Everyone knows students need to learn to write, and that means we have to teach writing. But how? Here are just a few quick tips to get you started as you prepare for the coming school year!
Teach Writing Tip #1: Set Aside Time for Writing
You can’t teach someone to ride a bike without having the learner actually on the bike. The same works for writing. If students are going to learn to write, they are going to have to spend a great deal of time writing.
Set aside time. It doesn’t take a lot. Even just 10 minutes a day or so will do the trick.
Have it be at a predictable time, and be consistent.
Tip #2: Choose Great Writing Prompts
Good and great writing prompts never ask a question that can be answered with a one-word answer. For example:
What’s your favorite color? Why?
Do you feel like writing a ton? Yeah… me neither.
Instead, the best writing prompts inspire students to write by being more complex. There a few decent ways to do this.
One way is to ask students to write about a past experience.
“Write about a time you enjoyed eating a really good dessert.”
A curriculum my district used for summer school used this strategy, and it worked really well! Since then, I’ve determined to use it as well.
A second good prompt strategy is to pick an engaging picture and ask students to describe it. They could also choose to invent a story to go along with it.
The last type of prompt students enjoy involves having them finish a story. You don’t have to give a lot of story to lead them in. Just a short, “A goat ate my shoe, so I…” can get students thinking and concocting an interesting short story.
If you would like to try these types of writing prompts, subscribe to my email list to try my free 30 Days of Writing. I use all 3 of these types of writing prompts.
Tip #3: Give Frequent Helpful Feedback
To teach writing, you need to critique the writing of students. Use feedback to reinforce student writing.
When you have students writing for those 10 minutes each day, you can give feedback a few different ways.
I like to give feedback in the moment. I walk around with a highlighter and look for specific examples of good writing. Usually, I’m looking for examples of great descriptor words, but you can highlight whatever skill you choose.
You can also give feedback afterwards. They can turn in their journals and you can write them notes to explain what you liked about their writing, as well as what you would like to see them improve the next day.
So, How Do I Teach Writing?
Just remember these 3 quick tips:
- Set aside time for writing
- Choose great writing prompts
- Give frequent helpful feedback
Check out this article on some quick classroom management tips!
