Teaching Writing: First, Teach Writers!
Want to know the best strategies for teaching writing? It's not always about a writing process lesson plan that gets children writing...it's about keeping the writer first!
Often teachers become caught up in the mechanics of writing or intervening with poor writing skills. We sometimes forget the writer.
Improving writing skills in our young learners can only happen through teaching writing skills effectively, providing daily practice in different writing genres, and getting them to see themselves as writers.
We want our student to develop good writing skills. However, even the most effective writing skills might not convey a child's natural love for expressing himself through words.
Teachers need to bring back the romance to our writing curriculum. Let's get our children writing because they love it!
1. Teach Writers, Not Writing
What happens in your classroom during "writing time" has everything to do with you. Your beliefs, attitudes and biases about writing will show up in every lesson or activity you teach. If you can show and inspire passion for writing, your students will latch onto that. If your teaching writing involves mostly pre-fabricated journal responses and story starters, grammar and skills work, and lots of organizers, you have not inspired passion - you inflated the boredom factor.
Skills, processes and techniques are tools for a writer, but they are not what brings them to write in the first place. Don't diminish the importance of these, but your students - your writers - are the integral part of your classroom. These tools help children to turn their rich life experiences and imaginations into a piece of work that expresses themselves and their beliefs.
This is particularly important for teaching ESL writing. These students bring a wealth of experiences to your classroom - many that you may not understand or have any first-hand knowledge of. Getting them to write or draw may be an avenue for you to share their experiences.
2. Writers Must Connect Their Writing to Real "Stuff."
Children want to write about what matters to themDon't insult your students by providing prompts for them to respond to all the time. While those have their place (such as Achievement Tests), we should allow our students to feel our approval for their ideas, thoughts, fantasies and issues.The best writing comes from personal experiences
3. Teaching Writing and Writers Must Be A Mixture of Ideas and Techniques
A teacher's instruction must center around live writers. That means that you, the teacher, must constantly model writing, share your ideas, and expose some of your own thoughts to your students.
Lots and lots of literature samples read aloudTalking about writing everydayLoads of practice with your writing process lesson plansIndependently initiated writing experiencesTeacher initiated writing experiencesGuided WritingStudents writing independently, in pairs, small groups and whole classConferencing with teachers and peersTargeted mini-lessons to improve effective writing skillsMany opportunities to share finished and unfinished pieces
4. Writers Must Feel Safe
Your students need to feel safe to explore their ideas and know that you will treat their writing with integrity and respect. If you want them to write, this is one of the key strategies for teaching writing.
Kids must feel valuedLower the stress of writing: ideas, thoughts and creativity take precedence over mechanics in the initial stagesIt is serious work: balance the joy of writing with the discipline it takes to produce a quality final copy (the final Provide loads of stimulation (help them see that their experiences provide endless ideas and thoughts that are worthy to write about)Provide plenty of time to write, create and explore wordsRemove the competition, judgements and restrictive writing pieces that strangle fluent writingModel good writing together through guided writing (do this often!)Always create an avenue to share: this shows the students that you feel their writing is importantProvide direction that is challenging but feels safe for the students to try - you accomplish this through repeated examples, sharing of writing pieces, and guided writing
5. Romance Your Writers
Just as you want your students to connect their reading to themselves and the world, their writing must be connected to actual experiences. Make something happen to loosen the words inside their headsRealize that many children are lacking sufficient background knowledge to create a piece that is meaningful from a topic you chooseYour students need to be overloaded with material they can use before ever putting the pencil to paperSaturate their brains with books, artwork, science, field trips - any experience can lend itself to elementary writing activitiesRomance = eagerness, comfort and confidenceNo romance = panic, stalemate, lack of confidence, no risk-taking
6. Remember that Writing is a Process
It is not a process that has to be followed in the exact order all the time.Always start with romancing your writersDon't overdo the romance while teaching writing!Sometimes you don't need to go through all the "steps"At times you need to focus on just one step and teach it wellProcess takes time - one lesson on how to revise a piece of writing is ineffective. It takes time and repetitionThere is a time and place for skills and mechanics. We need to use these good writing skills to make our writing accessible to othersNever expect every piece to be a finished productIf a student doesn't get one part of the writing process in your room, so what? You are not the be all, end all for that child. Remember, it takes timeAlways be supportive of their attempts at each stage - if you aren't, they may never try again for youDon't forget that we write to share with others. Allow your students to share often, as their peers opinions often matter more than yours to them
Trust your students and yourself. Relax and enjoy teaching children creative writing. The more you love it, the more your students will.
Return to Top: Teaching Writing
Teaching Writing to Children: 4 Stages
Kindergarten Writing Activities
Journal Writing Ideas
Creative Writing Ideas: Romancing the Writer
Creative Writing Prompts and Story Starters
Creative Story Ideas
Paragraph Structure: StopLight Writing
Writing a Five Paragraph Essay
Quotes About Writing
Go to Six Trait Writing Process
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