How can we as teachers help students become effective writers? I must confess that as a classroom teacher, I often find it difficult to fit in writing time or writing workshop. That was until I agreed to teach a college course, Writing Across The Curriculum. I researched the topics on the syllabus and realized it was easier than I thought to make time during the school day. We used the guide, Teaching Elementary Students To Be Effective Writers, as our class text.
The How
The guide, Teaching Elementary Students To Be Effective Writers gives four major recommendations for teaching writing in the elementary classroom. The first recommendation is to have children write every day. Writing time should include explicit instruction and time for students to write. Right now you are asking, “How can I possibly fit that in “? The key is to not treat writing as a separate subject but to teach it in every content area. Most elementary teachers teach multiple subjects. We can use this to our advantage and have our students write for different purposes. For example, in History class, I can have my students write sentences or paragraphs about what they learned during a lesson. During Math class, I can have students write about a new concept that we have learned or how they arrived at an answer.
The second recommendation for effective writers is to explicitly teach students the writing process and the different purposes for writing. Elementary students need explicit instruction on how to become effective writers. It is not a skill that comes naturally. Teachers need to introduce each step of the process and then give students time to practice. Emergent writers need a lot of guidance and with younger students, teachers can use small groups to teach and reteach writing skills. Students need practice with each step of the process including; planning, drafting, sharing, editing and revising, and publishing. I will dive deeper into each of these steps in another post. (stay tuned 🙂 )
Using Mentor Texts To Teach Writing
Mentor texts or read-aloud are an excellent way to introduce a new type of writing to students. The first time I use a new read aloud I just read it for the children to enjoy. A mentor text can be read many times. The second time I read the text, we talk about the purpose the author wrote the book and the characteristics of the text type. For example, in the book, Hey, Little Ant, the ant is trying to convince the boy not to step on him. We talk about trying to convince or persuade someone and look at the reasons the ant gives the boy for not stepping on him. The students love this book and understand persuasion when we are finished.
Another favorite mentor text I use is Arthur Writes A Story. My students love Arthur, so what better book to introduce narratives than this book where Arthur writes a story? We follow along as Arthur gets his ideas and writes his story. When we start to plan our story, we go back to Arthur and follow his steps.
More Recommendations
The third recommendation from the IES is to teach students to become fluent in handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing, and word processing. Handwriting practice and teaching spelling rules are great ways to make children feel confident in their writing skills. Teaching grammar and sentence construction will also help them to feel secure and write on their own. In this age of computers, students need to be proficient in typing and word processing skills.
The fourth and last recommendation is to create an engaged community of writers. This can be accomplished during each part of the writing process. Students can work together in the planning stage, share and help each other in the editing and revising stages, and share their writing with others in the publishing step.
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