Principles for teaching writing

1
Principles for teaching writing

• Understand your students reasons for writing
  (know what their goals are/what they want to
  achieve)
• Provide many opportunities for students to write
  (writing requires lots of practice and variety
  responses to reading, journal entries, paragraphs
  and essays, summaries, activities, etc.)
• Make feedback helpful and meaningful (tell
  students what they did well and what they need to
  work on get them to keep an error log and
  encourage self-correction)
• Clarify for yourself, and for your students, how
  their writing will be evaluated (avoid subjective
  evaluation by developing rubrics scoring grids
  that explain how the elements of writing will be
  evaluated)

2
The Writing Process

• Exploring (consider your topic, audience, and
  purpose)
• Developing (narrow your topic, use a prewriting
  strategy, select and discard ideas, and make a
  plan or outline)
• Drafting (write your first draft)
• Sharing (get feedback from your classmates)
• Revising (check unity, support, organization, and
  style)
• Editing (proofread for grammar, spelling,
  punctuation, and mechanical errors)
• Publishing (write your final draft)
• Assessing (see what you did well and what you
  need to work on)

3
Paragraphs

• Topic sentence (topic controlling idea)
• Supporting sentences (support the topic
  sentence)
• Minor details (support the supporting sentences)
• Transition signals (words or phrases that guide
  the reader between points in your paragraph)
• Concluding sentence (restates the topic sentence)

4
Topic sentences

• Topic who or what the paragraph is about
• Controlling idea main point about the topic
• Examples
• Mahatma Gandhi was an influential leader.
• Email is a great way to stay in touch with your
  family.
• The Korean subway system is very efficient.
• My older brother is a perfectionist.
• Being a twin has both advantages and
  disadvantages.

5
Topic sentences Common errors

• 1. Too broad (need to be more specific)
• Sports are exciting.
• Food is delicious.
• 2. Too specific (just facts)
• I bought a new computer yesterday.
• Over one billion people live in India.
• 3. Announcements (no controlling idea)
• I am going to write about the dangers of fast
  food.
• The topic of this paragraph is global warming.

6
Supporting sentences and minor details

• Unity Every part of your paragraph relates to
  the main idea
• Adequate support Plenty of specific examples,
  reasons, and facts
• Coherence Ideas flow smoothly and logically
• Style Sentences are varied and interesting
• Technical issues All grammar, spelling,
  capitalization, and punctuation errors are
  corrected

7
Concluding sentences

• Ways
• Restate the topic sentence in a new, refreshing
  way
• Make an interesting final observation
• End with a prediction, suggestion, or quotation
• Problems
• Dont introduce a contradictory idea or change
  the focus of the paragraph

8
Topics

• Travel (too broad)
• Europe (specify)
• Study abroad trip to London in 2005 (specify
  again)
• Fantastic (modify)
• Music (too broad)
• Singers (specify)
• Prince (specify again)
• Greatest living musician (modify)

9
Brainstorming

1. Begin with a specified topic.
2. Write down as many associations as you can in 10
   minutes.
3. Add more items to your list by answering
   questions who, what, when, where, why, and how.
4. Identify what you want to focus on in your
   paragraph.
5. Cross out items that you wont use.

10
Brainstorming example
11
Mind mapping

1. Write your topic in the center of a piece of
   paper and draw a circle around it.
2. Think about your topic and write any ideas that
   come to mind in circles around the main circle.
3. Connect these ideas to the center circle with a
   line.
4. Think about each of your new ideas, write more
   related/detailed/specific ideas in circles around
   them, and connect them to their corresponding
   ideas with a line.
5. Repeat this process until you run out of ideas.

12
Mind mapping example
13
Freewriting

1. Write your specified topic at the top of the
   page.
2. Write as much as you can, as fast as you can, for
   10 minutes.
3. Let your ideas flow.
4. Dont stop for any reason (e.g. spelling or
   grammar mistakes)
5. If you temporarily run out of ideas, write, My
   mind just went blank. My mind just went blank,
   as many times as necessary to help you get back
   on track.

14
Freewriting example
15
Outlining

• Part of prewriting is planning and organizing
  your ideas. Making a simple outline will help you
  do this. Use your outline as a guide when writing
  your paragraph.

16
Paragraph plan
17
Non-academic writing
18
(No Transcript)
19
Activities

1. Write before you talk
2. Using visuals to focus descriptions
3. Incident report
4. Advert defacement therapy
5. Plot construction
6. Working from opening sentences
7. Jigsaw story writing
8. Time sequencing in a story
9. Dictogloss
10. Writing a book review