12 Activities That Teachers Can Use to Help Their Students Become Better Writers
Are you a teacher that wants to help your students become better writers? Well, you have come to the right place. In this piece, we will discuss 12 activities that you can use in the classroom to help your students become better writers.
- Story Impressions- An activity for the prewriting stage in which a list of words that are to be included in a story are presented as well as the order in which they should be used.
- What is an Oral History Project- A project in which students use a variety of formats to honor and document the life history of someone of their choosing.
- Admit Slips- An informal tool used to ascertain student knowledge, which involves students writing, on one side of either a graphic organizer or an index card, their knowledge about a particular topic and, on the other side, a question they have about that topic.
- What are Dialogue Journals- A conversation tool in which students communicate in writing on a variety of topics which may or may not be prompted. They are also known as interactive journals.
- Written Conversations- An informal writing activity in which students communicate their reflections with peers. A student selects an “I wonder” section from his or her Investigative Journals and shares it with another student in writing. The latter reacts to what was shared and continues the correspondence by raising any questions.
- Transmediations– An inquiry-based writing activity in which students change the medium of a work from its original form. For example, students might transmediate a poem into a picture book or song lyrics into a story.
- Travelogues- An inquiry-based writing activity in which students record their virtual visits to countries wherein a novel they are reading is set, a language they are studying originates, or a historic event has occurred. Travelogues can be created in various formats including a travel journal, a PowerPoint presentation, or a video.
- Inquiring Minds- A small-group, inquiry-based research project in which students with similar interests in specific topics work together.
- Interactive Writing- A writing activity used to support emergent readers and writers. Learners write down sentences which the teacher reads aloud, stretching each word to help the learners distinguish between sounds and letters. The learners then write the letters or words as they repeat the sounds read aloud.
- Collaborative Writing- A writing activity and a form of the act of writing in which students experience writing within a social context. It often involves one or more partners, and a university tutor who provide instruction or act as role models throughout the process.
- What is Nonstructured Writing- A freeform writing activity that provides space for students to write about their interests without direct instruction and learn naturally about written forms of language.
- Writer’s Workshop- A writing activity and composition strategy in which students are given time and space to prewrite, draft, revise, and edit their written work for publication or sharing with others.
What strategies did we miss?