And ever made the vain attempt to lay out the AQAL map on a cocktail napkin at a bar, you likely came to the realization that the quadrants are where people start nodding off.
I had the overly ambitious idea of taking this:
and making this:
... for students to use when writing a small moment (personal narrative about a real event that happened to them with a duration of anywhere from a few seconds to 10 minutes).
Interestingly 9 and 10 year olds got it.
They looked relieved that their teacher didn't give them the overly vague and ridiculously unhelpful note on their paper "GO BACK AND ADD MORE DETAIL".
If you want to try it with kids who want to improve their writing to help them express themselves more effectively:
1) Have them pick a small moment that is important to them (check out early editions of Writing Workshop texts for the complete over view of how to introduce this method of writing)
2) Have them read what they have written and then ask which quadrant(s) could be focused on to best serve what they wanted to do with their story.
3) Play with what the story would look like if we focused more on one quadrant than another.
4) Conference with the kid again later and have them reflect on whether or not it did what they wanted to in their writing.
Here is a small example.
Kid comes to you with this:
I had just finished my very first piano recital. I played it exactly the way I had practiced and my Dad came up and gave me a big hug and told me that all of my hard work had paid off.
(the real small moment would be much longer, but this is just for demonstration purposes)
Go back and explore this hug from Dad within each quadrant.
Upper Left- my thoughts and feelings
Finally my shoulders dropped as I hit the last note. An overwhelming sense of pride and relief came over me. I felt like a coach inside my head telling me I had done a good job. My Dad came and gave me a big hug afterwards and it was the most powerful hug I had felt since my Dog passed away two years ago. This time though he squeezed me so tight and I could feel super good about having done so much work to get here.
Lower Left - the thoughts and feelings of others
The audience clapped and showed approval for my performance of chopsticks. I looked over and saw the faces that looked happy to hear what I had just played. My Dad's face looked red with a smile from ear to ear as he hugged me. He told me he was proud of me, but given that he hugged me so hard, I think it was some kind of feeling beyond normal pride that was going through his system.
Upper Right - Actions or Appearances
I hit the final C Chord properly and let the sound ring out as I took my foot off of the sustain pedal. I stood up and walked off of the stage quickly with a slight shaking in my hands with excitement. Dad scurried up to me while putting his phone back in his pocket after recording my performance. He gave me a hug that scooped me off the ground. It probably looked like the same kind of bear hug he would give me when we pretend to wrestle, but this time I didn't feel like trying to get out.
Lower Right - Setting or Important Objects
The school Gym and its bouncy acoustics echoed my last C Chord of Chopsticks. As I pulled my fingers back from the old piano and its worm white keys, I looked out to the capacity crowd of parents seated in their chairs and soaked up their applause. As I left the old wooden stage that had seen so many perfomances, my Dad waited for me with his arms wide open. His camera phone barely tucked into his back pocket. He picked me up and set my feet back down on the white floor of the Gymnasium where we normally have Phys Ed.
The idea is not to force the writing to fit into a quadrant, nor should the entire piece focus from one or two exclusively.
Rather, I suggest this technique as a strategy for students to develop their own sense of how and when to use detailed descriptions in their text. It is for them to explore how to best serve their story and express themselves in a way that pushes them as writers and engages their readers.
When I conference with students, we look for just one or two sentences or ideas where we can take a quadrant and ZOOM IN to expand and magnify what was happening in a descriptive way.
It is a functional way to get students to check in with these different lens that we have access to at any given moment.
