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Source for articles on the techniques for teaching writing skills.

The Teaching of Writing Techniques

The most common problem that confronts teachers of a Writing Class does not lie so much on what to ask students to write about; the difficulty is more on how to motivate the students to write interesting and effective materials. Writing for writing sake is a drag, and produces boring output. The lesson plan presented here, by combining the teaching of writing with other skills, allows students freedom to express themselves meaningfully.

The first phase of the lesson begins one week before with the giving of the ASSIGNMENT. I read (or write on the board, or make copies of) a list of as many topics which I think to be of interest to the group. I allow the students to choose any one topic that they are most interested in, and something that they would like to know more about. Then I tell them to look for a short (the shortest is one paragraph, the longest is one page) magazine or newspaper article, read thoroughly until they understood the content, and make a copy to bring to class. No writing is done yet; students are required only to completely comprehend the text they had chosen.

The second phase of the lesson is the INTERACTIVE PHASE which begins on the day of the next class. Students who had chosen the same topic are called to sit together and form a group. The are then told to take turns in reading- or reporting- each of their articles to the group members, while everybody else listens and then ask questions to clarify points that are unclear, or make comments . I allow as much time as the students are willing to talk, or half of the whole class time. At this point, I make sure that students within the same group recognize common or diverse aspects relating to the same topic. For instance, on the topic on Environmental Problems, they would have chosen articles on: Deforestration, Garbage Problems, Noise Pollution, etc.

The third phase of the lesson is the WRITING stage. I ask the students to get back to their seats and write about two things: (1) the topic they had chosen to read and bring to class, and (2) the other related aspects of the same topic that they found out from the group interaction. I usually am surprised to find out that they write endlessly and use up until the last minute of the lesson time.

The length of the written material required will depend on the skills to be tested, the purpose of the lesson, and on the readiness of the class. The shortest can be a one-paragraph writing of either a summary or reaction to the articles they chose. The students are required to hand in the finished material at the close of the period.

For a lesson on teaching skills on summarizing, I usually ask student to find 3-5 sentences indicating the main points in the article, and re-write these in their own 3-5 sentences.

For a lesson and at the same time an exercise on outlining, I ask them to identify 2-3 main ideas in the article- or as many as they can find, re-write these main ideas in their own words. At the same time they are told to include a sentence supporting each of these main ideas.

For a lesson on expressing personal opinions / beliefs, students are told to identify, again, 2-3 main ideas (or as many as they think there are) and give their personal reaction to each of these ideas.

At the end of the term, or the school year, I require them to do a summative writing which tests the application of some or all these skills in a set of paragraphs forming a coherent set of ideas to form an essay or a full composition. The final product would be an essay, for example, which consists of: the 1st paragraph as a summary, the 2nd paragraph as

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the outline (with main ideas and supporting ideas indicated), the third paragraph containing their personal reaction to the article, and so on.

The only hang-up with this technique is that it entails a lot of work on the teacher. To be able to check students skill in summarizing or outlining, the teacher has to read every student's article, thereby increasing work twice as much.

Teaching the set of skills of summarizing, outlining, reacting to a posted article using writing as a medium helps Japanese college students organized ideas while allowing them to express these ideas in complete sentences. They are trained to put ideas logically and organize thought patterns and makes writing more interesting for both themselves and the teacher. This technique allows the students to write freely, and gives them a feeling that they have an investment on the topic to be able to produce really dynamic writing expected at their level.

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Gathering evidence for effectively teaching writing

Advice from professional writers and

the experiences of successful

writing teachers offer some

guidance in developing sound

writing practices. However, these

accounts are frequently based on

testimonials involving the writing

development of an individual or a

single classroom. This makes it

difficult to understand how or why a

writing strategy was effective and

what elements of the strategy would

be essential to make it work in new

situations.

Scientific studies of writing interventions provide a more trustworthy approach for identifying effective methods

for teaching writing; they supply evidence of the magnitude of the effect of a writing intervention, how confident

one can be in the study’s results, and how replicable the writing strategy is in new settings with new

populations of students.

What does the research show?

The list of recommendations presented below is based on scientific studies of students in grades 4–12. The

strategies for teaching writing are listed according to the magnitude of their effects. Practices with the

strongest effects are listed first. However, the effects of some writing interventions differ minimally from the

effects of others. Therefore, one should not assume that only the first several strategies should be

implemented. All of the strategies are potentially useful, and we encourage teachers to use a combination of

strategies to best meet the needs of their students.

Evidence of the effectiveness of each strategy or technique was compiled from research studies that met

several criteria. First, a recommendation was not made unless there was a minimum of four studies that

showed the effectiveness of a writing intervention. Second, in each study reviewed, the performance of one

group of students was compared to the performance of another group of students receiving a different writing

intervention or no intervention at all. This permitted conclusions that each intervention listed below resulted in

better writing performance than other writing strategies or typical writing teaching in the classroom. Third, each

study was reviewed to ensure it met standards for research quality and that study results were reliable

(reducing the chance that error in assessment contributed to the results). Fourth, studies were only included if

students’ overall writing quality was assessed post-intervention. This criterion was used to identify strategies

that had a broad impact on writing performance, as opposed to those with a more limited impact on a specific

aspect of writing such as spelling or vocabulary.

Effective writing practices

Writing strategies: Explicitly teach students strategies for planning, revising, and editing their

written products. This may involve teaching general processes (e.g., brainstorming or editing) or

more speci?c elements, such as steps for writing a persuasive essay. In either case, we recommend

that teachers model the strategy, provide assistance as students practice using the strategy on their

own, and allow for independent practice with the strategy once they have learned it.

Summarizing text: Explicitly teach students procedures for summarizing what they read.

Summarization allows students to practice concise, clear writing to convey an accurate message of

the main ideas in a text. Teaching summary writing can involve explicit strategies for producing

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effective summaries or gradual fading of models of a good summary as students become more

proficient with the skill.

Collaborative writing: Allow students to work together to plan, write, edit, and revise their writing.

We recommend that teachers provide a structure for cooperative writing and explicit expectations for

individual performance within their cooperative groups or partnerships. For example, if the class is

working on using descriptive adjectives in their compositions, one student could be assigned to

review another’s writing. He or she could provide positive feedback, noting several instances of using

descriptive vocabulary, and provide constructive feedback, identifying several sentences that could

be enhanced with additional adjectives. After this, the students could switch roles and repeat the

process.

Goals: Set specific goals for the writing assignments that students are to complete. The goals can

be established by the teacher or created by the class themselves, with review from the teacher to

ensure they are appropriate and attainable. Goals can include (but are not limited to) adding more

ideas to a paper or including specific elements of a writing genre (e.g., in an opinion essay include at

least three reasons supporting your belief). Setting specific product goals can foster motivation, and

teachers can continue to motivate students by providing reinforcement when they reach their goals.

Word processing: Allow students to use a computer for completing written tasks. With a computer,

text can be added, deleted, and moved easily. Furthermore, students can access tools, such as spell

check, to enhance their written compositions. As with any technology, teachers should provide

guidance on proper use of the computer and any relevant software before students use the computer

to compose independently.

Sentence combining: Explicitly teach students to write more complex and sophisticated sentences.

Sentence combining involves teacher modeling of how to combine two or more related sentences to

create a more complex one. Students should be encouraged to apply the sentence construction

skills as they write or revise.

Process writing: Implement flexible, but practical classroom routines that provide students with

extended opportunities for practicing the cycle of planning, writing, and reviewing their compositions.

The process approach also involves: writing for authentic audiences, personal responsibility for

written work, student-to-student interactions throughout the writing process, and self-evaluation of

writing.

Inquiry: Set writing assignments that require use of inquiry skills. Successful inquiry activities

include establishing a clear goal for writing (e.g., write a story about conflict in the playground),

examination of concrete data using specific strategies (e.g., observation of students arguing in the

playground and recording their reactions), and translation of what was learned into one or more

compositions.

Prewriting: Engage students in activities prior to writing that help them produce and organize their

ideas. Prewriting can involve tasks that encourage students to access what they already know, do

research about a topic they are not familiar with, or arrange their ideas visually (e.g., graphic

organizer) before writing.

Models: Provide students with good models of the type of writing they are expected to produce.

Teachers should analyze the models with their class, encouraging students to imitate in their own

writing the critical and effective elements shown in the models.

What we know

Evidence-based practices for teaching writing include:

Teaching strategies for planning, revising, and editing

Having students write summaries of texts

Permitting students to write collaboratively with peers

Setting goals for student writing

Allowing students to use a word processor

Teaching sentence combining skills

Using the process writing approach

Having students participate in inquiry activities for writing

Involving students in prewriting activities

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Providing models of good writing

Additional suggestions

With any combination of teaching strategies a teacher chooses to use, students must be given ample time to

write. Writing cannot be a subject that is short-changed or glossed over due to time constraints. Moreover, for

weaker writers, additional time, individualized support, and explicit teaching of transcription skills (i.e.,

handwriting, spelling, typing) may be necessary. For all students, teachers should promote the development of

self-regulation skills. Having students set goals for their writing and learning, monitoring and evaluating their

success in meeting these goals, and self-reinforcing their learning and writing efforts puts them in charge,

increasing independence and efficacy.

Teachers should supplement their current writing practices and curricula with a combination of evidence-

based practices that best meets the needs of their students.

A combination of effective writing practices

No single strategy for teaching writing will prove effective for all students. Furthermore, the above strategies

do not constitute a writing curriculum. Teachers should aim to supplement their current writing practices and

curricula with a mix of the aforementioned evidence-based writing practices. The optimal mixture of practices

should be tailored to best meet the writing needs of the class, as well as the needs of individual students. It is

especially important to monitor the success of each technique implemented to be sure that it is working as

intended, and to make adjustments as needed.

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How to Teach Writing Skills

1Teach letters. Teaching the fundamentals of letters (what a letter is, what each letter is called, and how it sounds) is where you should begin if you want to teach literacy effectively. Regardless of age level or language, literacy must begin with an understanding of letters. If you are teaching a language with a non-roman alphabet, the same principle applies: teach the characters first.

Teach your students how to recognize the different shapes of the letters. They will need

to be able to easily differentiate between letter which look the same or letters which

sound the same.

Size variation is an important part of learning to write letters. Teach your students about

capital letters and lowercase letters and when to use them. If teaching a non-roman

alphabet, this will be less of a problem.

Directionality is another important skill. Your students will need to know what direction

letters face and how to properly place them next to each other. For roman lettering, this

will be right to left and horizontal. For other languages it can also be left to right or

vertical, depending on the region.

Spacing is an important skill as well. Teach your students how to place space in between

words, sentences, paragraphs.

2Teach phonics. Phonics is all about learning what sound letters make, how to identify those sounds, and how to work with them. Developing your students’ understanding of phonics will be key to teaching them to read and write.

Teach your students to hear. They need to be able to listen to speech and recognize that

those words are composed of individual sounds.

Once they grasp the concept of those sounds, teach them to identify the sounds. For

example, your students will need to be able to hear an “aaaaahhhh” sound and know that

it is written with an “a”.

Once they are comfortable identifying sounds, you will also need to teach them how

to manipulate sounds within words. They should be able to recognize when words rhyme

or when one word out of a set begins or ends with a different sound than the others. They

should be able to think of their own examples as well.

Teach compound sounds as well. You will need to explain that when certain letters

appear together, it changes how they sound. For example, in English the “th” or “sh”, in

Spanish the “ll”, and in German the “ch” or “eu”.

3Teach the forming of words. Once your students have a solid grasp on letters and their associated sounds, you can move on to using those letters and sounds to form words.

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Read to them frequently at this stage, as well as writing lots of examples for them to look at. This will give them opportunities to see how words are formed.

An important part of teaching word formation is teaching your students the difference

between vowels and consonants. Teach them which letters are which and explain the

necessity of vowels within a word. Teach the basic principles regarding where in a word

vowels can go. For example, it is very rare for the only vowel in a word to go at the very

end of the word but quite common to have the second letter or sound of a word be a

vowel.

4Understand sentence structure. You students will need to learn and understand sentence structure once they have mastered forming words. Sentence structure is the order in which words or parts of speech go, the sequences in which they are used. Understanding sentence structure will be necessary if they are to form written sentences which sound correct. Often people will have difficulty writing naturally like this, even if they speak correctly.

Your students should learn how to identify nouns. Teach them what a noun is and where

it usually goes in a sentence. The easiest way to explain it will likely be the tried-and-true

“person, place, thing or idea”.

Your students will need to be able to identify verbs, too. Teach them about “action words”

and give them lots of examples. You can have them act out different verbs in order to

solidify the concept in their mind. Explain where verbs go in a sentence.

Your students will need to be able to identify adjectives as well. Explain that adjectives

describe other words. Teach them where these words go in a sentence and how they

attach to other words.

5Teach proper grammar. Teaching proper grammar will be absolutely essential to your students’ learning to write sentences which can be understood and sound natural.

Using parts of speech together is an important concept in grammar. Your students should

develop an understanding of how nouns, verbs and adjectives interact and how they fit

together. Where these words go in a sentence and when they must be preceded or

followed by another is also important to understand.

Tense is a key concept to understanding how to form proper sentences. Your students

should learn and practice creating sentences which take place in the past, present, and

future. This will teach them how words must be changed in order to indicate time. This is

a complex skill and is often not truly mastered until much later.

Conjugation and declension are other important skills. Conjugation is how verbs change,

depending on how they interact with the other words in the sentence. For example, in

English we say “I jump” but we also say “she jumped”. Nouns can go through a similar

process, called declension, but it is nonexistent in English.

Though it has largely been removed from English, many other languages have case

systems which your students will need to understand if they are learning one of those

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languages. Cases denote the different functions that nouns and pronouns can serve in a

sentence and, at least in those languages with a case system, how the case changes the

noun (generally with a shift in suffix).

6Don’t forget punctuation. A difficult skill to master, the use of proper punctuation will be vital to creating well constructed sentences. Later in life, proper punctuation is often seen as a mark of intelligence and education, so building your students’ skills in this area will be very important for opening up opportunities for them in the future.