The writing schedule

Today, I'm introducing you to an interesting topic that can be applied across various grade levels in school and beyond!

This concept is based on a teaching method from my former German teacher, to whom I owe my deepest thanks! Thanks to him, I was able to understand the fundamental structures of language, which I've been able to use for my later milestones. This is about the so-called "writing plan". At this point, you may be wondering: "What exactly is a writing plan?"

Here's a definition I came up with: "A writing plan is the fundamental approach in the form of a diagram that aims to facilitate the understanding and elaboration of texts."

In my opinion, this is a common and good definition. If we think back to our German lessons in school, understanding a text often boils down to "understanding" it. This means: content, sequences, and labels must be known or clearly defined. This also involves working cleanly and structurally, which is essential in school if you want to do a good job. A writing plan takes care of this task for you and is the perfect starting point for any text-heavy assignment. It is a clear guideline that helps make the text more understandable.

When we are asked to work on a text, we need to evaluate it. Our task is to make the text accessible to a new audience by breaking it down into its most important components and extracting core content that is crucial for a correct and in-depth understanding. This, I believe, is also why people often refer to it as the "art of language." Anyone who understands language should at least make an effort to comprehend it. In my opinion, the attempt itself is what matters, even if the result isn't always correct.  

But what does a writing plan actually look like? Here's a concise version from me:

Step 1: Brainstorming (Facts, Summary, W-Questions)

Step 2: Analysis (Details, Characteristics, Rhetorical Devices, Categorization)

Step 3: Final Assessment (Outlook, References, Comparison)

This is kept very general and broad. Mainly, these three steps are crucial for the upcoming work. They help to comprehensively understand texts of any kind at their core. Anyone who follows this sequence will never have a problem working through texts again. At least, that's been my experience with my students. Language is multifaceted and not logical. There is no perfect solution, but many opinions and many ways to express things.

To give you a clearer idea, I'll link my developed PDF version here: This file was created for my lesson logs and given as a guideline to many young people. It was used for both German and French subjects. (© Credits were added since the contents were created by me and come from my catalog.):