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 Don’t 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,
ash-coloured, 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 ash-
coloured 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.”
 LET’S 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 Writing Skills. By Kenneth
Beare, About.com Guide;
 The Teacher’s 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.com