-questioning. They first wrote questions and then answered them. Some questions were, “ What do I think about the topic? Why do I think so? What are my reasons? What is the evidence to support my idea? Are my reasons logical ?” Moreover, they reported that they used mind maps and outlines before beginning to write. Another strategy was using the phrases and words they had extracted and memorized from the texts that, as they asserted, could help them start writing.

Developing an inner dialogue before writing was another strategy used by the participants. Maryam said:

“ I … talk to myself and meanwhile try to write all of the sentences I exchange with myself during the dialogue. Then I organize them .”

Translating from L1, trying to write for an audience and drafting were other strategies used by the participants.

An interesting point mentioned by Maryam, Ali, and Nima was thinking about the stories before writing:

“ … in this way, writing becomes easier .” “ Discovering what you really think about a subject is difficult … I cannot make a decision … but the story is really helpful … it gives direction to my thoughts. ” “ I don’t know how to start my essay, that is why I am trying to review the story in my mind … .”

During the interviews, the participants talked about their learning experience. Their answers to the first interview question showed that they viewed writing a troublesome and challenging activity that needed expertise beyond general proficiency in English. They believed that for effective writing, besides knowledge of the language, learners should learn how to organize their thought processes and transfer them to words. They believed that the classroom procedure gave direction to their thoughts and enabled them to think and write systematically. Some of the advantages of reading literature, as they mentioned, are as follows:

“The use of technology makes me tired; people are always checking something in their cell phones; human relations are weakening … I think reading and sharing ideas is a relief .”

“ Freeing myself from my problems was great … reading stories gave me something different from the routines of life .”

“ The class gave me a reason to talk … something I miss nowadays … I am fed up with reading and writing in the [social network] .”

“ I hate traditional classes they do not give me space to be myself and talk about something different from casual things .”

“ … it was the first time I enjoyed writing because I had ideas to write about. I could [let] myself go.”

Regarding the second question, the learners believed that perspective-taking and organizing ideas were the most demanding tasks while they also maintained that controlling both content and form was difficult. Melika stated:

“ if it were not for grammar, I would have been more comfortable to express myself .”

Moreover, three of the participants (Maryam, Ali, and Nima) pointed to group discussions and mentioned that in the very first sessions, it was difficult for them to express their viewpoints regarding the topic of the discussions, but as the classes continued, they gained the necessary self-confidence. Maryam stated:

“ As the classes started, I was [worried] about my ideas to be irrelevant … I could have seemed funny … but little by little I gained courage to speak out .”

The flow of ideas was considered the most encouraging characteristic of the class (third interview question) for all of the participants. They believed that the short stories were excellent sources of ideas, and responding to them stimulated looking at the themes of the stories from a different perspective. Additionally, listening to classmates was considered encouraging because their opinions inspired confidence, thinking, and appreciation for literature.

Regarding the fourth interview question, the learners pointed to the role of the reader-response approach in boosting thinking skills, shaping ideas, and recovering life experiences. Further, all participants asserted that the approach could enhance inferencing, logical reasoning, and analyzing. They underlined the deep thinking brought about by transferring knowledge from the short stories to their personal lives and believed that by reading and reflecting on the stories, they realized that they had never had the opportunity to think deeply about some of the themes entailed in the stories. Subjects such as greed, selfishness, truth, security, and superstition were the subjects, which triggered thinking and led to a better understanding of human nature, the value of life, and social relations. They underscored the role of the classroom procedure in shaping their ideas and providing them with the input they required for writing.

Writing pretest and posttest

The comparison between the pretest and posttest seemed to be worthy of note. As Table  4 shows, the participants’ writings show a change of status from the pretest to the posttest in the components of the rubric. For example, regarding Originality, the raters witnessed a shift from “Limited Proficiency” in the pretest to “Proficiency” (Azin, Ali, Melika) and from Some Proficiency to “High Proficiency” (Maryam, Nima) in the posttest. Azin wrote the following sentence as the thesis of her essay:

“Capital punishment is a death penalty for wrongdoing.”

While in the posttest, she wrote:

“ Crimes are the result of the pressure society puts on individuals’ minds and souls.”

Maryam’s thesis statement in the pretest was:

“Human beings do not have the right to kill people [for] committing crimes.”

“Crimes are the manifestation of [the] society’s failure in evaluating humanity among its members, and the death penalty is the reflection of the deficiency of social institutions.”

Regarding Clarity, the second criterion in the writing rubric, all participants’ writing showed a shift from “Some Proficiency” to “Proficiency” (Azin, Melika) and to “High Proficiency” (Ali, Maryam, Nima). Ali’s improvement can be shown in the following examples extracted from the pretest and posttest, respectively:

“ Due to the fact that crime is the child of society, it can be studied from different perspectives. Of course, this is relative.”

“Crimes are the result of social injustice, and factors such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of enough education are responsible for leading people toward committing crimes. However, the question is whether the death penalty is the only solution against criminals.”

However, considering the fifth criterion, the Use of Sources/Documentation, the participants did not show much improvement. Their writings showed a shift from “No/Limited Proficiency” to “Some Proficiency” which could be due to the lack of enough time, not having access to different sources while writing, and not having enough practice in using references and quotations from other sources.

Table 5 presents the participants’ scores obtained from the proficiency test and the writing pretest and posttest. The writing scores signify improvement. It is worth mentioning that although the present study was a qualitative one, quantification was used for clarification since “numerical descriptions can make it readily apparent … why researchers have drawn particular inferences” (Mackey & Gass, 2005 , p. 182).

The data gathered from the diverse sources were employed to answer the first research question of the study. Group discussions were useful in helping the participants listen to others and get acquainted with their viewpoints. Listening to classmates exposed learners to a plethora of ideas, helped them avoid biases (Lipman, 2003 ), and enabled them to provide arguments and counterarguments. Reading short stories facilitated writing as they took the role of brainstorming before writing activity and gave direction to the learners’ thoughts (Spack, 1985 ).

The reader-response approach, accompanied by other classroom activities provided appropriate mental exercises that could activate the participants’ thinking skill. In line with Paul ( 1993 ), this study implies that thinking is a potential that needs to flourish through appropriate mental exercises. The reader-response approach can encourage learners to reflect on what they read and to decide on their perspective. The integration of reading literary texts and reflecting on them enhance focus on the sequence of events, promote inferencing, and thus, as Rosenblatt ( 1976 ) argues, help learners, become agents who give meaning to the text they read.

Moreover, the reader-responses could help learners become “conscious of the reasons and evidence that support this or that conclusion” (Lipman, 2003 ). In line with Kellogg ( 1994 ), this study supports the idea that writing and thinking are intertwined skills and improving writing skills is connected to fostering the thinking ability of learners. In the same vein, Oster ( 1989 , p. 100) also connects literature, critical thinking, and writing as she asserts that when students engage in discussing what they have read, they “develop the capacity to see” things with more precision and intensify their “seeing” by writing.

The think-aloud protocols and answers to the interview questions showed that the participants enjoyed reading the literary texts and believed that the texts could shape their awareness toward the details that they commonly fail to attend while encountering different issues in the real-life. Moreover, they successfully related the themes of the stories with their personal experiences, which could facilitate their perception and recall (Sherman, 2013 ).

Likewise, the data gathered from the think-aloud protocols and interviews enabled the researcher to answer the second research question of the study. The analysis of the learners’ answers revealed that connecting writing and literature could turn writing to a meaningful task which prevents the student-writers from becoming “passive recipients of teacher-driven models and assignments” (Shafer, 2013 ). The participants’ use of metacognitive strategies (e.g., self-questioning, outlining), which was stimulated by the writing activity after reading short stories shows that personal interpretations and reflection can activate the cognitive structure of student-writers. Furthermore, the emergence of inner-dialogues after reading activity shows that short stories could cultivate reflection, analysis, and inferencing.

The comparison of the students’ writing before and after the manipulation of the reader-response approach was employed to answer the third research question. As the writings signified, the learning process implemented in the study was successful in improving the participants’ writings regarding originality, clarity, organization, and reasoning.

As stated in the introduction section, one problem with Iranian EFL learners’ writings is “multi-topicality and the use of different forms of parallelism” (Ahmad Khan Beigi & Ahmadi, 2011 ; Moradian et al., 2014 ; Rashtchi & Mohammadi, 2017 ) which originates from their thinking structure and their first language. The planned classroom procedure employed in this study could improve learners’ writings because it was a practice for organized and linear thinking. This account finds support from Wegerif ( 2006 , p.17) who believed that the teaching of thinking skills “needs to be carefully contextualized to be effective.” The study suggests that thinking skills, triggered by the reader-response approach, can be transferred to the writing skill. In line with Rashtchi ( 2007 ) and Topping ( 2001 ), the present study states that one way of teaching thinking skills is through another transferable skill such as reading and writing.

Conclusions

Written tasks and group discussions scaffold the reader-response approach and lead to productive outcomes in thinking and writing. This study suggests that reflection and response cannot turn into writing skill automatically. The various data gathering tools clarified that the reader-response is a thought-provoking activity and can stimulate the employment of thinking strategies. The classroom procedure adopted in this study was a carefully designed activity to improve learners’ writing by tapping their thinking skills.

The present study was a small-scale study, which aimed to probe its participants’ mental processes and report how they reacted toward reading literature, reflecting, and writing. The aim of this study was not to generalize findings but to encourage teachers to employ a variety of techniques and procedures to help their students improve their language skills.

Availability of data and materials

The data and materials will be available upon request.

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the participants who voluntarily took part in this study and who kindly consented to cooperate in the data collection procedure, including think-aloud and interview sessions. Following their request, although I cannot mention their full names, I do appreciate what they did to make this study possible.

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Writing Rubric. Northeastern Illinois University (Adapted from B. Walvoord by Allen, 2009 ).

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Interview Questions.

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Sample Task. The Lottery (Shortened to meet word limits).

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Rashtchi, M. Scaffolding argumentative essay writing via reader-response approach: a case study. Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. 4 , 12 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-019-0078-2

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Scaffolding Persuasive Essay Writing With Drafting Board

iCivics is a worthwhile collection of online games, lesson plans, and other resources for teaching civics to middle school students. One of their resources, Drafting Board , scaffolds students’ learning to write well-constructed and well-supported essays by pulling together information from a variety of sources. There are seven civics-related topics from which to choose. The website makes it clear that this is a teacher-guided activity that works best when the teacher is available to answer questions and provide other assistance as needed.

The basic framework of each Drafting Board topic includes:

• Background —Helps students to develop background knowledge on the subject and begin to form an opinion. Students are provided various sources to read and from which to pull information to complete a fill-in-the-blank narrative.
• Claim Creator —This step in the process leads students to develop their point of view on the subject and to create the thesis for their argument.
• Paragraph Constructor —Using the resources introduced in the building background module, students are led to develop three body paragraphs supporting their point of view.
• Critic Crusher —This section gets students to consider alternative points of view and how to rebut them for an effective argument.
• Introduction & Conclusion Builder —Helps students learn to build effective introductions and conclusions. This is best done after writing the body paragraphs.

A number of supports are provided throughout these steps. For students who may struggle with decoding/fluency, there is an option to have most text read aloud. Each section begins with an explanation of that aspect of an essay and a list of the steps the student will encounter. In addition, students are shown how to use transition words effectively. Finally, at the conclusion of writing each paragraph, students are given a checklist to analyze their writing. These latter three supports, as well as the overall process, provide rich “scripts” that can help students when they are more independently writing.

As literacy educators, we are well acquainted with the gradual release of responsibility model for teaching students new skills and strategies. Drafting Board is a great example of the use of this model, with the default mode being an example of gradual release of responsibility in miniature. For the first body paragraph, students are led through the process with simple fill-in-the-blank steps called “auto-complete.” Students click on appropriate support in one of the resource texts, and it fills in the sentence in the paragraph. In the second body paragraph, students are asked to write their own text to complete sentences. In the third body paragraph, students are helped to write the introductory sentence, but then guided to write the rest of the paragraph on their own. There are five additional challenge levels that each provide a different approach to scaffolding students’ writing, from providing a lot of support to providing just a little.

My seventh-grade students worked through three of the different Drafting Boards. Then we researched the case of Korematsu v. the United States and the United States’ internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Students then wrote a persuasive essay about the Supreme Court’s decision in that case following the format they learned through Drafting Board. The following year, I noticed that some of these students carried over what they learned about the structure of an essay, the construction of introduction and conclusion paragraphs, as well as the use of transition words in the writing they did that year. The scaffolding of Drafting Board was a valuable means to help these students learn how to write an effective persuasive essay and learn a little civics, too.

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The Scaffolding Technique in Education: Benefits & Examples [Is It Really Useful?]

The role of a teacher in education has changed drastically with the popularization of online courses, study apps, YouTube videos, and other free tools. Some people mistakenly think they don’t need guidance since there are so many opportunities for self-study. However, recent research on teachers’ involvement in learning proves that individual professional support is essential for efficiently acquiring knowledge. A teacher is the one who helps students bridge the gap between what they need to know and how to get that knowledge , and this input benefits academic performance more than any other factor.

Among numerous teaching techniques, we recommend paying attention to scaffolding . As in construction sites, scaffolding in education means providing support for students while they are doing their work – studying. This article will cover the key benefits of scaffolding and provide ideas on how to incorporate it into the classroom. Check our free knowledge base for more study tips!

• 🪜 Scaffolds in Teaching
• 📝 Scaffolding Lesson Plan
• 🚀 Top 10 Scaffolding Strategies
• 🧨 Challenges of Scaffolding
• 🔝 Other Teaching Methods
• 🤔 Conclusion

🔗 References

🪜 what are scaffolds in teaching.

Imagine a work crew repairing a building at great heights. Without the use of scaffolding, their work would be more dangerous and less productive. The same principle applies to scaffolding in education. The role of a teacher is to facilitate students with all the necessary tools and information to get the most out of their studies.

Scaffolding in Education

In the educational context, the term “scaffolding” was first used by the American psychologist Jerome Bruner in the 1960s. According to his theory, when students have enough support while learning a new subject, they become more adept at using this knowledge independently later.

Modern educators explain scaffolding as a teaching technique in which instructors strengthen students’ understanding by giving them an assistant framework for learning. Once students reach the intended level of mastery, the teachers gradually remove their support.

An excellent example of scaffolding in the classroom is modeling. Many students are visual learners and prefer seeing something to hearing about it. Imagine a teacher assigns a task to conduct a SWOT analysis of a company. Scaffolding, in this case, is providing a SWOT template on top of basic instructions on how to run a SWOT analysis. This way, a teacher eases the stress and makes the task more manageable by showing students what they are expected to do.

Principles of Scaffolding in Teaching

The main principles of scaffolding include the following:

• Attracting students’ attention. To make students ready to follow the instructions on the task, a teacher should spark their interest and imagination first.
• Simplifying the task. By reducing the number of actions necessary to solve a task, a teacher allows the student to focus on the main ideas.
• Keeping attention on the goal. Since many students get distracted easily, the teacher should keep the lesson’s purpose in mind and maintain students’ motivation.
• Emphasizing important details . The teacher should draw students’ attention to the significant details of the task to help them achieve the best results possible.
• Demonstrating an idealized version of the task. The teacher must show the modeling answer or result, so the students understand what is expected.

Types of Scaffolding Supports

Educators differentiate three types of scaffolding techniques: sensory, interactive, and graphic. Learn everything about the three core kinds of scaffolding and how they’re best applied.

• Sensory scaffolding. Sensory scaffolding allows students to use their senses to understand abstract ideas and complex topics. By combining physical objects with oral explanations, a teacher makes instructions more comprehensible and enhances students’ long-term memory. Examples of sensory scaffolding techniques include using real-life objects, models, figures, videos, and pictures and participating in physical activities.
• Interactive scaffolding. Many human beings are social learners, meaning they enjoy discussing ideas, offering observations, and forming opinions. Interactive scaffolding integrates social exchange into the classroom and helps students learn from collaboration. It can exist in the form of interviews, group or pair work, conferences, and class discussions.
• Graphic scaffolding. Graphic scaffolding is particularly helpful when a teacher wants to communicate highly abstract concepts or show the relationships between two or more phenomena. The knowledge presented through visual aids will likely serve students long after they’ve left the classroom. The most common graphic scaffolding instruments are charts, tables, graphs, timelines, and infographics.

Benefits of Instructional Scaffolding

Scaffolding can be a lot of work . However, this method offers many benefits to students and teachers. Let’s run through some of the most impressive advantages of scaffolding.

📌 It improves students’ understanding. Scaffolding allows students to achieve skill mastery faster by breaking down complex tasks into easier steps. It also clarifies the teacher’s instructions, creating a comfortable environment for students’ development.

📌 It boosts students’ productivity. Active teacher engagement helps students focus on a task longer and avoid distractions . Moreover, scaffolding techniques prevent students from giving up on difficult things and zoning out.

📌 It’s engaging. Scaffolding makes students feel included and supported during the learning process. Thus, they gain confidence to work on more complicated tasks without getting frustrated or bored.

📌 It gives a teacher valuable insight . The scaffolding process requires a teacher to observe students and their needs carefully. Monitoring the learning process can provide many insights into each student’s abilities and the types of materials used in the classroom.

📌 It encourages independent learning . Once the student performs at a certain level of mastery, the teacher can gradually remove the scaffolding support. In this way, a teacher can help students build effective independent learning skills essential to success in adult life.

📌 It empowers collaborative skills . Scaffolding is all about collaborating with a teacher in pairs and groups. Working together with their classmates, students have a unique opportunity to improve their leadership, active listening, and problem-solving skills.

📝 Scaffolding Lesson Plan Template

If you wonder how scaffolding can be implemented in a classroom, check out the section below. We created this lesson plan template, which demonstrates the use of the technique at every stage. However, notice that this is not a universal scheme. In fact, lesson plans will vary according to a particular scaffolding technique.

🚀 Scaffolding Strategies: TOP 10 Examples

Check out these top ideas if you’re looking for original examples of scaffolding in the classroom.

Strategy 1 – Activate students’ prior knowledge

Scaffolding can only be effective when it is clear what students already know . This information can be collected directly from students, their past teachers, or previous units. Activating students’ prior knowledge will help build a solid foundation for the rest of the lesson.

Strategy 2 – Brainstorm and think out loud

To keep students engaged, try to explain in easy-to-understand terms what they’re doing and why. It might be mind maps, flow charts, or real-life objects that demonstrate a teacher’s thought process. These verbal and nonverbal cues will definitely improve students’ understanding.

Strategy 3 – Repeat as much as needed

The idea that practice makes perfect lies at the foundation of scaffolding. When introducing a concept or a skill in the lesson, it’s essential to reinforce the new knowledge. To reduce teacher-talking time, try these practicing techniques: turn and talk (students discuss the topic in pairs), small group discussions, or the pause method (asking students open-ended questions).

Strategy 4 – Encourage active participation

Remember to encourage class participation and provide positive reinforcement for students’ answers. Make corrections when needed or let students provide feedback on each other’s ideas. These collaborative learning strategies will help strengthen students’ social skills and understanding of the topic.

Strategy 5 – Maintain the pause

Instead of providing students with the answer immediately after asking a question, leave a pause. The silence might feel uncomfortable during the wait time, but students will eventually start to brainstorm some solutions. This method also guarantees students’ equal participation by creating a safe environment for sharing ideas and opinions.

Strategy 6 – Encourage independent learning

Students who demonstrate a solid understanding of the lesson might need less support. To help students work independently and master their skills, the “ I do, we do, you do” method might be helpful. Start the class with clear instructions (I do), then organize work in small groups (we do), and finally, when students are comfortable with the new concept, they can practice on their own (you do).

Strategy 7 – Use visual aids

Pictures, graphs, and charts are among the most effective scaffolding tools. These visual aids help students organize new information, grasp abstract concepts, and remember the material in the next lesson. Visuals can significantly improve students’ performance during everyday tasks like group discussions, writing essays, or working with handouts.

Strategy 8 – Break complex tasks into smaller steps

Often, it’s challenging for students to remember all the steps needed to complete an assignment. To ease the pressure, break down instructions into chunks that students will follow one at a time. Another idea is to offer students a checklist they can use during individual work or group projects.

Strategy 9 – Teach students to help each other

One of the best scaffolding techniques when working with students with mixed abilities is empowering them to help each other . For example, ask a strong student to answer a question when learning a new concept. Then, you can call on another student to repeat the answer in their own words. By listening to each other, students of all levels reinforce their understanding.

Strategy 10 – State clear expectations

In general, human beings are better at performing tasks when they fully understand what is expected from them. Thus, providing model answers and describing the purpose of the assignment is crucial. Always provide clear directions or use rubrics and checklists to help students successfully master the concept.

🧨 Challenges of Educational Scaffolding

Scaffolding has proved to be a beneficial instructional technique that can be used in various classrooms. However, teachers may face particular challenges when incorporating scaffolding into their lessons. Consider the most common ones:

• Planning lessons that will include scaffolding methods can be time-consuming.
• Not all scaffolding techniques are equally beneficial for all students.
• If the teacher provides too much support, it might negatively influence students’ autonomy.
• The effectiveness of scaffolding methods depends on how well a teacher knows their students.
• Students who haven’t experienced the scaffolding teaching method might need extra time to adapt.
• There’s a lack of information available on scaffolding tips and practical advice.

🔝 Other Effective Teaching Methods

You might be surprised to learn how many teaching strategies there are besides scaffolding. More and more teachers are implementing new instructional methods to find the best match for their students’ learning styles. Let’s cover some of the most popular and beneficial teaching strategies for you to try!

• Use of educational technologies. Many students feel excited about technology-based lessons, especially when technology is integrated uniquely. This teaching strategy creates a more engaging learning environment and prepares students for the future. However, it’s essential to carefully balance electronic devices with real-life communication in the classroom.
• Inquiry-based learning. This modern educational approach engages students by making real-world associations through exploration and high-level questioning. Instead of presenting new content immediately, the teacher triggers students’ curiosity and allows them to research and experiment.
• Collaborative learning. Having students work in groups or pairs for certain activities isn’t a new idea, but it remains highly effective. The concept of collaborative learning has many advantages. Namely, it develops oral communication, higher-level thinking, and leadership skills . However, a teacher should constantly monitor that students participate equally and everyone gets a chance to contribute.
• Personalized learning. The most engaging lessons are the ones that appeal to students’ interests. The more a teacher gets to know their students, the easier it is to prepare personalized activities. The most effective tools for building a healthy learning environment include careful observation and collecting feedback from students.
• Metacognitive learning. “Metacognition” literally means “thinking about thinking” and can be successfully applied to the learning environment. Using metacognitive teaching strategies helps students monitor and evaluate their progress, and it also improves crucial thinking and motivation. If you want to try this strategy, ask students, “How do you know?”
• Differentiation method. Differentiated teaching happens when a teacher adjusts lesson content to different students’ abilities, ensuring learners at different levels can receive the instruction they need. It also helps educators target students with varied learning styles and boost their confidence. Even though planning a differentiated lesson can be time-consuming, it gets easier with practice.

🤔 Conclusion: Is Scaffolding Useful in Education?

To conclude, the scaffolding technique has the potential to take the learning process to a new level. Using various frameworks, a teacher can develop essential knowledge skills and connect students’ past knowledge to new one. Scaffolds help empower students’ independent practice, which benefits both students and their teachers. Students are challenged to deal with new content individually, whereas teachers polish their skills of guiding and counseling.

Even though scaffolding can be unclear when first implemented, it boosts students’ academic performance and confidence and develops interpersonal relations. Moreover, it positively impacts the teacher-student relationship and group dynamics. Regardless of whether you decide to use the scaffolding technique or any other teaching method, consistency is essential. That way, students will keep the knowledge for as long as possible.

• What Is Scaffolding in Education? | GCU Blog
• Scaffolding Content – Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation – University at Buffalo
• 7 Scaffolding Learning Strategies for the Classroom
• Instructional Scaffolding to Improve Learning | Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning | Northern Illinois University
• Scaffolding in Education: The Complete Guide
• Teaching Methods Overview – University of Central Florida
• Vygotsky’s Scaffolding: What It Is and How To Use It | Indeed.com
• What Is Scaffolding in Early Childhood Education?
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Scaffolding an Opinion Writing Essay With Frames and Templates

Teaching opinion writing to your 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade students soon?  Use the sentence starters and paragraph frames below in your lessons to help students structure their writing, use transitional words, stay on topic, and support their opinions.

Templates like the examples below are a great way to introduce opinion writing.  The hope is that eventually, students will go on to write without a provided outline and add a little of their own personality to their writing, but starting off with a clear structure helps students learn to become better writers.

Start Small - With Opinion Writing Sentence Starters or Frames

3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students love giving their opinions, so help them structure their opinions with sentence starters and frames. This is a great way to introduce opinion writing and doesn't frustrate students.

Providing structure is especially beneficial for your ELL and low language students, but ALL students can improve their writing with this scaffolding.

Some example sentence starters are below.  Depending on the topic being discussed and the opinion being shared, not all sentence frames will work in all situations.  Adapt them for your particular scenario!

Example Sentence Starters

• In my opinion, _____ is better than _____ because _____.
• The best thing about _____ is _____.
• I am strongly against _____ because _____.
• Although some people believe _____, I believe _____.
• Ever since _____, I have believed _____.

Using a Paragraph Template or Frame

Example paragraph frames.

In my opinion, __________ is better than __________ because __________.  For example, _______________.  Furthermore, _______________.  Clearly, _______________ is the worse option.

I prefer __________ because __________.  For instance, _______________.  Also, _______________.  Finally, _______________.

Opinion Writing Essay Template / Structure / Outline

Going from writing paragraphs to writing an entire essay can be overwhelming for upper elementary students - and middle school students as well!

Modeling how to write an opinion essay is an essential first step.  (My Scaffolded Opinion Writing Resource includes a teacher model to make this easy for you.)

After modeling an opinion essay, provide students with an opinion writing template/outline to help them structure their own writing.  This will help students stay on topic, use transitional words, and provide support for their opinions.  And, most importantly, it will keep students from feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

If you know your students would benefit from this type of scaffolding but don’t have the time to create it yourself, check out my Scaffolded Opinion Writing Resource.

It walks students through the writing process with support each step of the way. This resource also provides a model essay so that you can model expectations for your students. Plus, it can be used over and over again with different topics.

If you found these opinion writing tips to be useful, then you will probably like these tips for teaching students how to write a compare and contrast essay. 

Want a Compare and Contrast Freebie?

Download these reading passages with a compare and contrast activity for free and use it to today!

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The Saturday Profile

From New England to Notre-Dame, a U.S. Carpenter Tends to a French Icon

Hank Silver, a timber framer based in Massachusetts, is one of a handful of foreigners who are helping to rebuild the Paris cathedral after the devastating fire in 2019.

By Aurelien Breeden

Reporting from Paris

Notre-Dame Cathedral sat in the pre-dawn chill like a spaceship docked in the heart of Paris, its exoskeleton of scaffolding lit by bright lights. Pink clouds appeared to the east as machinery hummed to life and workers started clambering around.

One of them, Hank Silver, wearing a yellow hard hat, stood on a platform above the Seine River and attached cables to oak trusses shaped like massive wooden triangles. A crane hoisted them onto the nave of the cathedral, which was devastated by fire in 2019.

Mr. Silver — a 41-year-old American-Canadian carpenter — is something of an unlikely candidate to work on the restoration of an 860-year-old Gothic monument and Catholic landmark in France. Born in New York City into an observant Jewish family, he owns a small timber framing business in rural New England and admits that until recently he didn’t even know what a nave was.

But there is nowhere else Mr. Silver would rather be.

For the tight-knit international community of traditional carpenters and woodworking specialists, the loss of Notre-Dame’s ancient lattice of oak beams was a tragedy. It also has given them a way to show the world that their manual tools and techniques have stood the test of time.

“Nobody builds cathedrals anymore,” at least like this, Mr. Silver said recently over lunch, flipping through pictures of Notre-Dame on his phone and describing the camaraderie shared by the nearly 500 journeymen, craftsmen and supervisors who work at the site. The opportunity to work on a project like this, he added, is “once in a millennium.”

“It has elevated all of the artisans in France and in the world,” he said. “How many kids staring at their iPads are even aware that they can grow up to be a stonecutter, a traditional carpenter, a mason?”

Notre-Dame is scheduled to reopen in December — a little over five years after the blaze, as promised by President Emmanuel Macron in the days that followed.

The vaults are almost entirely rebuilt and cleaned, a new gilded copper rooster is perched atop the finished tip of the spire, and the wooden attic is redone. Even after the reopening, renovations will continue.

The reconstruction is an intricate puzzle involving tight scheduling and a complex ballet of stonecutters, painters, stained glass restorers, gold leaf decorators, steeplejacks, crane operators, organ cleaners and roof coverers.

“This cathedral speaks to us all,” said Philippe Jost, the head of the reconstruction task force. France’s best craftsmen rushed to participate, he said, but the presence of a few foreigners like Mr. Silver was meaningful, too.

“It says a lot about the appeal and fascination that this extraordinary monument exerts,” Mr. Jost said.

Mr. Silver’s path to Notre-Dame started with Carpenters Without Borders , or C.S.F., a France-based organization of traditional woodworkers who volunteer to restore unique constructions, like a castle moat bridge in France or octagonal wells in Romania.

Through C.S.F., Mr. Silver had befriended Loïc Desmonts, who runs a traditional carpentry business in Normandy with his father.

In 2022, Mr. Desmonts’ company was selected to rebuild the nave woodwork, in partnership with Ateliers Perrault, a company from western France with historical monument expertise. Mr. Desmonts asked Mr. Silver and Will Gusakov, a timber framer based in Vermont , to put together a small crew of Americans to join.

“Sometimes it did feel a little bit funny to be an American working on an almost quintessentially French project,” said Mr. Gusakov, who temporarily moved to France with his wife and two toddlers. But, he added, “Everybody was so excited.”

Mr. Silver arrived in January 2023 and spent eight months in a workshop in rural Normandy recreating the nave’s wooden framework, a solid oak assembly of nearly 60 trusses between the spire and the belfry towers that is 100 feet long, 45 feet wide and 32 feet high.

Like almost all of Notre-Dame’s renovation, the attic was redone exactly the way it was before the blaze — a replica where every truss is unique and fits within the cathedral’s curved and uneven walls.

“We’re restoring a great deal of authenticity to the wooden framework,” said Rémi Fromont, one of the lead architects at Notre-Dame and an expert on its carpentry. “Same materials, same techniques and same design.”

The goal is to preserve an important architectural heritage — the original 13th-century woodwork was a watershed for its time, Mr. Fromont said — and to show that centuries-old carpentry methods are still efficient.

In traditional woodworking circles, including for Americans, “an identical reconstruction was the only way to go,” Mr. Desmonts said.

Mr. Silver and other carpenters hewed the oak logs mostly by hand, first with long-handled axes, then broadaxes. Some of the axes were made specifically for the project by blacksmiths at a forge in the Alsace area of eastern France.

The carpenters drew a full scale plan of each truss directly onto the workshop floor, then carefully placed the beams that would make up the truss on its unique location on it. Using a plumb line to precisely map the irregularities of each piece, they laid out each joint to create a tight fit.

The beams were assembled using mortise and tenon joinery, in which a protruding tenon slots into a mortise hole and is held fast with an oak peg. The trusses were assembled at the workshop for a dry-fit, then disassembled and trucked to Paris, where carpenters put them back together.

Next, Mr. Silver will work with roofers as they nail down oak boards that will form the roof deck, which will be covered with lead.

He and the other workers cannot wear their work clothes home to avoid bringing with them lead particles that were deposited after the fire burned the original roof.

Mr. Silver said he cherishes the time he has left at Notre-Dame, whether using it to admire the sunset from a balcony lined with snarling chimeras or to take one last close-up look at a stained-glass window that will soon be inaccessible.

“It never gets old,” he said.

Growing up in New York City, no one around him worked wood, Mr. Silver said. His mother was a speech therapist; his father did compliance work for Wall Street firms and wrote a financial newsletter.

Nor was he exposed to many churches. Mr. Silver’s father became a rabbi when his son was a teenager, and the son declared himself an atheist at age 5.

Mr. Silver later studied filmmaking in Montreal. But in the early 2000s, while helping his grandmother move, he stumbled across old books that beautifully illustrated traditional woodworking.

“I became completely fascinated,” he said. After completing his degree, he started working on home remodeling crews, then moved to Vermont, where he learned traditional timber framing. Later, he started a small carpentry business in western Massachusetts and joined the Timber Framer’s Guild .

Now, thanks to a skilled worker visa that gives access to a French residency permit, Mr. Silver is living in Paris, where he expects to stay for several years. He then plans to work in rural France, traveling occasionally for one-off construction or teaching gigs.

“I was ready for a change in my life anyway,” he said after a morning of apartment hunting. “I’ve always wanted to live in Europe.”

He already peppers his English with French carpentry terms like “sablière” (a wall plate). When Mr. Macron visited Notre-Dame in December , Mr. Silver even slipped him a letter requesting French citizenship.

“People don’t think of carpentry as a type of business, or pursuit, or calling that takes you around the world ,” he said. A skeptical border agent at Boston’s airport once quizzed him about his visa until Mr. Silver explained he was working on Notre-Dame.

“‘That’s the coolest job,’" Mr. Silver recalled the agent saying.

Aurelien Breeden is a reporter for The Times in Paris, covering news from France. More about Aurelien Breeden

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