International Diploma in Pre & Primary Teachers Traning

Chapter 8. Teaching Writing Old tricks and New Ideas

As a teacher it is a dream comes true if your learners write, write well – and enjoy writing!
Teaching writing at any stage can be made fun if the teacher follows the right tactics. To
teach writing, the person needs to love writing too!

Writing begins with a toddler scribbling on the clean walls of the house with different shades
of the markers and the scolding from the mother may be his first lesson of life that writing is
bad! So the resistance begins and the teacher may begin with this baggage! So getting ready
would mean that you need to be enthusiastic about writing and this needs to be contagious
enough to be energizing the writers.

Why Is Writing Important?

This is the first big question we need to ask. Why should we focus on young children's writing
in the first place? Isn't reading the primary focus in the early grades?

The truth is, reading and writing go hand in hand. As a child develops confidence in his/her
ability to express through writing, his/her confidence in reading soars as well. Reading and
writing is a reciprocal process.

Writing connects to reading in three major ways. When students practice writing, they begin
to develop the following skills:

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• Decoding and spelling

• Comprehension

• Analyzing

Let's look at these skills one at a time.

• Decoding and spelling: Learning about the writing process teaches students how
letters become words, which become sentences, which become paragraphs, which
become stories. This important knowledge helps students with both decoding and
spelling skills, and they apply these skills to their reading.

• Comprehension: Brainstorming ideas (as we do when we create a bubble map) helps

with comprehension as students learn to put together ideas and build new
connections and vocabulary words. They apply these comprehension skills as they
read—learning to pull apart the different components of a story.

Getting a pet

(Brain-storm the vocabulary words in the boxes)

• Analyzing: Learning about the writing process helps students become aware of how
writers create text, which helps with those crucial analytic skills. Once they can
identify what a story is about—either a story they want to write or a story they read—
they can begin analyzing the big ideas and themes in the story.

Decoding and spelling, comprehension, and analyzing—these are the ways writing works in
tandem with reading to develop important skills students will apply throughout their lives.
But there's another reason it's important to massage and strengthen students' writing skills in
the early grades . . .

Preparing Students to Think of Themselves as Writers

We also teach young children the writing process and respect their work—regardless of
where they are developmentally—because this boosts their confidence and prepares them to
begin thinking of themselves as writers.

And this is the goal. We want all of our children to think of themselves as writers—the 5-year-
olds as well as the 9-year-olds.

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Oftentimes, young children struggle with fine-motor control, or they come from homes
where reading and writing aren't regular activities, or they're still in the process of mastering
the alphabet. There are all sorts of challenges young children face when it comes to writing. A
teacher’s job is to address these challenges and work with students to overcome their
weaknesses. But it's also our responsibility to praise students for their strengths—to make
them realize that they are writers. They have something to say, and we're interested in
reading it.

Let's take a moment to think about the role writing plays in our lives as adults.

How Does Writing Help Us?

There are lots of ways writing is helpful:

• We write things we might not feel comfortable saying.

• We can communicate with people who don't live nearby.

• We can organize our ideas and get a visual image of the thoughts in our head.

• We can share our stories.

• We can create lists.

Speaking of lists, this list could go on and on, couldn't it? There are so many benefits of
writing, and they seep into every part of our lives . . . Personally, professionally, and
emotionally.

And what's true for us is true for children.

When we teach children to write—and to respect their own writing skills and talents—we're
not simply preparing them for the upper elementary grades. We're also giving them tools to
succeed in life. Children watch their parents write on the family calendar, write checks,
emails, grocery lists, reminder notes, and so on. And long before kindergarten, children begin
to practice holding a crayon and writing their own messages.

First, of course, children send messages through oral language. So let's look at the role of oral
language in writing.

Oral Language Leads to Writing

Most of the students in our classrooms know how to use oral language to get what they
want. When they're hungry, they ask for a snack. When they aren't feeling well, they let us
know.

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Research shows that the students with the best oral language skills also have the best reading
and writing skills. Oral language helps students develop vocabulary and concepts,
communicate meaning, and communicate with others.

So while we want to focus on reading and writing, we also want to pay special attention to
building students' oral language skills. How do we do this? By talking to them, reading to
them, modeling storytelling techniques, encouraging them to perform, play music, and
engage in rhythm activities and word plays (like riddles and tongue twisters). And then we
provide opportunities for students to share verbally and practice using oral language to
communicate.

Students then take these oral language skills and begin to play around with sounds and
letters. Also, students begin to realize that when the teacher is reading a book, the teacher is
reading the words in the book and not the pictures or a story that she's making up. They
recognize that the words will say the same thing every time the book is read. This is a child's
first understanding of the relationship between spoken and written language, and it's
called print awareness.

Strategies for Growing Young Writers

Now that we've talked about why writing is important, it's time to talk about some strategies
we can use in our classrooms to help grow young writers. Here are the three biggies:

• Provide role models.

• Celebrate students' writing.

• Meet students where they are.

Let's take a look!

Provide Role Models

There are several simple ways to introduce role models to your students. These methods
don't require you to go out and purchase expensive materials—and as you're going to see,
these are probably things that you're currently doing in your classroom.

• Favorite authors: The first role models we're going to talk about are sitting on your
bookshelves. They're the authors that are appropriate for the age group- it could be
Roald Dahl, J.K Rowling , Ruskin Bond, Kenneth Graham to name a few . When you
read books to your class, take a few minutes to introduce the authors. Children love to
know about the people who wrote their favorite books. They like to hear details about

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the authors' lives—where they were born, what they enjoyed doing when they were
children, why they decided to become writers.

The teacher - You: You? Yes, you! The teacher is arguably the students' most
important role model for seven or eight hours each day. So let your students see you
writing. This demonstrates that writing is important to you. You might like to write on
the overhead

Projector or the chalkboard. Model thinking aloud as you write, crossing out words
that you don't like or inserting sentences to make your point clearer. Read aloud from
your personal journal, modelling how you used your journal to brainstorm and jot
down ideas and lists and drawings of your thoughts.

And of course, you can do more than just model writing for your students. You can also share
the writing process with them. You might want to schedule time each day or week where
you're all writing together. And as you write together, you can talk to them about what
they're thinking about as they compose. This provides invaluable information that your
students can use as they write and evolve as writers!

Celebrate Students' Writing

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Celebrating isn't reserved for birthdays and the last day of school. Find reasons to celebrate
students' efforts every day.

It's easy to get hung up on the negatives—where you failed as a teacher, where a specific
student is struggling, where you wish you could find another way in to reach a student. But
the positives are there every single day, represented in our students' creative and inspired
work. And as you know, celebrating students' successes is what encourages them to produce
more, work harder, and create their very best work.

Our goal for young writers is twofold:

• We want them to see writing as fun.

• We want them to see themselves as successful writers.

And celebrating where students are getting it "right" will go a long way to accomplish both of
these goals. Besides, we never know who's sitting in our classrooms. Maybe the person
sitting next to you is the budding future bestselling author!

Often, when a teacher begins to teach writing the focus is on the mechanics, such as correct
capitalization, punctuation, complete sentences, and correct spelling. Whereas the focus
should be on the content, ideas and enjoyment. Correcting the form often takes the fun out
of writing.

Focus on the positives. Say something encouraging – reward with a smile.

Does this mean that you don't point out the mistakes or help the child recognize how he or
she can improve? Of course not

But like your students, you need to find a creative (and positive) way to point out
weaknesses. You don't have to point out every mistake. Just focus on what's most important,
and save the rest for another time.

For instance, if you have a student who isn't particularly excited about writing or confident in
his skills—a student who only writes one sentence and uses the rest of the page to draw a
picture—you might praise the child on the writing and tell him that you'd like to see him fill
the whole page with his beautiful sentences because you want to know more about his
thoughts. (He has such interesting things to say!)

And this leads to our next strategy for growing young writers . . .

Meet Students Where They Are- Make a set of sequential expectations that allow students to
succeed at their developmental stage. Each morning when the students come in, ask them to

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write in their journals.

s. Post different topic s on the writing chart each day, and the students
write about that topic.

Let's look at the steps how the process takes place:

1. Draw a picture.

2. Label the picture with the beginning sound.

3. Label the picture with the beginning and end

ending sounds.

4. Label the picture with the beginning, ending, and vowel sounds.

5. Label the picture with two words.

6. Write a complete sentence to go with the picture.

7. Write two to three sentences to go with the picture.

8. Add sparkle words to your sentences ((sparkle words are adjectives or adverbs).

Note You probably noticed in the example to the right has

several of the words are spelled incorrectly. That's okay. These
young writers are using inventive spelling, which is a
technique that all early writers use to spell words. It's a
combination of the sounds they hear in spoken language. Do
not discourage them from writing.

The teacher’s writing expectations needs to be based on what her students are capable of
doing. When they were ready to move to the next level
level,, she may increase her expectations.
This allows her to celebrate each student's accomplishments. And these steps also make it
easy for her to quickly see where her students were on the continuum and where they
needed to work.

Case studies: Teachers in Action

tion

There's nothing more enjoyable than observing teachers in action. Watching how they
interact with their students, can be inspiring. Let's meet a few teachers, and see how they're
incorporating writing in their classrooms!

Meeting Students Where They Are

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Ms B’s enthusiasm for learning is infectious—she really knows how to get her students
excited about learning. They begin journal writing on the very first day of class. She
celebrates every child's writing and writes their message at the bottom of each page of their
journal so they can share it with their parents.

This week is Fire Prevention Week, and Ms. B read The Three Bears to her class and led a
discussion about fire safety. (Mama Bear leaves the porridge on the stove, and this is a great
reminder that we all need to be extra careful around fire!)

Her class writing assignment is to create a poster with a safety rule on it for Goldilocks to
follow. She has three objectives for her students:

• I can use a capital letter for proper nouns.

• I can use an exclamation mark to show expression.

• I can read with expression.

Ms. B has different expectations for students depending on what she knows about their
developmental skills. One student is creating a lengthy list of advice for Goldilocks. Another
student is copying the rule from the board. A third student traces over the command that Ms
.B dictated to him!

So, these students are all working at different levels.

Ms. B is very careful to celebrate each writer's success. And by the end of her lesson, every
student has met her three objectives.

Connecting Reading to Writing

Meet Ms K. She's been a teacher for 12 years, and she

knows a lot about connecting reading to writing. She
constantly asks her students to write about books they've
been reading, which range from book reports to summaries
to character analysis.

To get the day off to a great start, Ms K begins each class

with a Morning Message. This is a message that the students
write together as a class, and the message focuses on an
event that's going to happen that day or something exciting
that the students learned about the day before.

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Before they write anything, the students agree on what to say, and they say
the entire message orally. Ms K asks the students to come up one at a time
and write on the board.

She asks each student to write what she knows they are able to do
successfully.

Today, the class is excited about the Pizza party they'll be having this
afternoon. Here's the message they've decided to write:

Today is July 30, 2014. We are going to have a party this afternoon.

Let's listen in on part of her lesson.

Ms K: T-o-d-a-y (saying the word slowly). What letter does that word start with?

Jonathan: T.

Ms K: That's correct. Will you come up and write a T on our chart?

As Jonathan comes to the front of the room, she asks the class, "Will the T in today be an
uppercase letter or a lowercase letter?"

Class: Uppercase because it starts the sentence.

Ms K: That's right. Please write an uppercase T in the air as Jonathan writes it on our chart.

The class continues in a similar fashion, each student contributing to the message until it's
complete. Then Ms K selects a student to come up and point to each word with the special
pointer as the class reads aloud in unison.

Each day, Ms K picks specific skills that she wishes to

focus on. These skills are usually weaknesses that she's
noticed in her students' writing. Here's a look at some
of the skills Ms K covers with the Morning Message:

• Writing is speech written down

• Proper letter formation

• Uppercase and lowercase letter recognition

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• Associating letters with sounds

• Left to right progression

• Differentiating between letters, words, and sentences

• Reading common sight words

• Spacing

• Punctuation

Of course, she only covers a few of these skills each day, but
over a week's time, she covers them all.

Celebrating Students as Authors

This is Ms R. She's been teaching second grade for five years,

and her students look forward to writing every day in her
class. How does Ms R generate this kind of enthusiasm for
writing? She celebrates their success as writers, and she
encourages her students to think of themselves as authors!

At the beginning of the school year, the students each create a writing journal. Ms R devotes
a lot of time to this project, because she wants her students to take pride in their writing, She
knows that if they're proud of the beautiful journals they create, they'll want to fill them with
writing that they're proud of.

The students write in the journals every day. At the end of each writing period, Ms R
celebrates her students' writing by asking one or two to come to the front of the room and sit
in the special author's chair to share what they've written. At the end of the reading,
everyone claps and the author calls on three students to ask a question about the story or to
make a positive comment. You can imagine that the students eagerly await their day to share
with the class.

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Providing Role Models

Mr. P tries to incorporate writing throughout his curriculum. One of the things he loves most
about teaching writing is sharing his enthusiasm for authors' work. He loves to get his
students excited about the books they're reading and he wants all his students to recognize
that they too are authors (and perhaps one day, they'll be published authors).

Mr. P chooses the books he reads carefully. Today he's reading Charlotte's Web by E.B.
White. As he starts the book, he points out the exciting hook at the beginning of the story:
"Where's Papa going with that axe?" A few pages later, he reads the sentence, "Don't just
stand there, Wilbur! Dodge about, dodge about!" When the students' laugher finally
subsides, Mr. P rereads the passage and points out White's wonderful use of language. The
kids discuss how much funnier "Dodge about, dodge about" is than simply "Run, Wilbur!"

Later in the day, when the third-graders begin a writing assignment, Mr. P challenges them to
include an exciting hook at the beginning of their entry. He reminds them of the hook
in Charlotte's Web and how this hook made them all want to find out what would happen.

It is essential that students are deeply involved in writing, that they share their texts with
others, and that they perceive themselves as authors.
—Lucy Calkins, The Art of Teaching
Writing

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Know and Encourage Your Students

Before you begin a journey, it's always nice to know who you're traveling with. Likewise, the
more time you spend getting to know your students, the more enjoyable the writing journey
will be for both of you. At the beginning of the year, it's important to set aside some time to
discover your students' interests and find ways to motivate them to write. This determines
the types of writers that they evolve as. Let us look at the types of writers.

Types of Writers

Typically, two types of writers will emerge at the beginning of the school year: the creative
writers and the report writers.

Creative Writers

There's good news about creative writers—they're not afraid of writing! These students are
usually eager to write, know how to use lots of descriptive adjectives, create interesting and
intriguing papers, and use long and colorful sentences. They'll be the ones who'll write
creative, imaginative, and often funny stories about their older sisters, family members, and
pets. Creative writers may or may not pay attention to spelling, punctuation, or grammar, but
they'll usually be eager to share and first to volunteer to read the piece aloud.

Creative writers have one drawback, though. Usually, they're reluctant to write anything
other than a creative, narrative story. Whenever you ask them to write reports, persuasive
pieces, or position pieces, they'll probably get stuck in writer's block.

So, creative writers are usually the first to get started, but you'll need to nurture and cultivate
them to become more diverse. Right from the start, try varying writing tasks.

Report Writers

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Report writers are strong writers and readers (often of biographies and nonfiction books).
Typically, they prefer to write about facts, concepts, dates, details, and other people. They
pay close attention to the actual mechanics of writing, having a keen sense of grammar,
punctuation, and writing structure.

These writers are also good at gathering, synthesizing, summarizing, and incorporating
information. They can also locate and determine which facts are most essential and are
comfortable using a good number of reference materials. Also, these students are
sophisticated writers and are usually eager to engage in writing across curriculum areas.

However, as eager as these writers are to report on concepts and facts, they're reluctant to
write creative narratives. Personal narratives are just too exposing.

So, report writers need constant encouragement to tell personal stories rather than use other
people's voices. By asking questions, showing interest, and varying writing tasks, we can help
report writers develop their personal voices and become more diverse as writers.

So these are the students who really like to write, especially with certain forms of writing. But
there's one more type of writer we haven't talked about yet—the overall reluctant writer.

As you know, not every child likes to write. Some students don't feel comfortable or
confident with any part of writing, whether it's creative, biographical, or report writing. How
do we reach them?

Techniques for Encouraging and Motivating

All writers need encouragement and motivation, so we need to discover and make the most
of what connects with our students.

One very effective way to get students motivated is to use creative writing journals. A journal
may be something as simple as a spiral notebook, a blank book, or the fancier type from a
bookstore. Whatever the type, journals are a great way to motivate students to begin writing
because they allow kids to write about their own experiences and feelings. This will help
them develop their writer's voice, because their individual personalities will show.

Set aside a little time each day for students to write in their journals. Many teachers provide
a focus for journal writing. This can be helpful; however, journals also need to be a means for
wondering, thinking, and practicing. In other words, use journal writing to let your students
free-write or write for fun as well as for focused writing.

Another idea for motivating your students is, at the beginning of the school year (or
whenever you begin writing instruction), to have them create lists of favorite topics they
want to write about. When you allow students to choose topics from their own lists, they
begin to take ownership of their writing and connect writing with things they like.

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Here are some other ideas useful in encouraging students to write:

• Establish a writing routine, and write every day.

• Remember to share and model your own writing with students.
• Establish a community of writers by celebrating writing! Let students know that their
stories are interesting and important.
One easy way to accomplish this is to have students design a writing display with their
selected work.

You can also get parents involved in motivating their children. At the parent orientation,
encourage parents to:

• Let their children see them writing, and share their writing with their kids.
• Have writing materials available. Keep a variety of paper, pencils, pens, and even
notebooks around the house.
• Share a variety of print materials with their children.
• Talk about writing and encourage their child to share.

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The Basics of Teaching Writing

Can you identify with this teacher's experience?

Classroom Scenario
"All right, class, in the next 20 minutes, I want you to write a paragraph describing your
favorite holiday spent so far. Ready? Okay, get started!"

Ms. J looks on as a number of her students eagerly start writing. However, she's troubled to
see several kids staring blankly into space.

She approaches them and quietly asks, "Is something the matter?"

Each student gives her a similar answer: "I don't know what to write" . . . "I don't know how
to start."

Now Ms. J is really puzzled, because she thought all she had to do was pick something her
students would be interested in, and they'd have no trouble writing about it.

Sound familiar? Who hasn't faced a room full of reluctant and apprehensive writers? What
the students in this scenario are experiencing is writer's block. Getting started is the most

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difficult stage in the writing process. And although Ms. J designed an interesting and student-
centered task, the students are still reluctant to tell their story.

How can we help our students get started—and keep going? A good place to begin is with the
basics of teaching writing. Once this is covered, a teacher’s task—and a students' work—will
be much easier.

Three factors that writing involves are:

1. The writing task

2. The audience

3. The purpose

A teacher must not only carefully consider these three components when developing the
lessons, but must also relate them directly to the students. When the students understand
what task, audience, and purpose mean, the class will have a common language for
discussing writing assignments. It's also important to remember that compared to the
younger age group 9- to 12-year-olds to adults are concrete thinkers. They learn best when
you can give them a direct experience.

Here's an example of how to teach these three writing basics using an interactive approach.

When the students arrive, have the room arranged like a highway winding through our
classroom. The road can be made of black trash bags, and yellow tape made a good center
line. Explain that today was the first day of their writing journey! Assure them that there
would be many stops along the way, but when they arrive at the end of the road, they would
be expert writers.

A volunteer "traveler" sits on a chair at the beginning of the highway. Then three more
volunteers acts out the first stop in our journey. The# more volunteers get cue cards that say
T-A- P: T for task, A for audience, and P for purpose. What do they spell when they stand
together? TAP!

T stands for task. Your task tells you what you're supposed to write about.
A stands for audience. It tells you who will read your writing. It could be your teacher, your
classmates, or someone from the world outside our classroom.
P stands for purpose. The purpose tells you why you're writing. You might write to inform,
explain, describe, or entertain.

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Explain that every time the students write remember the motto TAP: stick to the task,
remember your audience, and write with the correct purpose in mind. Then make sure that
the writers write the task, audience, and purpose for each writing assignment at the top of
the paper.

Now that you have an idea for how to teach your students about task, audience, and
purpose, let's get into the particulars of how you go about planning each of these basics.

The Task

The task, or actual writing activity, is very important, because if we design it effectively, it
promotes and encourages writing. When designing the task, we need to consider several
critical elements.

First, make it simple. Do not overwhelm students. The task should be something simple
enough for any student to be able to respond to. For example, you wouldn't want to begin by
assigning a lengthy research report. Rather, design the task so that it capitalizes on something
common to all students, such as their favorite foods, colors, or animals. Here are a couple of
ideas:

• What's the most interesting and unique dessert you ever ate? Write a paragraph
about the dessert.
• Choose one color to paint the classroom walls. Write a paragraph about why the color
would be great for the classroom.

Second, the task should be concise, interesting, and fun. Wouldn't you like to do the
following activities if you were a young writer?

• You have been selected to pick a new school or house mascot! Write a paragraph
describing what this new mascot will be and what it will look like. Be sure to give it a
name. Draw a picture of the mascot to go with your paragraph.
• If you were a famous singer and could sing any song, which song would you choose?
Write a paragraph about why you selected the song. Be sure to include the name of
the song and a few of its words.

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Last, provide an interesting prop or one to two lead-in sentences. Here are two examples of a
writing task, both intended for the beginning of the school year. Which one would you want
to do if you were a student?

Task 1
Look around the classroom. Pick an object and describe it. Write a paragraph
about the object in your notebook.

Task 2
Look around the classroom. Use your notebook to jot down
some interesting and unusual objects. Now take a second look
around the room. Pick one thing that you think is most unusual
and most interesting. Describe the object, but don't reveal
what it is. Later, you'll share what you wrote, and the rest of us
will try to identify the object.

Be sure to write at least one paragraph. Use as many descriptive adjectives as

possible to create a clear picture of the object for others. Here's an example:
"The object I selected is flat and large. It's mostly red, black, and white. It's hard
on the outside. It's shiny and slick. The left side of the object has a plastic spiral.
The right side can be opened. The inside contains many sheets of paper that can
be used for writing or drawing."

Compared to Task 1, Task 2 is more intriguing and interesting. It focuses on something

common to all students and encourages them to engage immediately. It uses the classroom
as a common prop. And it involves everyone and provides an example or model.
Comparatively Task 1, is dull and uninvolving. It presents a chore, while Task 2 invites writing.

The Audience

The audience is dynamic and changes with each writing task. For example, only the teacher
may read a research report (a private audience), while a student might share a creative story
with peers (a public audience). A teacher needs to clearly state who the audience will be so
that our young writers know who will be reading the piece. Targeting and varying audiences
allows young writers to be more creative and fully experiment with words.

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Task 2 outlines the audience: Peers will be reading or listening to an oral presentation of the
piece. Knowing this empowers the writer to use common language that fellow students will
understand and appreciate.

Whenever possible, try to design writing assignments that will give students a real audience.
For example, while teaching a unit on heroes, make the students write about their everyday
heroes from people they know around them. The best writings may be displayed on the
school bulletin board. The students will be motivated to write because they knew someone
outside the classroom would see their writing.

The Purpose

For a writing activity to be meaningful, it must have a purpose, whether it's making a list of
favorite movies, writing a thank-you letter, or crafting a report. Since purpose drives writing,
we must address it when we're designing, presenting, and assigning the task.

Take a moment to revisit Task 2 above. What's the purpose of the task?

If as a teacher you think it's to get students comfortable with writing, you're correct. If you
added that it's to develop awareness and observation skills, as well as to use as many
descriptive adjectives as possible, you're right on target! As you can see, the purpose of Task
2 provides the rationale for the writing.

Typically, writing tasks will have purposes like these: to inform, explain, persuade, describe,
or entertain.

When you think through each of these basics and communicate them to your students, you'll
give them a proper send-off for their writing journey. But don't forget to pack their bags!

This brings us to another external factor that is so important in writing -The Environment

What is the "writing environment"? It encompasses not only the physical space, lighting, and
sound, but also the materials available. The most important aspect of environment is that it's
nonthreatening. Since some students can be scared of writing, we need to create a safe place
for their self-expression.

The Physical Environment

Now, the writing environment doesn't have to be confined to just your classroom. If the
school permits, you may take the students outside or to the playground to help them
visualize and write.

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With the teenagers, you could even take a trip to the sports rooms and have them write a
paragraph from an abandoned sock's point of view. They may be able to use vivid language to
describe the smells there! Or “Life as a football”! What a “kick” will they get out of that
writing task!

. If the classroom is the best place, you still have many options for creating an inviting writing
environment. Here are some ideas:

• Vary the seating arrangement by allowing teams to work together at times.

• Play classical or soft music while students write.
• Provide a variety of writing instruments and tools, such as lined and unlined paper,
markers, colored pencils, and computers for writing.
• Use a lower, soft light for some students, while allowing others to work near a
window or more heavily lit area.
• Include an author's chair in the classroom for students to share. What's this? Typically,
an author's chair is a fun, cool, and funky chair that student authors sit in when they
read their stories aloud.
• Use PVC elbow pipes to encourage students to read their writing out loud. Students
hold the pipe like a telephone and read into one end. The pipe amplifies their voices
and helps them improve the fluency of their writing. But it's also silly and fun, taking a
lot of the pressure off an oral presentation.
• Use your wall space to give writing tips and reminders. The visual learners in your
class will appreciate your efforts. These reminders also help your students memorize
the material. Studies have noted that children look up and read the walls even when
the posters are taken down for standardized tests.
• Display student writing.
• Provide materials that allow students to bind their own books.
• Purchase clipboards so students can write wherever they're comfortable.

The Materials

Because reading and writing are so closely interrelated, you'll also want to make available a
variety of print materials in the classroom. When students read good writing, they become
better writers themselves. Here are a few ideas that i've had good luck with.

Good kids' magazines are a great choice. The magazines may be related to sports, content or
school magazines. Try to choose colorful ones.

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Second, the newspaper is another great tool for writing instruction. Think of the creative
writer who is reluctant to venture out to any other type of writing. Sections in the newspaper
like sports or fashion provide good examples of report and biography writing that may inspire
the creative writer to try something new.

Third, a variety of fiction books can also provide examples of different forms of writing. Even
though students in their teens may think they're too old for picture books, works that are
visually interesting and have messages appropriate will still work for them. Tintin and Asterix
are universally appealing. And so are Calvin and Hobbes!

Lastly, reference materials are a must! Typically, most classroom teachers have access to
encyclopedias and nonfiction books. Many of these resources are now available
electronically. By making reference materials—print or electronic—available to students, you
can encourage reluctant creative writers to branch out, while helping your report writers
grow stronger.

These are just a few suggestions to get you started. Remember, the main goal is to have a
number of different printed materials available for your students. The more experience with
varieties of print that students have, the more they'll be able to grow as writers. Also, as they
get acquainted with many other voices, they'll begin to find their own voice and become
more comfortable as writers.

Packing a Writing Suitcase

Finally make the task interesting by introducing it with interesting materials. Pack a writing
suitcase- and you need not spend a bomb on that. Make students share the resources to cut
down on the cost and have fun!

Before your students can successfully begin their writing journey, they must have at their
fingertips the writing tools they need.

While beginning to teach writing, it makes sense to keep the materials in "suitcases." Buy art
boxes and fill them with writing necessities. Four students can share one box to cut down the
expenses. Here’s what the suitcases can include:

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Some new writing ideas that can change the writing attitude!

Teaching writing requires patience and ingenuity and you need to go with the flow- of time
and technology! Keep the time tested methods and pepper them up with new strategies!

1. Old method: Journaling. Sometimes the student’s just need to put pencil to paper—and
daily journaling is a great way to teach them how to express themselves through the written
word.

2. New strategy: Blogging. A classroom blog is a great way for students to interact with each
other in an informal, written way. The School-Internet website can be used to start a
classroom blog and allow students to post their own articles, questions and comments. A
great tool for visual learners – they can later graduate to blog sites like Wordpress or
Blogspot.

3. Old method: Classroom Discussion. Brainstorming or the old-fashioned classroom

discussion is still one of the best ways to teach language learners to dig deeper and enhance
comprehension, which can, in turn, transfer to their written work.

4. New strategy: Online Literacy Tools. Web-based literacy tools meet individual instructional
needs for all students—including struggling readers and ELL (English Language Learners)
students, providing teachers an effective method of supplementing their classroom
instruction.

5. Old method: Writing Groups. Make groups of students according to reading level and
watch them motivate and push each other as they work through a difficult text and respond
through writing and discussion.

6. New strategy: Online Book Clubs. Find an online book forum and ask your students to
write their reviews in writing. Or, you can start a just-for-your-class book club with your
students using a Facebook page that has closed group settings.

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Teach to love writing – let expressions grow!

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