“Say what you are going to say, say it, and finally say what you have said.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this rule for organizing the written word repeated in the educational realm. But rules are meant to be broken. Following this rule consistently will end up putting your readers to sleep. So many formulas to create structure in writing breed boredom instead. Good writing requires movement towards a goal, without being completely predictable.

There are multiple types of graphic organizers to assist the writer in brainstorming: such as branching, bridging, and bubbling. However, consider exactly how the reader would comprehend a composition if you wrote it with one central idea and all the related sub-ideas jutting out in different directions? This would be like constantly returning to home between every leg of a road trip. There is no way to get away from the fact that…