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Cause-and-Effect Writing Challenges Students

The cause-and-effect relationship is both a way of thinking and a format for writing. Teachers who emphasize cause-and-effect writing say that they are helping students learn to think critically as well as write cogently. Read what three experienced teachers have to say about this teaching approach, which can be used with students of all ages. Included: Links to examples of cause-and-effect writing.

Children see cause-and-effect relationships every day, whether they recognize them or not. Now, many teachers are applying the concept of "actions have consequences" to help students become more analytical writers -- and thinkers.

Cause-and-effect writing can be used with most grade levels and for many subjects, several teachers told Education World. Satinder Hawkins, who teaches history at Rogers Middle School in the Long Beach (California) Unified School District, uses cause-and-effect writing techniques in her seventh- and eighth- grade classes. "When something happens in history, it's the result of something else, and it will impact future events," Hawkins said.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THINKING AND WRITING

Defining cause-and-effect writing is difficult because "it's so simple: 2 + 2 = 4. It's as simple as you can make it." -- Nancy Polette, professor of education at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri.

Many teachers agree that the ability to write an essay about cause and effect is related to critical thinking. Carla J. Beachy, who teaches English at Mt. Hebron High School in Ellicott City, Maryland, tells Education World, "I believe that cause-and-effect writing attempts to give reasons and explanations for events, conditions, or behaviors. The Cause-Effect Essay page on her school's Web site outlines the process for writing this type of essay and provides some examples of topics.

"I also believe," Beachy continues, "that most explanatory writing is persuasive in nature and, along with that, most persuasive writing should involve causal relationships. I have found that many students tend to oversimplify or have other fallacies in their reasoning." For that reason, she has her classes practice cause-and-effect thinking through group activities and graphic organizers. "I believe that students must know how to think before they can write successfully," Beachy explains.

Students then can transfer cause-and-effect thinking skills to the writing process. When they write papers, Beachy says, "I expect my students to reference their ideas through examples and quotes from the text." (For more information, see Beachy's article "Enhancing Writing Through Cooperative Peer Editing," in Enhancing Thinking Through Cooperative Learning.)

Nancy Polette, professor of education at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, also stresses the importance of understanding the relationship between cause and effect as a critical-thinking skill. "Cause-and-effect writing works with other critical-thinking skills, such as sequencing, classifying, comparing, question-and-answer, problem solving, and decision making," she says.

Satinder Hawkins also believes that having students focus is an important part of writing. "If kids have a specific purpose in writing," she says, "it makes them clarify their thinking and think critically." Hawkins adds, "We call it academic writing. It's the kind of writing students will do in high school and college."

APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES

Polette advocates the use of picture books to begin teaching kindergarteners, many of whom do not yet read, to think in terms of cause-and-effect. A good book for this approach, she says, is Old Ladies Who Liked Cats,by Carol Greene, which is about the food chain. After reading the story, Polette explains, the youngsters act it out. "They see that if you leave something out, you change the effect."

A teacher also might show the class a picture of a girl watering a plant, then ask the class a series of questions related to the picture, such as "After she waters the plant, what happens?" and "What would happen if she didn't water the plant?" Polette says. Those types of questions help students understand consequences, she adds.

Hawkins and her colleagues concentrate on cause-and-effect thinking and writing in their history courses. "We weave it throughout all our units," Hawkins says, "and the writing assessment at the end of the unit almost always involves cause-and-effect writing."

Beachy, who formerly taught middle school, has taught high school juniors and seniors for the past nine years. "I've always stressed the importance of critical-thinking skills," she says.

A SUCCESSFUL TEACHING STRATEGY

Hawkins points out that the emphasis on cause-and-effect writing is helpful for teachers as well as for students. The approach offers a structure that "organizes tasks for the teachers.

"We have broken up the tasks [of writing] so they're manageable for us and the kids will have success," Hawkins says. "As a teacher, it's good to be part of the success of students."

ADDITIONAL CAUSE-AND-EFFECT WRITING RESOURCES

Methods of Development -- Cause and Effect
This section of a basic English class offered at San Antonio College in Texas summarizes cause-and-effect as both a method of thinking and a method of writing.

Cause and Effect
This is lesson 9 from an intermediate writing class offered at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California. The lesson includes a basic discussion of cause-and-effect, with questions students should ask themselves when planning and organizing a cause-and-effect essay.

Cause and Effect
This page on the Web site of the Parkland Learning Lab of Parkland College in Illinois discusses how to construct a cause-and-effect essay. Examples are included.

Article by Mary Daniels Brown
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