The following is a guest blog post from Tracy Schutz, a veteran Middle School Teacher in Cherokee Co Schools, GA.
7 Ways to Engage Students with Writing: Tips that Really Work!
- Peer Editing: Create a peer editing checklist and let students review each other’s work. NOTE: be sure to establish ground rules about positive constructive criticism and honesty. You may want to go so far as to mix the papers up yourself and then redistribute them randomly before pairing students up together.
- Highlighting: Students of all ages love to highlight! Allow them to highlight certain aspects of their papers that you deem important. The focus can change as you review different writing skills. (Think: they can highlight all transitions, or their details, or their topic sentence, or all adjectives, etc.)
- Showcasing: Choose a few anonymous papers to use for student review. (Think: a great paper, an OK paper, and a not-so-good paper) Scan in student papers to show through a projector (Smart Board or Promethean Board). Or, if your school lacks this technology, run off enough copies for each student to write on…
- Writing Conferences: sit one on one with each of your students to evaluate their work. Now I realize this is easier said than done and may take more than one session to get through all students. So, have an engaging independent assignment prepared for them so that you can have the quiet one-on-one time with students that is needed to review writing strengths and weaknesses… (I have used this technique for many years now and I learn more about the students’ ideas, fears, etc. about writing than any other review method.)
- Allow students to start one writing topic, and finish another student’s paper. Allow them to switch with a partner about half way through their story, essay, etc. If you have a large class, allow them to switch more than once. (Think: Beginning, Middle, End) *This is great for Halloween time when students love to write scary stories. Let the creativity flow!
- Have current vocabulary/new terms? Require the students to use these words in their writing, whether they’re writing short paragraphs, essays, or even journals. (Think: you just killed two birds with one stone!)
- Student-Teaching: We know that practice (and more practice) helps students retain knowledge. But, we also know that drill-and-kill isn’t always effective because of the boredom factor. Why not let them teach the class for a day? In partners or groups, allow them to develop a way to explain writing lessons to the class. Decide what you want them to teach: the six traits of writing, the do’s and don’ts of writing, aspects of the different genres of writing- persuasive, expository, narrative, etc. Allow them some freedom in how they present this to the class because we know they love choices! (Think: a rap song, a Q & A “interview” session, a chart on butcher paper, an Internet poster, a group skit, etc.)
About the Author:
Tracy Schutz is a Veteran Middle School Teacher of at-risk students in Cherokee Co Schools, GA. She is passionate about online learning, ed technology, and social media. You can connect with her on Twitter @Lucyd2ed and subscribing to her blog, Dedication2Education.
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