Teaching Writing
Writing is such an important skill. From legible penmanship to clearly expressed ideas, our students have a lot to learn to become efficient writers. Knowing what to teach is sometimes just as difficult as figuring out how to teach it! Each year, each class, each group of students is different and how we are teaching writing should be adjusted to accommodate those differences.
First, it's important to evaluate our students' abilities so we know where to start. One easy way to evaluate is to provide a topic and have them write about the topic. The more experienced they are as writers, the more organized and clear the writing should be. Simple sentences, incomplete sentences or lack of clear thought show that these students need to learn or review sentence fundamentals before moving on to paragraph writing, writing an essay and longer papers.
A good place to start teaching writing to any group of students is the writing process. Teaching the writing process helps students not feel overwhelmed by the task of writing.
Part of teaching writing is also teaching the use of transitions, rules of English grammar, punctuation rules and spelling rules. When students have access to this information, they can not only revise and edit their own writing, but can be involved in peer editing as well.
Teaching the Writing Process
This is a great place to start for any level of writer. The writing process organizes writing from the beginning and leads to amazing final drafts.
Sentence fundamentals
The rules of writing a complete thought into a complete sentence are fundamental to any extended writing.