P.L.E.A.S.E.

**P.L.E.A.S.E.**

**Content** The specific content being taught is paragraph writing. It is focused on prewriting, planning, composition, and paragraph revision skills.

**Grade Level** This strategy can be used in Elementary, Middle, and High Schools.

**Curriculum Standards** For 7th grade students, this strategy uses the following CSO’s: RLA.O.7.2.1 use note-taking strategies including paraphrasing and summarizing to develop a written composition.

RLA.O.7.2.4 use the five-step writing process (pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, publishing) to generate topics, plan approaches, and develop expository and persuasive writing tasks.

**Description of Practices** **P.L.E.A.S.E.** Pick a topic List your ideas about the topic Evaluate your list Activate the paragraph with a topic sentence Supply the supporting details End with a concluding sentence


 * Step 1:** “P” represents PICK. Students are taught:


 * To pick their topic.
 * To pick their audience.
 * To pick the appropriate textual format (enumerative, compare/contrast, cause and effect) given the topic, purpose, and audience.


 * Step 2:** “L” represents LIST. Students are taught various techniques of listing information about the topic to be used in sentence generation, ongoing evaluation, and organizational planning.


 * Step 3:** “E” represents EVALUATE. Students are taught how to evaluate if their list is complete and then plan the best way to organize or sequence the ideas that will be used to generate supporting sentences.


 * Step 4:** “A” stands for ACTIVATE the paragraph with a topic sentence. Students are taught how to write a short and simple declarative topic sentence that will “activate” the written idea for the reader.


 * Step 5:** “S” stands for SUPPLY supporting sentences. Students are taught to use items from the list to generate supporting sentences. This allows them to write a single sentence based on an item from their list. Gradually, students enhance the idea by generating clarifying or expansion sentences.


 * Step 6:** “E” represents END with a concluding sentence and EVALUATE their work. That is, they are taught how to rephrase their topic sentence by using synonyms to generate a concluding sentence. This final step also reminds students to evaluate their written work for capitalization, overall appearance, punctuation, and spelling using the “COPS” proofing strategy.

**Implementation Considerations** This strategy can be used in the whole group, individual, and co-taught setting. Teachers can display the acronym around the room so the students can use it as a reference tool.

**Example** [] This website has a worksheet of the acronym PLEASE which can be displayed around the room.

To use PLEASE in the classroom you can have the students pick a topic, brainstorm ideas, narrow the ideas, and begin writing.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the article that is cited below the student Cassie used PLEASE to help with paragraph writing and other writing skills. They used PLEASE as the intervention like our intervention assignment. It was interesting to see Cassie’s progress on the charts and her work that was shown in the article.

**Citation** <span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Milford, T., & Harrison, G. L. (2010). Using the PLEASE Strategy with a Struggling Middle School Writer with a Disability. Intervention In School And Clinic, 45(5), 326-332.