4-Square Writing

Overview of the 4-Square (Recommend visiting this link before looking at the individual standards below.)

1. ELA Standard 1: Writing for Information and Understanding
   • Science Reports
   • Social Studies Reports and Essays

2. ELA Standard 2: Writing for Literary Response and Expression

3. ELA Standard 3: Writing for Critical Analysis
   • Persuasive Essays
   • Compare-Contrast
   • Problem Solving in Math
   • Scientific Method

4. ELA Standard 4: Writing for Social Interaction
   • Personal Letter to the Principal
   • Personal Letter to a Children's Author
   • Personal Letter to Students' Fathers deployed with U.S. Army in Iraq

Credits: The 4-Square Writing Method was developed by Gould & Gould, Published by the Teaching and Learning Company, 1999. For more information, or to order the materials, click here. I have adapted the 4-Square for use with the Scientific Method and with Problem Solving. For the latter, I came up with the idea for PIPS. As forThe Problem Solver (Hoogeboom & Goodnow, Creative Publications, 1987), I have found the 4-Square serves as a great graphic organizer for their 4-Step problem-solving method.