Teaching writing is a crucial aspect of the educational process. It plays a vital role in developing students’ communication skills and critical thinking abilities. Effective teaching strategies and engaging writing activities can facilitate students’ growth as confident writers.
Scaffold the Writing Requirements When Teaching Writing
It’s crucial to take baby steps in the writing process. It’s overwhelming for students to see a rubric that has the end-of-the-year expectations given to them at the beginning of the year. It’s essential to pick up where they left off last school year and slowly incorporate the new grade level’s requirements when teaching writing. It’s also important not to expect your students to do everything in a writing assignment all at once. If you hand back a writing assignment all marked up, it can stifle creativity.
As I grade the essays in the beginning, I try not to focus too much on conventions. I use those as extra points that the students can earn to give incentives for using proper punctuation and grammar. I have found that if you focus too much on spelling or capitalization, this also stifles students’ creativity. My focus is on what my students are writing.
How to Scaffold Writing When Teaching Writing
Don’t pile everything on students all at once when you are teaching writing. You should be adding one or two additional requirements each time a new essay is introduced. Once you introduce a concept, students should be held accountable for the concepts you taught. If it appears that the majority of the class does not understand the concept, do not hold them accountable and then reteach the concept. When you present a new requirement for the essay, choose interesting and relatable topics for your students.
Then there are times you may need to take a step back and choose a topic that may not be as interesting. Make sure you do not introduce new requirements during that essay. This prepares the students to write about topics that they are not interested in. Students must learn how to do that.
It’s also import to increase the length of the essays little by little. Don’t expect your students to write a five-paragraph essay at the beginning of the school year. By shortening the length of the essay, it will allow students to focus on the quality of their writing. I’ve used the phrase “quality over quantity” throughout my writing workshop. This will be beneficial to your students’ writing skills later on in the school year.
Model Your Expectations When Teaching Writing
In order to effectively teach writing, it is essential to provide students with models demonstrating the writing process to improve student writing. By providing them with clear examples of the writing process, students can gain a better understanding of the necessary skills and techniques. These examples should be filled with obstacles to let students learn from strategies that will transfer to and improve their writing. This approach empowers them to enhance their own writing abilities and produce higher-quality written work.
Teaching Writing Tips Recap:
- Choose interesting and relatable topics when introducing new requirements.
- Scaffold the requirements to your students.
- Model your expectations to your students.
- Increase the length of the essay slowly.
- Focus on what they are writing, rather than conventions.
