Universal Ideas

Universal Ideas Universal ideas are essential to writing because they help shape the framework of a piece of writing. The universal idea is much like a thesis, which shapes the structure, word choice, voice, and conventions of the piece. To be a proficient writer, you need to have a strong universal idea that you can build your writing around, some examples of a universal idea could be “ambitions, love, social justice” etc. When looking at a student’s work, teachers need to consider the universal idea that the student is trying to portray or explain. When considering this, it looks teachers look past surface errors and think more in depth about the message the student is trying to get across and if the student is accomplishing that task with their choice of words, conventions, structure etc. Before learning about a universal idea, I thought every informational piece needed a thesis. However, after learning about universal ideas, I realize that all writing has universal idea, theme or message. No matter that you are writing, there is a message or …show more content…
Saddler (2012) discusses how to help students write effective sentences through sentence combining exercises. Through these exercises, students can learn how to analyze and combine words and phrases together in creative ways. This can help my students with word choice, conventions, structure and the ideas they need to create strong sentences to support their universal idea. The other strategy that is especially important for my classroom setting is the idea of self-regulated writing strategies as discussed by Graham, MacArthur and Fitzgerald (2013). Using visuals such as graphic organizers can help my students visualize their universal idea and structure their writing to support their universal