An Outline on Teaching Writing I. General Guidelines for Teacher A.

Be personally involved to make the learning experience of lasting value B. Encourage student participation in exercises C. Refine and expand writing skills

D. Be clear on what to develop II. General Writing Activities A. Use the shared events of students' lives to inspire writing. make use of the real-life circumstances to help them compose writing that is natural and purposeful B. Work with words relevant to students' lives to help them build Vocabulary. the more relevant new words are to students' lives, the more likely they are to take hold C. Ease into writing workshops by presenting yourself as a model decide to make use of experiences from her own life when teaching D. Ask students to help write a sentence about a topic. Write the words who, where, and when. Using these words as prompts, the teacher and the students construct the sentence. E. Get students to focus on their writing by holding off on grading At times, grades given can get in the way of student progress. The weaker students stopped trying. Other students relied on grades as the only standard by which they judged their own work. Continue to comment on papers, encourage revision, and urge students to meet for conferences. But wait to grade the papers. Be less quick to judge their work so that students are better able to evaluate their efforts themselves.

F. Give students a chance to write to an audience for real purpose.

Imagine situations where the student can assume a different role and be able to write for a specific audience. This prompt asks students to assume the contrived role. They must adapt to a voice that is not theirs and pretend to have knowledge they do not have.

G. Make grammar instruction dynamic. Facilitate active learning. Focus more on developing of ideas than grammar correction. H. Ground writing in social issues important to students. Help create brief, effective dramas about issues in student lives. Decide on a theme such as jealousy, sibling rivalry, competition, or teen drinking. Develop a scene illustrating an aspect of this chosen theme. Students then set up the circumstances and characters. I. Think like a football coach. Like the coach, the writing teacher should praise strong performance rather than focus on the negative. Statements such as "Wow, that was a killer block," or "That paragraph was tight Practice and routine are important both for football players and for writing students, but football players and writers also need the "adrenaline rush" of the big game and the final draft.