Different Writing techniques = Better Teaching

Reflecting upon my time at Hawthorne and through this course of Writing Across the Curriculum (and my entire year during my Bachelor of Education) I have learned that there are many different teaching resources, and strategies for helping students improve their literacy and writing skills. While my content area is English, I know that different kinds of writing techniques, strategies and resources can help stimulate student creativity and writing ability all across the curriculum. Most students don't respond well to simply writing a formal essay on a given to which they have no connection to. In this case students will often be bored, disinterested and no produce their best work. However by connecting writing to the subject matter they are learning and giving them creative choice and freedom to make the writing piece their own, they will produce much better pieces of writing.

For instance early in the semester, we learned about different strategies for teaching poetry. Instead of simply having students read the same Robert Frost poem every year and have them create a poem about winter, it is much more engaging to find a variety of formats of poetry. Have the students explore everything from Haikus, to spoken word/rap poetry, to funny poems which they can relate to in their lives. After that in the creative writing assignment, give them choice yet make restrictions so the students won't get lost in their choice. The "Why I Love Math/Why I Hate Math" exercise is a great example. Or just like at Hawthorne, creating a long list of assignments which the students can chose from and make their own works very efficiently as well.

Finally, in this course with all the blog postings and different assignments, I have come across many great resources which I will be using in my classes in the future in all sorts of different subjects. From graphic organizers, to videos, to project ideas, to jazz chants for social studies it all works in a great cross curricular manner. I would be excited to test out the unit plan my group created which merges geography and writing. At the end of the course, I feel more confident in teaching writing both in language class and  in other subjects as well.

Hawthorne Writing Mentoring Resources

The following is a list of several resources I consulted and used in various fashions during my month of writing mentoring at Hawthorne School:

6+1 Writing Traits:
http://www.plattscsd.org/parents/6+1overview.pdf

Poetry BLMs and Activities:
http://etfo-ots.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Poetry-Unit.pdf

A mid summer's night dream resource:
http://nfs.sparknotes.com/msnd/

Textbook:

Peterson, S. S. (2008). Writing across the curriculum: All teachers teach writing. 2nd Ed. Winnipeg: Portage & Main Press.



Speed Scrabble Game:

Students will use Scrabble letter tiles from the board game Scrabble to create their own crosswords. This game can be done individually, in pairs or in teams. This game is a fun way to have students expand their vocabulary  and improve their spelling while being creative in creating their own unique crossword. It’s also a great alternative to playing an entire game of scrabble (which can take an hour + especially with low ability spellers) as speed scrabble can be done in a very short amount of time. The game can be shortened or extended based on the amount of tiles you give each student/group.

How to play:

Each student is given 10 scrabble tiles at random from the bag. Using those tiles students must create their own crosswords, by spelling words with their tiles.  All of their words must be attached together in some fashion just like a crossword. If I student gets stuck with their letters (no vowels or difficult letters) they are allowed to trade up to 4 of their tiles back into the scrabble bag for new ones. Students can be awarded points for their created crosswords based on the time it takes for them to complete the task, based on the length of their words or the difficult (point values) of their letters.

Literary Essay: Conveying writing strategies to the students

As English is my teachable, there are a variety of important writing forms that students must learn to be a successful writer. I decided to list stratifies for literary essays because it incorporates important basics such as proper paragraph writing, thesis formation, introduction and conclusion writing, paragraph order, and word choice.
Writing a full essay can seem lie a daunting task, especially to students in middle school which is way breaking down the task into smaller chucks can be a successful strategy. First, have the students work on their paragraph writing by breaking down what is included in a good paragraph. You can use the hamburger metaphor to break down the paragraph. The start and end of the paragraph is surrounded by a bun, the intro and concluding sentences. The second sentence is the patty, aka the thesis. It is the point or purpose which he paragraph is trying to make. The following sentences are the condiments, and are important in supporting the thesis statement. There are many great graphic organizers available online including ones shaped like hamburgers.
This process cam be continued for full essay writing breaking down each paragraph as to what purpose it serves. Literary essays should all have make a point about the text with support and evidence within the text to support the points being made. Other tools or strategies include having sample essays of different levels, having he class write a paragraph together, have the class create the assessment criteria or have a class discussion on ideas of what to write on.