Strategies for Developing Writing Skills
I don’t know about you but most of my students struggle with writing skills. Many of them come to me because they need some help with writing. I actually made an Instagram reel about this because I have so many of my students could talk about a certain subject for hours but trying to put those words to paper when they have to write about the same subject for some reason seems way harder for them. There are many strategies for developing writing skills with my students that I thought you all would need to know as well.
Strategies for Developing Writing Skills #1 Freewriting
Freewriting in my mind is number one in the strategies for developing writing skills. I was introduced to the concept of freewriting when I was a tutor and teacher’s aid for an English writing class for freshman students when I was in undergrad. This was a class that had failed the English placement exam and this is why they were put in this class. The teacher had them do a quick write at the beginning of each class it wasn’t graded and it helped the students just get used to writing. Which is super important. All of these students in this class improved their writing so much and were able to pass the placement test after that class.
Strategies for Developing Writing Skills #2 Creative Writing
Another great method for developing writing skills is creative writing. I taught a creative writing class for a while but I stopped it because there was not enough interest in the class. However, my classes with the kids that I did have in the class were super awesome. It was awesome to watch them get more comfortable with writing.
One of the reasons that creative writing is so important for developing writing skills is the bar is low. There is not a specific structure that kids have to follow and in many cases, they can write about almost anything that they want to, or they can take the story in whatever direction they want. If they want a main character that is a human but has the nose of an elephant and their job is playing the clarinet with their nose that is okay anything goes. Students cannot be wrong when it comes to creative writing and for many students that takes the pressure off writing. For other kids; however, creative writing can be hard because they need structure those kids will need to use a method, which I talk about later in this blog post.
Strategies for Developing Writing Skills #3 Brain Dumps
Another one of the strategies for developing writing skills that I do is brain dumps. These are great if you are planning schedules and just need to get all your thoughts and tasks out on paper. However, brain dumps can also be great for writing. They can help students see what they know about a certain subject or just get everything in their brain out so they can then write with a more focused mind. Overall, this is a good thing to do right before writing the first draft of a paper or just a couple of times a week to get all the thoughts out of students’ heads so they can focus on writing after.
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Strategies for Developing Writing Skills #4 Using a Method
Methods for writing papers are so important for students when they are first learning about organization in writing and how to structure an essay. Many students may want to create their own rules when it comes to writing. However, that usually results in an essay that does not have any structures and probably does not make much sense because it is not in the right order. Students have to learn the rules before they can break them. Many of them also may not get to the level where they are able to break rules because they have to master certain structures and that can take some time. That being said some of my favorite methods or structures are listed below.
TBEAR
This first one is probably a structure that you have not heard of before it was introduced to me by probably my favorite teacher of all-time my high school English teacher Mr. Dunn. I had him as my teacher for three years in high school and he was great. This is the structure that we learned in his class and mastered over our time with him. It is an acronym that stands for Topic Sentence, Background information, Evidence, Analysis, and Return to thesis. Basically, this method helps students see how to write a body paragraph. If you want to learn more about this structure and have examples of it. I have created a guide for my subscribers. If you would like to receive it you can click the link below to receive the guide for free.
OREO
This method is specifically for opinion writing. It stands for Opinion, Reason, Evidence, and Opinion again. In this method, students state their opinion on something. Then they give the reason that they have that opinion. After, they give an example or evidence either from their life or research that they did to come to this conclusion. Lastly, they will restate their opinion. This is a great method for opinion papers or paragraphs especially if students are just learning those types of essays.
Hamburger Model
Another method that is often taught to students when they are first learning the structure of essays in the hamburger model. This can also be taught with a picture of a hamburger. This basically has students state the main idea that represents the bun on top of the hamburger. The ingredients inside are the supporting details and students need to put at least 3 supporting details on the inside of their hamburger. Then the bun on the bottom is the concluding statement or a restatement of the main idea. This can be used for one paragraph or expanded into a whole essay.
RACE
One of the next methods and one of the great strategies for developing writing skills is RACE. This is also an acronym like TBEAR or OREO. It stand for Restate, Answer, Cite Evidence, and Explain. This is a perfect strategy for students who need help with understanding what the prompt is asking of them. I say that because the first thing that they have to do is to state what the question is. If they restate it and it is completely off then as a teacher you know that they did not understand the assignment. The next thing is they have to answer the question. Then there is more to this method than just answering the question they also have to cite evidence of how they got to that answer. Lastly, they have to explain what that evidence means. This method will help you as a teacher really see if your students understood the texts and what the prompt was asking them. This means that this is one of the best strategies for developing writing skills because you can see what the students need more help with.
Strategies for Developing Writing Skills #5 Shitty First Drafts
Anne Lamott wrote an article a while ago called “Shitty First drafts.” It basically tells students and encourages them to write a shitty first draft. In order to get to a better next draft and an even better final draft, you have to get words on paper. You can’t go anywhere till you get something on paper.
I have found that kids often feel the pressure for their writing to be perfect on the first run around. They often think that the kids that are good at writing only had one draft of their writing and they were just amazing from the beginning. However, this is not true. Anne Lamott talks about this in this piece. Although the name may not be appropriate to introduce to elementary students or even the piece is not at a reading level that it would make sense for elementary students. However, you can summarize the ideas for them and encourage them to write many drafts of their writing.
Strategies for Developing Writing Skills #6 Grammar Lessons
Another one of the great strategies for developing writing skills that I use is grammar lessons. At first, you may be saying wait grammar? I thought that we were talking about writing. Yes, grammar is a big part of writing. If students do not know the grammar of how to put together a decent sentence then they will struggle with writing their own papers. At best their essay may include a bunch of run-on sentences; at worst it will be gibberish and not understandable. If your students need help with a lot of basic grammar check out my conventions of standard English task cards. These cover many of the basic grammar topics that students need to know in order to master the basics of grammar.
Strategies for Developing Writing Skills #7 Peer Review
The next and last of my strategies for developing writing skills is peer review. If students know how to read other students writing and find mistakes or help them with the structure they will be more likely to notice those problems with their own writing. Also, if they can teach aspects of writing and grammar that will really show that they know the aspects of writing. Teaching students how to properly peer-review other students’ work is super important when you are trying to develop writing skills in your students.
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