Skip to content

Writing Lab six-lesson lesson-series pattern alternating divergent and convergent thinking with a fixed compare-contrast, generate, select, apply, evaluate activity cycle

Design · All designs
Evidence · no claims cited

Description

A reusable lesson-series pattern for creative writing in upper secondary education: a metacognitive introductory lesson, four element-focused lessons (mindmaps/character, suspense, dialogue, perspective), and a final application lesson. "Lessons two through five followed a similar pattern: alternate divergent and convergent thinking, compare and contrast, application and evaluation." Cognitive strategy instruction follows Merrill's demonstration and application principles, using strong and weak peer models for observational learning, extensive drafting phases (about 20 of 50 minutes in four lessons), and group peer feedback with compliments and recommendations rather than competition.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • Alternation must be explicitly indicated to students (icons in materials) and contextualized to the lesson's target writing task
  • A writer-reader community with constructive, encouraging peer feedback and a safe climate where nothing is considered crazy or stupid

Constraints

  • Designed for a context with no existing creative writing lesson series for upper secondary education in the Netherlands; the program deliberately did not address transfer to argumentative writing explicitly

Target Learners

  • Grade 10 pre-university secondary students in Dutch L1 education

Learning Goals

  • Drafting and rewriting creative short stories
  • Creative thinking strategies (fluency, originality, flexibility, elaboration)

Claims

Examples

-

Key Sources

  • Anouk ten Peze, Tanja Janssen, Gert Rijlaarsdam, Daphne van Weijen. (2024). Instruction in creative and argumentative writing: transfer and crossover effects on writing process and text quality. Instructional Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-023-09647-3
Page metadata
Field Value
type design
id writing-lab-alternating-divergent-convergent-lesson-pattern
title Writing Lab six-lesson lesson-series pattern alternating divergent and convergent thinking with a fixed compare-contrast, generate, select, apply, evaluate activity cycle
description A reusable lesson-series pattern for creative writing in upper secondary education: a metacognitive introductory lesson, four element-focused lessons (mindmaps/character, suspense, dialogue, perspective), and a final...
status review
generated by process:settle-candidates on 2026-10-18
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — anouk-ten-peze-2024

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.