The Hochman Method
Writing instruction that begins at the sentence level, then builds to paragraphs and, eventually, full essays.
The Hochman Method treats writing as a teachable skill rather than a talent. Students learn to build strong sentences deliberately: starting small, then expanding them, combining them, and using conjunctions. The work only moves to paragraphs and essays once the student has a solid understanding of how to form sentences.
Students who freeze at a blank page, who vocalize full paragraphs but write in fragments, or whose ideas outrun their ability to organize them on paper. It pairs naturally with structured literacy work, since reading and writing instruction reinforce each other.
No blank pages. We start with a single sentence stem ("Frogs are amphibians, so...") and finish it in three different ways. Sentence expansion with who, when, where, and why. Small, visible moves, and a page of sentences the student wrote themselves to reference at home.
“When you shrink the task down to one good sentence, the fear goes with it. The essays take care of themselves later.”