Category Archives: teachers doing student assignments

How to encourage kids to write

Posted on January 31, 2019 | Leave a comment

The best way to improve your writing is to write more.  Writing is a skill which improves with practice.  But how do you get kids to practice writing?

The blog Daily Writing Tips offers ten ways.  Let me paraphrase a few of them.

Encourage students to read, read, read.  Reading isn’t writing, true.  But if students read widely, they encounter all kinds of writing styles.  Subconsciously they discern what is good writing.

Encourage students to write stories for younger kids. If students are in third grade, have them write for kindergarteners, using themes and words kindergarteners understand.  By doing so, students consider audience, style of writing, how complicated to make the plot, what kinds of characters to include, the setting—all elements of stories.

Encourage students to keep going even if they know there are mistakes.  Professional writers don’t stop to fix every mistake as they write.  No, they know they will go back later and fix mistakes.  Once students are in the “flow” of writing, they should push on.

Encourage students to keep journals and to share those journals.  With partners or in small groups they can share their writing and receive feedback.  Positive feedback is so important to motivate a student to keep writing.

Encourage students to ask for help.  Some parents think students should write alone and confer with a teacher only when the writing is done.  Wrong.  Conferring during the writing process allows students to ask questions about verb tenses, a better way to say something, the meaning of a word, and plot possibilities.  The teacher becomes not the judge but the helper.

And I would add an idea of my own.  Write with students.  Ask them questions as you write, so they can see you welcome their help.  Share your writing when it is done, warts and all.  Model the behavior you hope they will use with you.  Let them help you.

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Posted in Read more to write better, teachers doing student assignments, teaching writing, word choice, writing problems, writing tips

What if teachers write along with students?

Posted on March 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

Many times when I ask students to respond to short answer questions, to write summaries or even to write essays, I write too.  This “me too” approach has advantages.

I can test whether the assignment is doable. Recently I gave my fifth grade students a reading passage with a follow-up question requiring that the students supply two details from the passage to answer the question.  I could easily find one detail, but two?  The students had problems too.  Together we discussed this problem and figured out how to write an answer.  I recognized that their frustration was genuine, acknowledged that, and worked as a partner to solve the writing problem.  Sometimes I chuck the assignment altogether and give a different one.

If I suspect students might be struggling with a particular aspect of the writing—how to start, for example—I can offer several possibilities, and I can read my possibilities aloud, asking for students for advice as to which one I should choose. We can discuss the merits of each.  Or a student could say, “Here’s how I did it,” and read her solution aloud.  I am seen as more of a collaborator than a know-it-all teacher.  For some students, this can make me more approachable when they struggle with writing problems.  When I was in high school, I was assigned homework which would take two hours nightly in just one subject. By my doing the writing assignment with my students, I can judge how much time the assignment takes, and break the assignment into parts.

Students can listen to my vocabulary and sentence openings. They can listen for sentences of various lengths.  They can decide whether my “hook” hooks and whether my conclusion picks up on the introduction.  They can see how I use transitions, dialog, details and examples.  They can see how I incorporate the writing concepts which we talk about all the time.  And all this I do on a piece of writing which they are working on.  I give them a model which they can aspire to.

Of course, with some students my time is better spent discussing each sentence as they write it, making reminders as they go along, and praising attempts which flop.

But sometimes my example speaks louder than words.

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, teachers doing student assignments