1. Pre-select a text (story, video, etc.) or real-life event for use with the SWBS strategy. The selected text or event may be new or something related to the current unit of study. Provide students with access to the provided SWBS graphic organizer template or have them sketch it in their notebooks.
2. Introduce the purpose of the SWBS strategy and use a recent text or familiar event to model how students use SWBS strategy.
3. Ask students to write down the name of the person in the first column and prior to asking them to complete the second column (Wanted), explain that they will identify what that person is wanting, such as their goal or motivation. Before completing the third column (But), explain that in this column they will identify the conflict, challenge, or barrier to the person’s goal or motivation. Next, explain in the “So” column, they will record what the person or group did in an attempt to resolve the conflict, challenge, or barrier. Finally, before completing the “then” column, explain to students that they will explain the outcome and how the conflict or barrier is resolved.
4. Provide students with opportunities to work together or in small groups while learning the strategy. The goal is to provide scaffolding until students are ready to use the SWBS strategy independently.

• While students may begin with a teacher-provided photocopy of a SWBS graphic organizer template, it should quickly become one that students create independently in their notebooks.
• Preparing students to effectively use the SWBS strategy should be a gradual release process that provides modeling and scaffolding. For example, the teacher may complete the SWBS with the whole class before having students do it with a partner or independently.
• After completing the SWBS, engage students in a Writing to Learn opportunity to summarize their new learning or respond to some of their classmates’ ideas as an Exit Slip for the lesson.
• Consider pairing an Academic Dialogue strategy such as Think-Ink-Pair-Share or Paired Verbal Fluency where students engage in sharing and discussion of their SWBS graphic organizers.

Scaffolds for Multilingual Learners

Entering/Emerging:

• Allow students to access and use vocabulary resources in order to recount, argue, and explain.
• Model how to write a variety of responses.
• Provide examples of what students’ responses might look like.
• Allow students to respond in a variety of ways (e.g., pictures, text, mix of English and home language, etc.).
• Provide sentence stems/frames and graphic organizers.
• Bold key vocabulary words for students to use to identify icons and match key terms and ideas to images, graphs, icons or diagrams.
• Allow students to access and use vocabulary resources and tools, such as anchor charts, word walls, word banks, and personal dictionaries (including images).
• Chunk the text to make it more accessible for students to sequence events, identify patterns, and locate main ideas.
• When watching videos, turn on captions.

Developing/Expanding:

• Model how to write a variety of responses (e.g., how to compare/contrast, describe a central idea, describe relationships between details or examples and supporting ideas, connect content-related themes or topics to main ideas).
• Provide examples of information presented objectively with a neutral tone.
• Provide graphic organizers.
• Pair this strategy with Main Idea–Detail Frame to help them identify topic sentences, main ideas, and details
• Pair this strategy with ALM’s Interactive Read Aloud–Think Aloud strategy in order to support students’ comprehension of texts for the purpose of recounting, arguing, explaining and/or discussing.

Bridging/Reaching:

• Provide examples of students’ responses.
• Model how to write a concluding statement that follows from and supports the information presented.
• Model how to convey sequence and show relationships among experiences and events.
• Pair this strategy with Main Idea–Detail Frame in order to support students’ comprehension of texts for the purpose of recounting, arguing, explaining and/or discussing.
• Pair this strategy with Text Coding with Margin Notes, Double Entry Organizer (DEO), Anticipation Guide, and Jigsaw to assist in comprehension of texts.