Wells encourages them to deepen their understandings by asking them to share their perspectives, to consider the author's perspective, and to make comparisons with characters in other pieces of literature and in life. Soon the strategies for successful group participation and literary discussion become part of their learning repertoire. Wells provides another strategy that helps students do the work, an assessment guide or rubric. She uses guides not only to assess writing assignments and projects, but also to help students work through group discussions. As the year progresses, Wells includes students in developing the guides, which gives them an even deeper understanding of what is expected to complete the task well.
Students learn to plan their thinking before writing by using various graphic organizers.
Wells asks students to share with their groups the strategies they use to organize their thoughts before writing. Wells lists these on poster board, adds missing strategies, and posts the list in the room. She encourages students to try different strategies throughout the year. Wells also supports the students as they learn to think more deeply about literature in general and characterization in particular. Often she focuses on helping students identify and develop important questions as a way of scaffolding or supporting thinking.