TEACHING WRITING

STRATEGIES
Tetiana
MYKHAILENKO,
Editor in chief

REASONS FOR
WRITING
Why does writing matter?
Why do we write?
Should we teach our students
writing?
Is writing easy? Why? Why not?
Name three arguments

Quotations that can

help

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Writing is easy: All you do is sit
staring at a blank sheet of paper
until drops of blood form on your
forehead. Gene Fowler
When something can be read
without effort, great effort has gone
into its writing. Enrique Jardiel
Poncela

Your expectations
What do you know about
writing?
What do you consider to be
the most difficult in
teaching writing?
What writing strategies do
you know?
What is the most important?

WRITING STRATEGIES
Prewriting
Drafting
Revising
Editing
Publishing
What is the most important in
your opinion?

PREWRITING

Sketching;
brainstorming;
listing;
questioning;
modeling;
pair sharing;

teacher/student
conferences;
timed writing/"wet ink
writing;
journaling;
clustering;

BASIC WRITING SKILLS

WORD ORDER:
Subject + Verb + What + Where +
When
I found the book easily at the
library yesterday.
1. Time expressions can come at
the beginning or at the end of a
sentence.

2. Frequency adverbs (often,

always, never) often come before
the main verb.
3. If a sentence has a direct
object and an indirect object,
we often place the indirect
object first: "She wrote him a
letter".
4. Adjectives come before the
noun and they have no plural
form.

Subject-verb agreement: The

subject and the verb must agree in
number.
Some nouns are always followed
by a singular verb (everything,
news, furniture, information ...)
Some nouns are followed by a
plural verb (people, children,
police, trousers ...)

TECHNIQUES that
help
I Dont Know What to Write About
Topic T-Chart strategy
Like-Hate
Typical-Unusual
Fun-Have To
Regret-Proud Of

Like
Pizza, The Internet, Ice cream,
Music, Reading, My cat, Harry
Potter, Soccer, Shopping, Candy
Hate
All vegetables, Homework,
Science, Spelling tests, Getting
dressed up, Cleaning my room,
Rainy days, Being bored,
Bowling, Golf on TV

Fun
Out to dinner, Movies, Holidays,
Staying up late, Rollerblading,
Halloween, Talk on phone, Soccer
camp, Singing
Have To
Get my hair cut, Getting up early,
Wash the dishes, Babysit brother,
Get good grades, Practice scales

What-Why-How
strategy

WHAT do you think?

(This is your opinion)

WHY do you think it?
(These are your reasons)
HOW do you know?
(This is your evidence or example )

Widen vocabulary

Acrostic Poems

ANTONYM SAYS!
This activity is played similar to the
game Simon Says.
However, whatever "Aunt Nym"
says to do, students do the
opposite. For example, "Aunt Nym
says, "Put your hands under your
desk." Students will put their
hands above their desks.

I LOVE YOU THE

PURPLEST
Have each student choose a colour
to write a poem about.
For example, one student may
entitle their poem, "I Love You the
Greenest" and write about how the
colour green reminds them of the
meadow grass or the majestic
pines found in the mountains

PARTS OF SPEECH MAKING A "NOUN" BOOK

Discuss what kinds of words are
nouns (people, places, and things)
as well as different categories of
nouns (common nouns, proper
nouns, and collective nouns);
have each student create their own
book of nouns using pictures cut
out of magazines.

Extension to this
activity
Teach adjectives as words that
describe nouns (colour, size, shape,
etc.).
Either orally or on paper, students can
get with a partner to trade books and
think of two different words that might
be used to describe each picture of a
noun in their partner's book.

Y-Chart

What it looks like?

What it sounds like?
What it feels like?
How a character feels?

10 things about
animals

STORY STAR DIAGRAM

A story star is a type of
star diagram that can be used
to describe the key points of a
story, noting the 5 W's of the
story:
who, when, where, what, and
why.

IDEAS FOR KIDS TO WRITE

AT HOME
Make a Menu
Let your child design and write the menu
for a family dinner while you do the
cooking.
Write Lists
Let your child write the grocery list as you
dictate what you need from the store. (to
pack for a trip, plan a busy week, and
prepare for back-to-school or holidays. )

WRITE A LETTER TO
GRANDPARENTS

Keep notecards and stationery

on hand for letter writing.
A letter from a grandchild is
always a delight.
Bad spelling and punctuation is
overlooked!

WRITE A PICTURE STORY

Draw a line about 2/3 down on a
sheet of art paper.
Let the child draw a picture of
anything she wishes at the top.
Then, guide her to write a story
about the picture at the bottom.

Describing It Perfectly!

What colour was it?

What size was it?
What material was it made out of?
How old was it?
What was the texture?
What condition was it in?
How much did it weigh?
What did it remind you of?

Writing Activities for

SHORT STORIES
Colour Coded
Write a short story that begins with
the word "blue," and in which every
paragraph has a colour or words
denoting colours.
Use the "colour word" only once in
each paragraph, but suggest the
colour in as many ways as possible.

WORDS CLOSE TO
BLUE

Grey, mud, asphalt,

unpainted, concrete,
faded, rubber,
weathered, ashcoloured, bare, smoke

The world had turned grey. Nothing

but
mud and asphalt surrounded
the unpainted house, little more
than a box made of concrete blocks.
Charlie, dressed in faded work pants,
rubber boots, and a thick wool
sweater, steadied himself with a hand
on the top rail of a weathered cedar
fence. Behind him, nothing but ashcoloured sky, bare trees, and
plumes of smoke belching from the
factory in the distance.

Turn a POEM into a

short STORY
Using the poem of their choice
for inspiration, have group
members create:
a character, a setting, a
situation, and a character
goal, from the poem and
write a short story.

Dictionary Detail
Have a student choose
ten random words from a
dictionary
and use them to suggest
a character, a setting, and a
problem.

Alphabetical Sentence
Have students work alone or in small
groups to write a sentence where
each subsequent word begins with
the next letter of the alphabet. For
instance:
"Acids, bases, compounds"
Dorothy explains, "for group
homework." Instantly jaded,
knowing long monosyllabic
nonsense oozes, pupils quickly
revolt.

LETS SUM UP
What have we spoken about today?
Writing strategies can you name them?

PREWRITING
DRAFTING
REVISING
EDITING
PUBLISHING

What is the most important in

writing?
PREWRITING
What should we pay attention to while
teaching prewriting?
THREE PILLARS:
1. RICH VOCABULARY
2. SENTENCE BUILDER
3. BASIC GRAMMAR

References:

The Internet resources;

A digest of Stephen Wilbers' "Effective
Writing" ;
Teaching WritingSkills. ByKenneth
Beare,About.com Guide;
The Teachers Strategy Guide. By Steve
Peha, FULL Version, for More
inForMation
Visit ttMs.org

REMEMBER!
The pen is the tongue
of the mind.
Miguel de Cervantes

Writing is thinking on
paper.
William Zinsser

THANKS FOR COMING!

english1veresnya@gmail.com
mtatiana@ukr.net
www.tmykhailenko.wikispaces.c
om