Ideas For Teaching Writing

Ideas For Teaching Writing

Tips For Teaching Handwriting

1. Work on hand-eye coordination with craft projects.
2. Work on skills one at a time. Letter Height, Spacing, Slants, and Line Alignment.
3. Once all skills are mastered begin to group skills together.
4. Use high-frequency words and words that have meaning to students.
5. Provide parents with a handwriting guide. Handwriting Tips for Lefties:
6. Position the paper to the extreme left of the child's mid-line.
7. Angle the paper so that it is parallel with the child's forearm
8. Put masking tape on their desks to help them align the paper.

Creating Photo Essays

Photo essays are a special type of writing; they tell stories with a group of photographs that are connected to a theme. One activity using photo essays as a type of writing includes having students pick a topic (in any content area) that they would like to "write" about. Tell them that they have to collect photographs or pictures that represent the topic. Once they have their collections and you gave them a chance to discuss the relevance of the photos to the topic, ask them to arrange the photos in such a way (sequentially, etc.) that tell a story or relay the message related to the topic they chose. Students love to express their thoughts about topics using this medium. If you have technology to complete this activity, you can have students cut and paste their story using photos or images that they find on the Internet. This is a great activity for group work.

How to Make a Big Book

Pick a book with illustration, short story, rhyme, song, or poem to enlarge. Have materials like large pieces of paper or posterboard, plenty of crayons, markers, paints, or other art materials. Divide the text of the writing leaving half of the page for the illustrations (can be copied or done freehand by the children). Include an author page, illustrations, and copyright information (date, year, etc.). Have the children design a cover; put the pages in sequence; bind the book together with metal or plastic rings, yarn, or other binding materials.

Creating A Story In Sequential Order

The teacher gives the students a paragraph to get the story started and pupils add their sentences alternately. It's great fun building a short story with students. After story building, students can create illustrations based on the short story.

Spelling Twist

"Looking for a fun, new twist for studying spelling words. This one worked for me. Each child will say each spelling word, spell it then say it again while doing the twist. This process is repeated 3 times for each word. Some of the boys preferred to do Karate moves instead of the Twist. This sets a rhythm to the words as well as makes for a fun and exercising way to study the words. The class had so much fun it was no suprise that spelling test grades increased. We had a class vote on this being included in our weekly spelling curriculum, 100% voted in favor."

A Class Newspaper

Nearly every teacher finds it hard to encourage children to write creatively. The idea of creating a class newspaper with their own creative writings helped children not only to write creatively but to engage fully in the writing process (drafting, editing etc.) and to learn more about newspapers.
The children did create themselves a class newspaper.

Creating A Story In Sequential Order

The teacher gives the students a paragraph to get the story started and pupils add their sentences alternately. It's great fun building a short story with students. After story building, students can create illustrations based on the short story.

Create An Author's Corner

Set up a table that becomes the Authors' Corner in your room. This table should be filled with different colored paper with lines, without lines. Construction paper should be available, colored pencils or washable markers. There could be pieces of material, string, feathers, anything that will provoke creativity in the students. This is the place where the students become authors and write books. For the younger student, a form paper can be displayed with Title, Author, Illustrator. They can fill in the blanks. A dedication page can be prepared. Again, the students can fill in the blanks. There can be an idea box to motivate students. Maybe some starter sentences. Anything that encourages children to write. The book can be 2 pages or 5 pages. The length is not important. A love for writing is the reason for this corner. Ask the students what else should be on the table. They have great ideas!