how to teach essay writing to elementary students

Essay Writing: A complete guide for students and teachers

P LANNING, PARAGRAPHING AND POLISHING: FINE-TUNING THE PERFECT ESSAY

Essay writing is an essential skill for every student. Whether writing a particular academic essay (such as persuasive, narrative, descriptive, or expository) or a timed exam essay, the key to getting good at writing is to write. Creating opportunities for our students to engage in extended writing activities will go a long way to helping them improve their skills as scribes.

But, putting the hours in alone will not be enough to attain the highest levels in essay writing. Practice must be meaningful. Once students have a broad overview of how to structure the various types of essays, they are ready to narrow in on the minor details that will enable them to fine-tune their work as a lean vehicle of their thoughts and ideas.

In this article, we will drill down to some aspects that will assist students in taking their essay writing skills up a notch. Many ideas and activities can be integrated into broader lesson plans based on essay writing. Often, though, they will work effectively in isolation – just as athletes isolate physical movements to drill that are relevant to their sport. When these movements become second nature, they can be repeated naturally in the context of the game or in our case, the writing of the essay.

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Planning an essay

essay writing | how to prepare for an essay | Essay Writing: A complete guide for students and teachers | literacyideas.com

The Boys Scouts’ motto is famously ‘Be Prepared’. It’s a solid motto that can be applied to most aspects of life; essay writing is no different. Given the purpose of an essay is generally to present a logical and reasoned argument, investing time in organising arguments, ideas, and structure would seem to be time well spent.

Given that essays can take a wide range of forms and that we all have our own individual approaches to writing, it stands to reason that there will be no single best approach to the planning stage of essay writing. That said, there are several helpful hints and techniques we can share with our students to help them wrestle their ideas into a writable form. Let’s take a look at a few of the best of these:

BREAK THE QUESTION DOWN: UNDERSTAND YOUR ESSAY TOPIC.

Whether students are tackling an assignment that you have set for them in class or responding to an essay prompt in an exam situation, they should get into the habit of analyzing the nature of the task. To do this, they should unravel the question’s meaning or prompt. Students can practice this in class by responding to various essay titles, questions, and prompts, thereby gaining valuable experience breaking these down.

Have students work in groups to underline and dissect the keywords and phrases and discuss what exactly is being asked of them in the task. Are they being asked to discuss, describe, persuade, or explain? Understanding the exact nature of the task is crucial before going any further in the planning process, never mind the writing process .

BRAINSTORM AND MIND MAP WHAT YOU KNOW:

Once students have understood what the essay task asks them, they should consider what they know about the topic and, often, how they feel about it. When teaching essay writing, we so often emphasize that it is about expressing our opinions on things, but for our younger students what they think about something isn’t always obvious, even to themselves.

Brainstorming and mind-mapping what they know about a topic offers them an opportunity to uncover not just what they already know about a topic, but also gives them a chance to reveal to themselves what they think about the topic. This will help guide them in structuring their research and, later, the essay they will write . When writing an essay in an exam context, this may be the only ‘research’ the student can undertake before the writing, so practicing this will be even more important.

RESEARCH YOUR ESSAY

The previous step above should reveal to students the general direction their research will take. With the ubiquitousness of the internet, gone are the days of students relying on a single well-thumbed encyclopaedia from the school library as their sole authoritative source in their essay. If anything, the real problem for our students today is narrowing down their sources to a manageable number. Students should use the information from the previous step to help here. At this stage, it is important that they:

● Ensure the research material is directly relevant to the essay task

● Record in detail the sources of the information that they will use in their essay

● Engage with the material personally by asking questions and challenging their own biases

● Identify the key points that will be made in their essay

● Group ideas, counterarguments, and opinions together

● Identify the overarching argument they will make in their own essay.

Once these stages have been completed the student is ready to organise their points into a logical order.

WRITING YOUR ESSAY

There are a number of ways for students to organize their points in preparation for writing. They can use graphic organizers , post-it notes, or any number of available writing apps. The important thing for them to consider here is that their points should follow a logical progression. This progression of their argument will be expressed in the form of body paragraphs that will inform the structure of their finished essay.

The number of paragraphs contained in an essay will depend on a number of factors such as word limits, time limits, the complexity of the question etc. Regardless of the essay’s length, students should ensure their essay follows the Rule of Three in that every essay they write contains an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Generally speaking, essay paragraphs will focus on one main idea that is usually expressed in a topic sentence that is followed by a series of supporting sentences that bolster that main idea. The first and final sentences are of the most significance here with the first sentence of a paragraph making the point to the reader and the final sentence of the paragraph making the overall relevance to the essay’s argument crystal clear.

Though students will most likely be familiar with the broad generic structure of essays, it is worth investing time to ensure they have a clear conception of how each part of the essay works, that is, of the exact nature of the task it performs. Let’s review:

Common Essay Structure

Introduction: Provides the reader with context for the essay. It states the broad argument that the essay will make and informs the reader of the writer’s general perspective and approach to the question.

Body Paragraphs: These are the ‘meat’ of the essay and lay out the argument stated in the introduction point by point with supporting evidence.

Conclusion: Usually, the conclusion will restate the central argument while summarising the essay’s main supporting reasons before linking everything back to the original question.

ESSAY WRITING PARAGRAPH WRITING TIPS

essay writing | 1 How to write paragraphs | Essay Writing: A complete guide for students and teachers | literacyideas.com

● Each paragraph should focus on a single main idea

● Paragraphs should follow a logical sequence; students should group similar ideas together to avoid incoherence

● Paragraphs should be denoted consistently; students should choose either to indent or skip a line

● Transition words and phrases such as alternatively , consequently , in contrast should be used to give flow and provide a bridge between paragraphs.

HOW TO EDIT AN ESSAY

essay writing | essay editing tips | Essay Writing: A complete guide for students and teachers | literacyideas.com

Students shouldn’t expect their essays to emerge from the writing process perfectly formed. Except in exam situations and the like, thorough editing is an essential aspect in the writing process.

Often, students struggle with this aspect of the process the most. After spending hours of effort on planning, research, and writing the first draft, students can be reluctant to go back over the same terrain they have so recently travelled. It is important at this point to give them some helpful guidelines to help them to know what to look out for. The following tips will provide just such help:

One Piece at a Time: There is a lot to look out for in the editing process and often students overlook aspects as they try to juggle too many balls during the process. One effective strategy to combat this is for students to perform a number of rounds of editing with each focusing on a different aspect. For example, the first round could focus on content, the second round on looking out for word repetition (use a thesaurus to help here), with the third attending to spelling and grammar.

Sum It Up: When reviewing the paragraphs they have written, a good starting point is for students to read each paragraph and attempt to sum up its main point in a single line. If this is not possible, their readers will most likely have difficulty following their train of thought too and the paragraph needs to be overhauled.

Let It Breathe: When possible, encourage students to allow some time for their essay to ‘breathe’ before returning to it for editing purposes. This may require some skilful time management on the part of the student, for example, a student rush-writing the night before the deadline does not lend itself to effective editing. Fresh eyes are one of the sharpest tools in the writer’s toolbox.

Read It Aloud: This time-tested editing method is a great way for students to identify mistakes and typos in their work. We tend to read things more slowly when reading aloud giving us the time to spot errors. Also, when we read silently our minds can often fill in the gaps or gloss over the mistakes that will become apparent when we read out loud.

Phone a Friend: Peer editing is another great way to identify errors that our brains may miss when reading our own work. Encourage students to partner up for a little ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’.

Use Tech Tools: We need to ensure our students have the mental tools to edit their own work and for this they will need a good grasp of English grammar and punctuation. However, there are also a wealth of tech tools such as spellcheck and grammar checks that can offer a great once-over option to catch anything students may have missed in earlier editing rounds.

essay writing | Perfect essay writing for students | Essay Writing: A complete guide for students and teachers | literacyideas.com

Putting the Jewels on Display: While some struggle to edit, others struggle to let go. There comes a point when it is time for students to release their work to the reader. They must learn to relinquish control after the creation is complete. This will be much easier to achieve if the student feels that they have done everything in their control to ensure their essay is representative of the best of their abilities and if they have followed the advice here, they should be confident they have done so.

WRITING CHECKLISTS FOR ALL TEXT TYPES

ESSAY WRITING video tutorials

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Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Four Strategies for Effective Writing Instruction

how to teach essay writing to elementary students

(This is the first post in a two-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is the single most effective instructional strategy you have used to teach writing?

Teaching and learning good writing can be a challenge to educators and students alike.

The topic is no stranger to this column—you can see many previous related posts at Writing Instruction .

But I don’t think any of us can get too much good instructional advice in this area.

Today, Jenny Vo, Michele Morgan, and Joy Hamm share wisdom gained from their teaching experience.

Before I turn over the column to them, though, I’d like to share my favorite tool(s).

Graphic organizers, including writing frames (which are basically more expansive sentence starters) and writing structures (which function more as guides and less as “fill-in-the-blanks”) are critical elements of my writing instruction.

You can see an example of how I incorporate them in my seven-week story-writing unit and in the adaptations I made in it for concurrent teaching.

You might also be interested in The Best Scaffolded Writing Frames For Students .

Now, to today’s guests:

‘Shared Writing’

Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has worked with English-learners during all of her 24 years in education and is currently an ESL ISST in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas. Jenny is the president-elect of TexTESOL IV and works to advocate for all ELs:

The single most effective instructional strategy that I have used to teach writing is shared writing. Shared writing is when the teacher and students write collaboratively. In shared writing, the teacher is the primary holder of the pen, even though the process is a collaborative one. The teacher serves as the scribe, while also questioning and prompting the students.

The students engage in discussions with the teacher and their peers on what should be included in the text. Shared writing can be done with the whole class or as a small-group activity.

There are two reasons why I love using shared writing. One, it is a great opportunity for the teacher to model the structures and functions of different types of writing while also weaving in lessons on spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

It is a perfect activity to do at the beginning of the unit for a new genre. Use shared writing to introduce the students to the purpose of the genre. Model the writing process from beginning to end, taking the students from idea generation to planning to drafting to revising to publishing. As you are writing, make sure you refrain from making errors, as you want your finished product to serve as a high-quality model for the students to refer back to as they write independently.

Another reason why I love using shared writing is that it connects the writing process with oral language. As the students co-construct the writing piece with the teacher, they are orally expressing their ideas and listening to the ideas of their classmates. It gives them the opportunity to practice rehearsing what they are going to say before it is written down on paper. Shared writing gives the teacher many opportunities to encourage their quieter or more reluctant students to engage in the discussion with the types of questions the teacher asks.

Writing well is a skill that is developed over time with much practice. Shared writing allows students to engage in the writing process while observing the construction of a high-quality sample. It is a very effective instructional strategy used to teach writing.

‘Four Square’

Michele Morgan has been writing IEPs and behavior plans to help students be more successful for 17 years. She is a national-board-certified teacher, Utah Teacher Fellow with Hope Street Group, and a special education elementary new-teacher specialist with the Granite school district. Follow her @MicheleTMorgan1:

For many students, writing is the most dreaded part of the school day. Writing involves many complex processes that students have to engage in before they produce a product—they must determine what they will write about, they must organize their thoughts into a logical sequence, and they must do the actual writing, whether on a computer or by hand. Still they are not done—they must edit their writing and revise mistakes. With all of that, it’s no wonder that students struggle with writing assignments.

In my years working with elementary special education students, I have found that writing is the most difficult subject to teach. Not only do my students struggle with the writing process, but they often have the added difficulties of not knowing how to spell words and not understanding how to use punctuation correctly. That is why the single most effective strategy I use when teaching writing is the Four Square graphic organizer.

The Four Square instructional strategy was developed in 1999 by Judith S. Gould and Evan Jay Gould. When I first started teaching, a colleague allowed me to borrow the Goulds’ book about using the Four Square method, and I have used it ever since. The Four Square is a graphic organizer that students can make themselves when given a blank sheet of paper. They fold it into four squares and draw a box in the middle of the page. The genius of this instructional strategy is that it can be used by any student, in any grade level, for any writing assignment. These are some of the ways I have used this strategy successfully with my students:

* Writing sentences: Students can write the topic for the sentence in the middle box, and in each square, they can draw pictures of details they want to add to their writing.

* Writing paragraphs: Students write the topic sentence in the middle box. They write a sentence containing a supporting detail in three of the squares and they write a concluding sentence in the last square.

* Writing short essays: Students write what information goes in the topic paragraph in the middle box, then list details to include in supporting paragraphs in the squares.

When I gave students writing assignments, the first thing I had them do was create a Four Square. We did this so often that it became automatic. After filling in the Four Square, they wrote rough drafts by copying their work off of the graphic organizer and into the correct format, either on lined paper or in a Word document. This worked for all of my special education students!

I was able to modify tasks using the Four Square so that all of my students could participate, regardless of their disabilities. Even if they did not know what to write about, they knew how to start the assignment (which is often the hardest part of getting it done!) and they grew to be more confident in their writing abilities.

In addition, when it was time to take the high-stakes state writing tests at the end of the year, this was a strategy my students could use to help them do well on the tests. I was able to give them a sheet of blank paper, and they knew what to do with it. I have used many different curriculum materials and programs to teach writing in the last 16 years, but the Four Square is the one strategy that I have used with every writing assignment, no matter the grade level, because it is so effective.

‘Swift Structures’

Joy Hamm has taught 11 years in a variety of English-language settings, ranging from kindergarten to adult learners. The last few years working with middle and high school Newcomers and completing her M.Ed in TESOL have fostered stronger advocacy in her district and beyond:

A majority of secondary content assessments include open-ended essay questions. Many students falter (not just ELs) because they are unaware of how to quickly organize their thoughts into a cohesive argument. In fact, the WIDA CAN DO Descriptors list level 5 writing proficiency as “organizing details logically and cohesively.” Thus, the most effective cross-curricular secondary writing strategy I use with my intermediate LTELs (long-term English-learners) is what I call “Swift Structures.” This term simply means reading a prompt across any content area and quickly jotting down an outline to organize a strong response.

To implement Swift Structures, begin by displaying a prompt and modeling how to swiftly create a bubble map or outline beginning with a thesis/opinion, then connecting the three main topics, which are each supported by at least three details. Emphasize this is NOT the time for complete sentences, just bulleted words or phrases.

Once the outline is completed, show your ELs how easy it is to plug in transitions, expand the bullets into detailed sentences, and add a brief introduction and conclusion. After modeling and guided practice, set a 5-10 minute timer and have students practice independently. Swift Structures is one of my weekly bell ringers, so students build confidence and skill over time. It is best to start with easy prompts where students have preformed opinions and knowledge in order to focus their attention on the thesis-topics-supporting-details outline, not struggling with the rigor of a content prompt.

Here is one easy prompt example: “Should students be allowed to use their cellphones in class?”

Swift Structure outline:

Thesis - Students should be allowed to use cellphones because (1) higher engagement (2) learning tools/apps (3) gain 21st-century skills

Topic 1. Cellphones create higher engagement in students...

Details A. interactive (Flipgrid, Kahoot)

B. less tempted by distractions

C. teaches responsibility

Topic 2. Furthermore,...access to learning tools...

A. Google Translate description

B. language practice (Duolingo)

C. content tutorials (Kahn Academy)

Topic 3. In addition,...practice 21st-century skills…

Details A. prep for workforce

B. access to information

C. time-management support

This bare-bones outline is like the frame of a house. Get the structure right, and it’s easier to fill in the interior decorating (style, grammar), roof (introduction) and driveway (conclusion). Without the frame, the roof and walls will fall apart, and the reader is left confused by circuitous rubble.

Once LTELs have mastered creating simple Swift Structures in less than 10 minutes, it is time to introduce complex questions similar to prompts found on content assessments or essays. Students need to gain assurance that they can quickly and logically explain and justify their opinions on multiple content essays without freezing under pressure.

Thanks to Jenny, Michele, and Joy for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

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5 Ways to Exercise Essay Writing for Elementary Students

Few skills are as critical to educational success as essay writing for elementary students, and kids can get a leg up on their craft by exercising their skills in a variety of ways. Learning the basics through simple practices ensures that children understand what makes an essay effective and successful, and prepares them for further development in high school, college and beyond.

Below are five ways that will foster growth and aptitude in essay writing for elementary school students.

The allure of choice

A great way to encourage enthusiastic essay writing is by allowing kids their individual choice of a book assignment for a literary-style piece, or letting them choose an inspiring idea, either from a list or from their imaginations, for a narrative assignment. Following format and structure is still important, but the freedom students have in covering a topic of their choice may result in excellent work.

A question and answer period

Critical thinking is essential for long-term success in any field, especially writing. Teachers can help students develop this skill by hosting a question-and-answer period after students have read a book or written an essay and read it aloud to the class. Promoting confidence in the writer is also crucial. The questions students ask advance critical thinking about point of view, comprehension and analysis, which strengthen the author’s abilities for every type of essay, including expository, narrative and comparative.

Independent proofreading

Learning how to revise work is a process that takes years to master. One excellent way of teaching proofreading and revision command is returning essays after a few days so students may rework them for a second grade. A fresh look, with or without suggestions for improvement, often reveals the flaws missed on the first draft.

Variety is the spice

Repeating format and structure exercise rules for writing multiple times may cause students to lose interest. To rouse interest, incorporate the full spectrum of essay styles, narrative, persuasive, comparative and expository in assignments. Writing in each format helps students solidify their understanding.

The value of outlines

Enforcing rules and standards is extremely helpful for unmotivated writers struggling to complete open-ended assignments. Providing examples and requiring outlines for every written project focuses efforts and clarifies expectations. It also streamlines the process of writing and breaks it down into manageable sections. Once kids realize that writing is as much about organization as it is inspiration, they swiftly begin honing their technique.

There are many many tips available that are helpful for teaching elementary students how to effectively write a standard essay. These five suggestions are a great start, with plenty of room to delve further into style, structure, inspiration and tone.

How to Teach Writing to Elementary Students Without Fear

As an instructional coach, I have countless discussions with teachers on a variety of topics. One topic many agree on: teaching writing can cause anxiety. When I dig deeper into the root of their feelings, I find that their fear comes from just how much is involved—brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing—in teaching writing to elementary students effectively, not to mention the continual need to provide feedback throughout the process.

No matter what subject you teach—science, math, reading, social studies—writing is a common thread that is critical for success. Elementary students are learning how to write and respond to a variety of texts in all these subject areas. Research shows that teaching students how to do so effectively is crucial. In fact, because writing enables success in all academic areas and prepares students for college, career, and life, it remains one of the most important elements of K–12 education.

While teaching elementary students to be effective writers is a significant undertaking, there are steps teachers can take to minimize angst and optimize the experience.

Steps to Teaching Writing to Elementary Students

For many young students, writing is a new skill they are learning and practicing. And like anyone learning a new skill, students need a lot of guidance and support from an expert: their teacher. As Dr. Troy Hicks says in Achieving Writing Proficiency: The Research on Practice, Feedback, and Revision , “Guided practice is a powerful form of learning, and writing proficiency, with support, grows over time.”

If our goal is for students to grow, then we must scaffold the entire process. Use sentence frames , vocabulary banks, and graphic organizers to ease the process for new writers and those that need support. Another step teachers can take is to use mentor sentences and modeled examples to show students what the expected outcome looks like. As Dr. Hicks says, “When learning how to write, students must study mentor texts to understand the specific craft moves that highly skilled authors make in their work.” Showing students writing, instead of just talking about it, is a huge step in teaching writing to elementary students effectively.

One last step I often share with teachers is to provide feedback throughout the entire writing process. By the time the student is finished with their writing, the teacher should have read it and conferenced with that student several times. Feedback is the most important piece of the writing puzzle and without it, students will not grow as writers. Dr. Hicks writes, “ We also know that targeted writing feedback leads students to revise with intention, a key component of achieving growth and proficiency.”

With HMH's Writable ®, teachers can save time when they use AI suggested feedback on student work. The program generates feedback in English or Spanish in minutes. Teachers can edit the comments with ease, driving student writing growth.

Teaching the Writing Process to Elementary Students

The writing process for elementary students works the same way as it does for older students: brainstorm, draft, revise, and edit. This process does not change. However, since students are still learning, the writing process for younger students may look a little different than the process for their secondary counterparts. Below are some strategies for each step of the writing process that show how it may look different in an elementary classroom.

Brainstorming Stage

One of the challenges younger students face when asked to write a story or respond to a prompt, is the actual conceptualization of the task. Asking a first grader to create a character and write a story without anything tangible for them to refer to is difficult. The results will be mediocre at best. Try a hands-on activity. Brainstorming a character for a story becomes more accessible for a student when they can sketch their vision on paper, or using modeling clay, create a 3D representation of their character. Take this one step further by allowing students to use items like yarn, buttons, or stickers to enhance their creation.

If students are writing an essay that involves research, provide them a KWL chart so they can organize what they know (K) about the subject, what they want to know (W), and what they learned (L) through readings and other resources. The more that students can think through their ideas, the better they will be able to tackle the next step, which is to draft.

Drafting Stage

This step of the writing process needs to be scaffolded for elementary students. In many instances, students are learning how to draft stories and responses to text for the first time. One strategy is to provide sentence frames for students to use while they draft. Filling in the beginning or end of a sentence to complete a sentence frame provides that extra support for students who are struggling to get started. You can also provide graphic organizers that allow students to structure their ideas, whether they’re writing an essay or a fictional story.

Finally, showing students examples of good writing can make a big impact when students tackle similar assignments on their own. Share these step-by-step guides, including writing examples, with your students:

How to Write a Reflective Narrative Paragraph
How to Write a Persuasive Paragraph
How to Write an Expository Paragraph

Revising Stage

Revision at the younger grade levels requires a lot of teacher feedback. Students just don’t have the experience with writing yet to truly know what needs revising. This is where teacher feedback plays a crucial role in making this step of the writing process a success. A strategy to use during this step is to give students an actionable item to revise. For example, encourage students to add description to their writing to enhance the imagery and detail. By doing this, students move from the abstract step of revision to a tangible task they can accomplish.

Editing Stage

The last step of the writing process is to edit. Just as students need actionable tasks when revising, they also need actionable tasks when editing. A common strategy that is useful and encourages self-reflection is to use a checklist. A checklist is a scaffolded approach to showing students what to look for as they edit their writing. Items you may include on the checklist are: punctuation, capitalization, or sentence structure. Expand this task by allowing students to collaborate and discuss each other’s writing while using the checklist as a point of reference.

An Effective Approach to Teaching Writing

And there you have it—my best tips for teaching students to be effective writers. Remember, the key is in your approach to writing for elementary students. Don't be afraid to try new things in the classroom, like letting students use modeling clay to work out ideas before writing. If you’ve ever dreaded teaching writing like many of the educators I’ve worked with over the years, I hope the approach I've described here will help you learn to enjoy it.

Embrace the challenges that teaching writing presents. Teaching and learning is a process for both the teacher and the student, so enjoy the process together.

Essential Strategies for Teaching Writing

Here are our go-to writing strategies for students of all grade levels.

Writing strategies for elementary students are coming soon.
Middle school writing strategies that will foster fearless writers.
Writing strategies for high school students that will help them master the writing process.

Try Writable for Grades 3–12 to support your ELA curriculum, district benchmarks, and state standards. The program provides more than 1,000 customizable writing assignments and rubrics, plus AI-generated feedback and originality check that will save teachers time while boosting student skills.

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When I started teaching writing to elementary students, I had no clue how to actually teach writing! In fact, I could barely remember receiving any writing instruction as a child! Those first few years, I made writing instruction the focus of my professional development. I soon found that writing workshop was my favorite strategy to teach writing to upper elementary students. As with most instructional strategies, I found that some portions of traditional writing workshop that I needed to modify to better meet students’ needs.

Writing Workshop

Teaching writing to elementary students through writing workshop is broken into three parts: mini lesson, independent writing, and sharing/closing.

Mini Lesson-The mini lesson, sometimes called opening, is typically a five to ten minute lesson. These lessons should offer explicit writing instruction about a specific writing strategy. These lessons are teacher lead and typically centered around procedures, organization, strategies, craft, and techniques.
Independent Writing-Students will typically write about topics of their own choice in their writing notebooks. Students will work through the writing process and will frequently be at different stages of writing during this time. The teacher will act as a facilitator and guide students as they write. Teachers should also conference with individual students during independent writing.
Sharing-This closing is a five to ten minute portion of writing workshop. The teacher selects students to share their writing with their classmates. This gives students the opportunity to learn from each other by listening to examples of writing that fit a particular criteria, and gives students the opportunity to celebrate each others’ success. (monogrammed chair is not necessary)

There are a lot of ways to make writing workshop work in the upper elementary classroom. What works for one teacher and their class might not work for another! If you're looking for inspiration and guidance on implementing writing workshop in your classroom, then check out this blog post, where I've explained what works for me and my upper elementary students in a writing workshop guide. Click through to read now!

My Changes to Traditional Writing Workshop

Guided practice.

One of my biggest concerns with teaching writing through writing workshop was the lack of guided practice in the traditional approach of writing workshop. I felt the need to give my students structured practice in the specific areas we were working on. In both reading and math, I provided scaffolding and guided practice with new skills, and I saw a need for that additional instruction in my writing instruction. To give students that extra structure and assistance, I added a Guided Practice component to my writing instruction.

Writing Prompts

Every thing I’ve ever read about writing workshop strongly recommends that students should select their own topics. I agree with that philosophy, and the majority of the time I do have my students choose their own topics. However, most states require students to take a formal writing assessment where students will be expected to complete a writing assessment where they are given a writing prompt. In addition to my ongoing writing instruction, I also need to help prepare my students for their state writing assessment. This is why I give the occasional writing prompt during my writing workshop time.

Teaching Writing By Genre

When teaching writing to elementary students, I teach the majority of my writing standards by units of study: genre by genre, rather than mixing all genres together. Each writing genre requires a specific skill set that is unique to that particular genre. A student won’t use the same writing strategies that they use in a fictional narrative in an informational essay. Of course all writing needs certain elements, such grammar and spelling, so I address that throughout the year. Just like when teaching new math concepts, students need time to practice writing in a particular genre, before introducing a new style of writing.

The Writing Process

As I writer, I could never follow the writing process in a linear manner. It would make be absolutely crazy to wait until the very end of a paper to edit and revise. Everyone has their own system of working through the writing process, so we shouldn’t try to force all students to follow the writing process as a rigid set of steps. Instead, we should view the writing process as a fluid process where students move in and out of stages.

The fluidity of the writing process was a difficult concept for me when I first started teaching, because I felt like I didn’t have control over my class’s progress. I wanted everyone to be at the same place at the same time, but that doesn’t always work in writing workshop. There are times, especially when I start a new genre, that I do keep my students together for short periods of time, but eventually you’ll have students at each part of the writing process.

Teaching Writing to Elementary Students – Physical Space

Your classroom arrangement is an important part of writing workshop. As in any classroom, you want the classroom to be warm and welcoming and to send students the appropriate message about the learning that will take place. In a writing workshop classroom you may find:

large group meeting area
small group meeting area
mentor literature
examples of student work
accessible materials such as scissors, tape, staplers, etc.
writing anchor charts

The classroom should be arranged to create space and facilitate efficient movement within the classroom, as well as provide easy access to materials for students. Of course, we all have to work with the space we’re given. As my class size increases, the options for classroom set-up decrease. I occasionally have classroom envy, so I had to throw out that disclaimer!

Writing Notebooks

Even in this digital age, students benefit from keeping a writing notebook. There is no right or wrong way to organize students’ writing notebooks. I’ve tried several different approaches, and have found what works best for my class. Students keep all their writing in their writing notebook, which is a 1-inch, 3-ring binder. I prefer binders to spiral notebooks, because students can add copied pages to their binders, and it’s much easier to reorganize if needed. The only problem I have with binders is that the paper does tear. I accidentally found reinforced filler paper , and it changed my life!

Students use page dividers to divide their folder into four sections: resources, personal narratives, fictional narratives, informational, and opinion. You can start the year with all the tabs included in students’ notebooks or add them as needed. I like to plan ahead as much as possible, so I get everything ready over summer vacation. I also like using the page dividers with pockets, because the pockets are perfect for storing things that can’t easily be added to the writing folders, such as sticky notes and other scraps of paper.

Writing Conferences

Writing conferences are one of the most important components to writing workshop. This is when you will truly get to know your students, as individuals and as writers. This is probably the most difficult part of writing workshop for me, because I want to focus on spelling mistakes, punctuation, and capitalization. It’s extremely difficult for me to look past conventions and handwriting and to focus on the content of the writing.

However, during a writing conference it’s best to focus on one thing at a time. If we meet with a student and focus on every area of their writing that needs improvement, we’ll totally overwhelm them. Instead, I should highlight some of the strengths of their writing by sharing what stood out. Then work with the student to determine what one thing to should focus on.

You’ll need to clearly explain your expectations of how to sign up for a writing conference. You can have students fill out a sign-up sheet or create a classroom display that will indicate who needs a conference.

You can keep track of your writing conferences through forms such as the one below. Be sure to download it here.

Teaching Writing Through Groups

I used to think that small groups were just for reading and math, but they have their place in writing workshop too. It’s helpful to form strategy groups to meet with small groups of students who share a particular need. After the mini lesson, monitor students and make sure everything is running smoothly. Then, you can meet with a writing group before beginning writing conferences.

These groups are small, flexible, and composed of students who have similar needs. During this time, teach specific writing strategies. For example, if I have a particular group of students who are writing a series of facts, almost like a list of daily events, then I may teach a small lesson on choosing one moment in time. I may read an another example of a mentor text, or even use student work as an example. Give students the opportunity to practice the strategy. After you finish working with the writing group, students return to their seats to continue their writing.

Mentor Text

For students to become good writers, it is crucial that they are exposed to large quantities of high quality literature. This is one of the many reasons that writing workshop is the perfect addition to reading workshop, because you are already reading to your students daily, as well as having students read independently and in guided reading groups. I love using picture books as mentor texts in my mini lessons, because they are short enough to read in one session. The first time a student hears a book their focus is not typically on the author’s craft, since they are focusing on the basic plot of the story, so texts that are familiar to students may be more effective than brand new texts. Rather than worrying about the reading level of a mentor text, focus on the quality of the text and the text’s incorporation of a specific writing strategy.

When teaching writing to elementary students, we can’t forget about grammar. I don’t know what it is about grammar that makes it so difficult for students, but it’s the one subject area that my students typically have the most trouble with. It is absolutely painful for me to look at my students’ writing and see a tremendous amount of glaring mistakes. I don’t have a magic fix, but I will share two things I’ve learned that has helped me see an improvement.

One mistake that I made is that I allowed my students to develop bad habits while writing their first drafts. Yes, I want them writing fluently, and no, it’s not the time to edit, but that doesn’t mean students should become careless and ignore basic skills they’ve learned over time. Students should always give their best effort and not use this time as a free pass to ignore all convention rules.

I’ve also found that students have a very difficult time transferring skill based knowledge to their writing, which is why I also include grammar instruction into my mini lessons. This allows students to immediately apply these skills to their writing.

*note*I do teach other grammar skills in addition to what is taught in writing workshop. I’ve found that a combination is the best way to find that necessary balance between skills and application.

You can use a Grammar Skills checklists to keep track of which grammar skills your students apply to their own writing. Make a copy for each student to keep in a data notebook and observe their application of grammar skills. You can find more ideas for teaching grammar here.

Teaching Writing to Elementary Students – Assessment

Common Concerns Teaching Writing to Elementary Students

Students’ choice of topics.

You won’t always like your students’ choice in writing topics. I think my least favorite writing topic is anything to do with video games. It is appropriate to set boundaries on acceptable topics. As a whole group, I have my students set guidelines or boundaries on things they should not write about, and this typically includes anything excessively gory or violent.

Students Finish Too Quickly

How often have you heard a pencil slam down and a student call out “I’m finished!”? This is one of those bad habits that I have to break every year in every subject area. Their main objective is to get the work finished, not to do their best work or understand the material. It’s important to teach students that finishing a piece of writing does not grant them free time. They will write during writing.

Students Don’t Finish Anything

There will always be students who do not appear to finish anything. First, make sure students truly have enough time to finish their writing. You can also look at the student’s choice of topics to make sure the student is choosing topics that are manageable. If all else fails, I conference with the student to set goals where they will be required to finish a certain number of writing pieces.

Spread too Thin

During independent writing time I felt like 90% of my class wanted to schedule a conference with me, and my students would just sit and wait on me our entire writing time. This was frustrating on so many levels, because I wanted to help everyone, but there is just no way to meet with all of your students everyday. Eventually, I found that I have to limit the number of conferences some students can have over the course of a week.

Teaching Writing to Elementary Students – Procedures

I’m Ashleigh!

July 9, 2017 at 5:13 PM

Hi Ashleigh,

I love how you have organized all of your curriculum units. I am moving to 4th grade and I am wondering how much time do you have for each subject? Also, do you integrate both your reading and writing workshops? I would love to see a sample daily schedule.

July 9, 2017 at 10:04 PM

I may need to work this answer into a blog post! Every year it changes. My partner teachers writing or social studies, and I teach math and science to two groups. We teach our homeroom’s reading. Let me work on a sample schedule for you!

August 11, 2018 at 7:19 AM

Hi Ashleigh! I would also like to see a full schedule please! Thanks! ☺

How to Begin Teaching Writing in the Elementary Grades (Even if You’ve Never Taught it Before)

Are you teaching writing in the elementary grades for the first time? Perhaps you’re a seasoned teacher in the upper grades, but now you’re moving to a lower grade? Trust me, I know the fear is real.

Table of Contents

When I moved from 5th to 3rd grade, I worried about how to teach writing to lower elementary students, specifically research. You can’t just let them go out and do research on their own online. You can’t just give them a book or article to read and report on because they might not have sufficient critical thinking skills yet. Maybe you’re in the same situation.

So what do you do?

I went to other teachers already successfully teaching writing in the elementary grades. Then I developed simple systems for teaching writing that build strong writers, even when they’re beginners in grades 1-5.

Two journals and a cup of coffee with the title of the post.

In this article about teaching writing in the elementary grades, I’ll share with you my ideas in several key areas:

Setting the scene for writing in your classroom (cue – routine – reward)
Teaching foundational skills with mini lessons (using a two color writing strategy that students love)
Teaching self editing and peer editing (it only takes 5 minutes!)
Simplify the writing process (and eliminate overwhelm and writer’s block)
Adding the deets (perfect paragraph writing)
Conferencing (daily small group talks with mini lessons)

In your own teaching practice, look at each of these areas and see if you have a simple system for teaching this. The fastest way to grow strong writing is to provide a systems based learning scaffold to help students move from one level to the next in their writing expertise.

Scene Setting (Or Cue, Routine, Reward)

It’s important to have a regular schedule for when you write every day. Practice is the most important thing, and the best way to practice a new habit is to do what Charles Duhigg describes in his book, Habits. He says that to create a habit that sticks, (and that’s what we want when instilling a writing habit in our students), you want to start with some sort of cue.

In my class, the cue was an aquarium video that I would display on the board. As soon as the students saw the aquarium and the fish swimming, they pulled out their writing journals. This may sound silly, but it worked. A cue can be anything. It can be music, and image, a specific activity that’s always followed by the new habit. You can find more ideas for cues in this blog post, How to Create a Daily Writing Habit in Your Classroom.

The cue starts the routine of the new habit, which in this case is daily writing. After the writing is finished, you should give yourself and your students some type of reward. For my class, that was 5 minutes to visit with friends.

By the end of the first month, the habit was set. The students looked forward to writing time. It was relaxing, the class quieted down and concentrated on writing, and at the end, they had a reward.

Create Mini Lessons for Writing Strategies

Each week, can do a whole class mini lesson on whatever strategy you want to focus on that week. The mini lesson should be no more than 10 minutes long, especially in the elementary grades. Typically, students aged 6-10 can focus for about the number of minutes that matches their age.

Grammar topics are perfect for mini lessons. This blog post by The ESL Educator shares How to Introduce Grammar Topics in a Fun Way.

Next, while the students are writing, you can have mini conferences with small groups. When you have a small writing group, the students can collaborate on their work. You can go deeper into the writing strategy with them. It’s also a time for them to check in with you if they have questions or want to gauge their progress. This is a great time to teach self-editing skills. More on that later in this post.

dice that spell lesson and the words mini lesson

Use a Two Color System to Teach Basic Skills

You may wonder what a two color system is. It’s simply a way of giving feedback to students. It shows them one area to improve and multiple areas they’re doing well in.

First, you can use a checklist of basic writing skills students should master. These can be the basis for your mini lessons. You can grab your free checklist in the Member Vault.

Choose two colors of ink pen. I like green and purple, you might like other colors. Choose one color to use for areas needing improvement, and another color for areas that are done well. I used green for areas done well and purple for areas needing improvement.

As the students are writing, visit their desks or do this in a mini conference. Read what they’ve written so far. Find something they’ve done well, and put a star by it. Star as many items they’ve done well as you’d like.

Then put one mark, and only one mark by one thing that needs improvement. Never mark more than one thing.

a cat with glasses demonstrating focus to begin teaching writing

Why This Strategy for Teaching Writing Works

The beauty of this system is that students feel confident that they can focus on and improve one thing. For example, maybe they need to use quotation marks around dialogue. Don’t mark up all the dialogue in their paper. Just mark one, and tell them to concentrate on improving that.

Students love this system for a few reasons.

It’s not overwhelming. They only have to focus on one skill at a time.
They feel good about the rest of their successes. This is true for students at all levels of writing ability.
It becomes game-like for them. They want to get to a point where you can’t find anything to mark for improvement. (Yes, this actually happens!)

You can read more about this two color system and how to utilize the checklist in this blog post.

Simplify the Writing Process

What I mean by clarifying the writing process is to clarify it and make it as simple as possible. Keep the steps to a minimum viable process, or MVP. There are plenty of books and articles about the writing process available everywhere. But I’ve found they have one thing in common.

Students tend to get lost somewhere around the middle of the process. Some students skip steps and hurry up and finish. Other students get stuck at the beginning and never move to the next step.

My suggestion to eliminate this problem is to simplify the writing process .

Organize and plan. This can be done wth a graphic organizer, mind map, or in the upper elementary grades, an outline.
Prewrite. Write the text and just get it on the paper. This is where you can do conferencing and two color checking.
Edit and revise. Read the writing out loud and look for revisions and edits. Students can read it to a partner or to themselves. This is when students can use the CUPS editing process to catch errors. (More on CUPS in the five minute editing section.) They can revise to add to or delete parts of their writing.
Rewrite. Finally, have the students rewrite it. Then another student should read it over one last time before they turn it in.

The Five Minute Editing System

Can students edit their own writing in five minutes?

You bet they can.

All you have to do is teach this simple system. Then model, model, and model again. This is another great idea for doing with the students during mini conferences until they can do it on their own. This image shows the digital version of the system in one of my daily writing journals.

Teaching writing with highlighter bars for editing capitalization, usage, punctuation and spelling.

You’ll need some supplies.

Colored pencils or crayons. You’ll need four colors. I like to use orange, green, red, and blue, because those are in every crayon box.
Highlighter strips. If you don’t have highlighter strips, you can take paper that’s used for transparencies or laminating. Cut strips and then color them with permanent highlighters.
A timer for one minute.

To read the process and how to teach students to do this, check out this blog post.

Teaching Students to Add Structure and Details to Their Writing

A cup of colored pencils to begin writing

Depending on the grade you teach, you have different goals for the development of writing skills. In grade 1 it may be writing a simple sentence. In grade two, it could progress to writing three related sentences to create a basic paragraph.

Students are capable of more extensive writing in grade 3. At this level, you’ll be teaching them how to add transition words, and how to write an introduction and conclusion.

In fourth grade and fifth grade, students move into multi-paragraph writing with the classic three or five paragraph essay.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”What’s worse than falling asleep while you’re grading a student’s writing? Spilling your coffee as you fall asleep while grading a student’s writing! Save time and use a rubric, teacher friends!” quote=”What’s worse than falling asleep while you’re grading a student’s writing? Spilling your coffee as you fall asleep while grading a student’s writing!” theme=”style3″]

Along the way, in all the grades, you’ll be teaching about adjectives and adverbs and specific verbs to spice up their writing. I used to jokingly tell my students that if I started to fall asleep while reading their writing, I would lower their grades. I don’t know, maybe I was kind of serious about that.

What’s worse than falling asleep while you’re grading a student’s writing? Spilling your coffee as you fall asleep while grading a student’s writing!

You can use the Two Color Writing Checklist to follow a progression of teaching the most basic writing skills, including punctuation and use of descriptive words, to including metaphors and analogies and rhetorical analysis. The checklist is a super helpful guide for tracking what you’ve taught and what you want to move on to next.

Two-color writing checklist of skills to teach.

It’s free and available in the Member Vault here on the website.

Teaching How to Write the Perfect Paragraph

One simple system to use for teaching how to write the perfect paragraph is using a model with colors to mark different requirements. You may feel that this is too prescriptive, and will box in a student’s creativity. But quite the opposite is true.

Younger students, especially ESL students who are still learning how to speak, read, and write in English, benefit immensely from having a specific model to follow. It’s like a recipe for a good paragraph. With this model and scaffolding for differentiation , you can get your students writing more fluently than ever.

Sometimes you need some new ideas for prompts and strategies, am I right? If you want some fresh, new prompts for your students, my friend Sarah over at Sarah’s Writing Spot has a bundle of prompts you can download for free.

A System for a Perfect Paragraph

Choose three colors plus one accent color. They can be any colors you choose. I like to use stoplight colors, green, yellow, red, plus orange. On a practical note, you get stoplight colors in a box of 8 dry erase markers or a box of 8 crayons. Keep it super simple!

Young students love pizza, so I have a pizza lunch analogy to go with the three colors.

Green: Green is the salad. The salad comes before the pizza. It’s the introduction to the paragraph.
Yellow: Yellow is the pizza crust. It’s the body of the pizza that holds all the toppings. Yellow is the fact or main point that the story or essay must include.
Red: Red is the sauce and the pepperoni. It’s the details that explain, expound, examine, explore, and really develop the fact or main point.
Orange: Once you begin teaching transitional phrases, you can add orange. Orange is the color for the transition words. It’s the extra cheese in the stuffed crust. If you’re teaching the students to use particular types of transitions, they underline them in orange.
Green again at the end: Green is now mint ice cream for dessert. Or pistachio ice cream if you prefer. It’s where the student looks back at the introduction, the body, and the details, and crafts a great conclusion.

You can learn more about this and how to implement it in your classroom in my course.

Building Strong Writers with Simple Systems

A woman writing with the words a system for teaching how to write a perfect paragraph

Colorful Paragraphs

Here’s an example of what I mean. Imagine a student writes the following introduction to a personal opinion paper.

This first sentence is Green. You may not like rainy days but I love them. Let me tell you some reasons why, and see if you agree.
Sentence 2 is Yellow: The student states a fact about rainy days.
After Yellow comes Red for Sentence 3 with details and explanations : The student explains why it’s true for them.
Sentences 4, 5, 6, and 7 continue the pattern of yellow and red. The student writes two more yellow sentences and includes at least one red sentence to expand the idea.
Sentence 8 is Green. The student concludes by restating their opinion or the main idea in a different way.
Don’t forget Orange! Finally, the student can go back and add in the orange transitional words and phrases that are appropriate to the paragraph.

Students can have as many red sentences to develop a topic as they need to use. They’re not limited to the 8 sentence model. The paragraph can be longer. Just like the analogy of the pizza, you can always add more sauce and pepperoni!

Using mentor sentences is one effective way to teach how to add details and imagery to sentences. Students are amazed at the caliber of writing they can produce when they model a mentor text.

Moving past paragraphs are you wondering how to teach essay writing skills? Follow this link to get some solid ideas from A Fresh Breath On Teaching.

Publishing Student Writing

Think about how you want to publish student writing. There are so many ideas that will give a sense of fulfillment after their hard work. You can decide before you plan the lesson. Here are five ideas. How many more ways to publish student writing can you come up with?

Will you do the classic and hang it on the wall?
Will you have students create a slides presentation with images?
Have you ever had the students record a video of themselves reading their writing?
Could you have a story party? This is super fun to do during the holidays when you might be writing narratives.
Will you create a wall in your Google Classroom or LMS and post all the stories there?

The Problem Solving Teacher has even more ideas for publishing student writing. Don’t miss reading this! It’s full of great tips. She also has this post, 12 Delightful and Innovative Ways to Share and Publish Student Writing.

The Dual Langauge Hero has a fantastic post about How to Motivate Students to Write with Writing Celebrations . It has some super creative and fun ideas that don’t cost you any money!

That’s it for today!

FYI, in a future blog, I’ll be chatting about how to use digital writing portfolios in your classroom at any grade or level.

P.S. Are you wondering how to fit all this writing into your already busy routine? Creating a curriculum map will help. Because you’ll see the big picture and create themes around your writing lessons. You can learn how in my free 5 day video course.

Plan Your Year Like a Boss in 5 Days or Less!

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How To Teach Writing: What Educators Need To Know

Here, we’ll go over the basics of how to teach writing and how to light the imagination in a way that lends itself to stellar student writing.

As a teacher, you want to inspire your students and help them grasp the writing process. Writing assignments can be subjective, and it can be tough to teach students to harness their creativity in a way that allows their writing skills to shine.

As a language arts teacher, you know there’s no right or wrong answer when completing a piece of writing, and you want your students to take risks and be bold–all while creating good writing with top-notch vocabulary and excellent sentence structure. Whether you’re an elementary school writing teacher, someone who works with children with learning disabilities, a high school English teacher, or a college professor working on teaching the process of writing to your students, you’re teaching your kids or young adults a skill that will serve them well throughout their academic careers and beyond.

Here, we’ll take a look at the steps required to develop an effective writing lesson, how to gauge whether your students are moving forward in becoming better writers, and digital tools that you can use to help your students grow their writing practice.

Before you begin:

How to teach writing to students, step 1. talk to your students, step 2. learn about your students’ writing skills, step 3. boost class confidence, step 4. start small, step 5. pay attention to skill level, step 7. provide feedback.

1. Grammarly
2. Google Docs
3. Purdue OWL
4. Hemingway Editor
5. Vocabulary.com

Teaching writing skills to students can be tricky; before you begin, plan ahead by creating a lesson plan. You can use our how-to guide below to plan your next lesson for teaching writing and learn how to teach this tricky subject easily. Include each step in your lesson plan and the list of activities you will assign your students; make sure to cover each topic in a different lesson, so you don’t overwhelm your students.

Whether you’re working with elementary-age students or college-level young adults, many in your classroom likely have already had experiences shaping how they feel about the writing process. If your students have had negative experiences with writing in the past, it can be tough to get them to open up and be willing to try something new. Asking your students open-ended questions can help you to get a feel about where they are in their writing confidence. You may choose to ask questions out loud in a classroom setting, or you may choose to talk with your students one on one if time permits.

Some questions you may want to ask students to help you gauge how they feel about their writing skills include:

What do you know about the writing process? Tell me everything!
Last time you wrote a story, what was it about?
What’s the biggest challenge when it comes to writing?
If you’re going to write a story, how would you get started?

By asking these questions, you won’t just know more about your students’ confidence–you’ll also get an idea of what they’ve already been taught about the writing process and whether there are any gaps you’ll need to fill in as you teach them to become writers.

You may also want to let students know that they can come to talk to you with any questions or concerns they have about writing. Sometimes, students with learning disabilities or other issues that affect their writing ability may feel uncomfortable discussing these issues in front of their classmates. If necessary, you may want to work with a special education teacher who can address any unique learning needs in your classroom.

After you talk to your students about the writing process, you may want to provide them with a short writing assignment to help you get a better idea of where they’re at with writing. It’s up to you to decide how much guidance you’d like to give them. Some sample assignment ideas to help you get a good idea of where your students are at when it comes to writing include:

Write a one-page story about something interesting that happened to you over the summer.
Write about when you got into an argument with a family member and how the issue was resolved.
Imagine it’s ten years from now. Where are you? What are you doing? Who is around you? Provide as much detail as possible.

In addition to giving insight into your student’s writing ability, asking these questions can also show how comfortable your students are with the writing process. You’ll notice that some students excitedly get to work while others give short or vague answers.

Take note of how your students do with this initial assignment so that you can praise their progress as they move forward with your writing lessons. Of course, progress will differ for each student; for some, learning to write in complete sentences may be a big accomplishment. For others, mastering a five-paragraph essay may be the goal.

Step 6. Teach The Process

After you understand how your students feel about the writing process and where they’re at in their journey to become better writers, it’s time to begin teaching the writing process. The exact process that you’ll teach your students will largely depend on their age and skill level, and you may find that you need to adjust your process as you continually get a better idea of your student’s skill levels. The framework provided here is at an elementary to middle school level.

The first step in the writing process is developing topic ideas. Then, during the brainstorming process, encourage students to write down anything that comes to mind without censoring themselves—allowing students to keep their brainstorming processes to themselves (rather than requiring them to share out loud or hand in their paper) can help them think freely and write what’s on their mind without a barrier of self-judgment.

After your students complete their first brainstorm, encourage them to return to their lists and cross out any ideas that don’t seem like they could be a good fit. Narrowing down their ideas to three options can be a helpful first step in getting started. Following the initial brainstorming process, ask students to take a few moments to flesh out their three ideas. Often, students find that they can tie two of their brainstorming ideas together, making it easier for them to share more of what they’re passionate about.

During this second stage of the brainstorming process, ask students to add details to the topics they’re debating, helping them see which option has the best chance of developing a compelling story.

After your students complete the brainstorming process and decide on a topic, it’s time to move forward with developing the first draft. Again, it would be best to let your students know that their first draft is a draft. There’s no need for the first draft of their story to be perfect.

Before actually beginning the draft writing process, you may decide to encourage your students to create an outline to guide their writing. For example, they may choose to list all of the points they’d like to make if they’re writing a persuasive piece or may want to list the events they want to describe if they’re writing a personal narrative. For students who have anxiety around writing, it can be especially helpful to get some of their ideas onto paper to act as a guide before they begin writing their first draft.

For many students, writing as freely as possible–including spelling and grammar mistakes–helps them develop the framework necessary to move forward with their writing piece. Remind students that they’ll be able to come back to their work later to clean it up and that there’s no need to get everything right on the first try.

After completing the first draft, give your students some time away from their writing before they begin to revise. Taking a few hours or a few days can give students the time to process what they’ve written and look at their work in a new light. For many students, a two- or three-stage revision process can be helpful.

During the first revision, students read the work themselves. Your students may find it helpful to read all or parts of their work out loud while working through their revision. Hearing their words out loud can help them find sections of text that are awkward or incorrectly phrased and can help them find areas that could be condensed or need to be better explained.

Following the first revision of their work, peer revision can be helpful. During the peer revision, students trade their writing with one another to get constructive criticism on their work. Be warned: this part of the writing process can be difficult for some students, especially if they’re not confident in their writing skills or have chosen to write about a personal topic. Before beginning the peer revision process, set ground rules with your class on how to give the author feedback that’s helpful and drives the writing process forward.

After completing the revision process, it’s time for your students to begin the editing process, where they’ll take the feedback they received during revisions and put it to good use. Editing can take time, and it’s smart to give your students leeway to move back and forth between the revision and editing processes. It’s key to let students know that the writing process isn’t always linear, and sometimes it’s essential to take a step back and reconsider how they’re developing their work.

As an educator, you may want to review your student’s work with them during the editing process before they move on to the publishing phase. Depending on the amount of correction needed and the types of writing your students are working on, you may want to ask them to go back and create a new draft before they enter the final phase of the process. While there’s no need to re-do the pre-writing activities associated with the beginning of the writing process, exploring the draft, revision, and editing phases can make for a smoother final copy.

The publishing process will look different from classroom to classroom, and it’s up to you and your students to decide how they’d like to publish their writing. Some educators put student work into a binder of stories to distribute at the end of the year. Sometimes, simply printing a final edit of their work for them to take home to their parents can be enough to help them feel like a writer. Talk to your students about how they’d like their work to be shared. Creating a classroom website or blog can also be fun for students to share their work with others.

As a teacher, providing feedback to young children and adults on their writing can be tough, especially when you know it’s something they’ve been working to improve. However, providing direct, kind, constructive feedback can go a long way in helping students to become better writers.

When possible, try complimenting students’ writing skills while providing constructive feedback. This helps students see many positive points in their work and can help them feel motivated to continue working on their writing in the future. You may also want to create a system in your classroom that allows students to provide anonymous feedback to one another. This can allow students to read the work of others without bias and can help students feel less nervous about their peers reading their work.

Digital Tools for Teaching Writing

Technology makes it easier than ever to teach writing, as long as you know how to use the tools you have at your disposal. Here, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most effective tools you can use to help your students boost their writing skills inside and outside the classroom.

1. Grammarly

We know–correcting the tiny grammatical mistakes that your students make day in and day out can take a toll on you as an educator. Grammarly makes it simple for students to correct spelling and grammar mistakes and explains why certain words, phrases, and structures should be changed.

The free version of Grammarly works perfectly and provides your students with everything they need to grow as writers. In addition, when your students use a Grammarly account, their work is cloud-based and can be accessed from both school and home, making it simple for them to keep working on their writing no matter where they are.

2. Google Docs

Like Grammarly, Google Docs makes it simple for students to keep working on their writing at school and at home. Google Docs allows multiple people to edit a document, allowing you and your students to work together to create a top-notch piece of writing. With Google Docs, you’ll also be able to make comments to your students about their writing, ask questions, and create a dialouge that allows you to understand their goals

3. Purdue OWL

Older students will benefit from using the Purdue Online Writing Lab, or OWL, to give them the information they need to make their writing meet currently acceptable journalistic and academic standards. In addition to providing basic information on grammar, the Purdue OWL also offers citation instructions for both APA and MLA formats and can help students figure out how to create technically correct writing. Students must check against the OWL regularly, as APA and MLA requirements change from time to time.

4. Hemingway Editor

Hemingway’s short, concise sentences and to-the-point descriptions made his writing clear and bold. Readers love Hemingway because he broke down cumbersome topics in a way that made them accessible, and many readers today strive to emulate the timeless author’s style of writing.

Another tool best suited for high school and college students, the Hemingway Editor, helps students find grammar errors and uses of passive voice, which many agree are best avoided in academic and professional writing. A word of caution: Hemingway Editor does not save work, so it’s key that students copy and paste their edited material into a Google Doc or other platform where their work will be saved.

5. Vocabulary.com

Professional authors and students alike find themselves struggling with using the same words over and over again. Using a site like Vocabulary.com helps writers learn new words in ways that stick, making it easy to spice up writing without getting repetitive. The site is also helpful for looking up the meaning of a single word but has capabilities that go far beyond offering standard dictionary definitions. Cool bonus: the site is free!

Looking for more? Check out our guide on how to teach paraphrasing to students !

Amanda has an M.S.Ed degree from the University of Pennsylvania in School and Mental Health Counseling and is a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer. She has experience writing magazine articles, newspaper articles, SEO-friendly web copy, and blog posts.

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How to Motivate Elementary School Students to Develop Writing Skills

Rapidly advancing technology makes communication more accessible, simpler, and more convenient than ever before. Young children in elementary school are receiving an outside education in the art of modern writing and communication.

The problem is that many students are learning habits at a crucial age that may help them pick the perfect emoji or gif for a social situation, but it won’t help them learn the appropriate forms of “your,” “you’re,” and “yours.”

The (D)Evolution of Writing

The lack of formality in modern communication leaves educators unsure of how to teach writing to elementary students. No one outside of the classroom writes essays anymore. Instead, we write articles and blog posts, like this one; we tweet and give TED talks.

The art of writing and the rules associated with the craft seem further removed from the zeitgeist than ever before. Therefore, teaching your elementary students to write essays correctly can seem like an impossible task, especially when they spend so much time communicating with one another via other mediums.

At Marco Learning , our mission is to help teachers and schools better educate their students. That’s why we’re providing tips on how to teach essay writing to elementary students, as well as some tips and tricks for improving your students’ writing skills overall.

In this post, we’ll cover:

Data on elementary student writing levels
How to help kids with writing
How to develop your students’ writing skills in fun ways

The Statistics

According to reports from the National Center for Education , SAT mean scores in writing dropped from 497 to 484 over nine years (2006-2015). Furthermore, during this period, the number fell every year.

With roughly only 25 percent of students testing as proficient in writing, it can be easy to point the finger at social media and constant access to screens. However, the issue starts in the classroom.

In 2016, 40 percent of students who took the ACT writing exam lacked the reading and writing skills necessary to complete a college-level English composition class.

How to Evaluate a Student’s Writing Skill Level

Let’s be clear. We’re not blaming you, the fearless educators. It’s an issue that’s far more systemic.

Elementary school is the time when students first learn how language operates. They’re expected to grasp vocabulary, grammar, and spelling while simultaneously expressing and conveying ideas and arguments in a concise, organized way, making it hard to know how to develop writing skills in a child.

The Challenges of Learning to Write

Elementary school is a crucial time in a child’s development, and the pace at which students are expected to learn and succeed is exceptionally fast. By the time students reach middle or high school, they’re expected to write multi-paragraph essays containing formal introductions, arguments with supporting evidence, and conclusions.

The problem is that language is a vast territory, and with so many exceptions to the rule, students often become overwhelmed and stop trying.

Common Struggles Students Face

Students often face a variety of struggles when it comes to writing, whether in the classroom or at home. From grammar to organization, these are the most common hurdles:

Lack of topic ideas
Lack of structure leading to disorganized thoughts
A feeling of disconnect from the assignment

When it comes to writing, the actual words your students use and how they use those words is vital, but putting “pen to paper” is the last step of a long process that requires plenty of practice and planning.

How to Tell if Your Student is Struggling with Writing

There are more signs that your student is struggling with their writing than poor sentence-level mechanics. Whether you’re a new teacher or not, you know that the signs of a struggling student go beyond the quality and grading of their assignments. Therefore, to improve their writing, you need to address each area.

You can identify a student that is struggling with their writing by paying close attention to their work and how they behave in the classroom. Many students who struggle exhibit such signs as:

Poor spelling and grammar
Lack of organized thoughts and structure
Sometimes because the student doesn’t feel they are prepared enough to complete it

Now that we’ve covered the issues and how to spot them, let’s figure out how to prevent them and provide students with a positive fix that will increase their writing efficiency.

How to Develop Elementary Students’ Writing Skills in a Fun Way

Young students, especially those in elementary school don’t benefit from long attention spans. In fact, a 2015 study found that adults have an attention span that lasts about eight seconds. Keeping your students engaged while teaching them better writing skills is no small task.

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE WRITING

We’re going to break these activities down into three sections that each relate to common issues: Ideas, disorganization, and disconnection from the assignment.

Lack of Ideas

Allowing your students to generate ideas in a group and brainstorm is an effective tool. If a student is stuck on an idea, hearing what others say can create inspiration. Additionally, if multiple kids are stuck on an idea, a group setting allows them to feel less alone from their lack of an idea.
Allow your students to work on an assignment in pairs, groups, or as a whole class. Similar to sharing ideas out loud, this method gets your students to better think about how to structure an essay and share their writing styles
A writing prompt or starter sentence doesn’t allow your student to claim they don’t know what to write about and forces them to begin while guiding them.
Allow your students to free write for a few minutes and encourage them to ignore structure and grammar (for now). Free writing is an excellent tactic for getting the creative juices going.

Disorganized and Lack of Structure

Instead of making students write a five-paragraph essay all at once, break each part of it into sections. Provide students with a graphic breakdown of each section that includes helpful hints for writing and structure.
Give your students an example of what you’re looking for and provide explanations for different sections.
Instead of focusing on an essay as a whole, teach smaller chunks of the essay and its structure. Take 10 – 15 minutes to focus solely on lead sentences or transitional phrases.
A writing toolbox can include anything you think may help struggling students improve their writing. Include resources like a list of transitional words or phrases, a list of words to avoid, and a grammar cheat sheet.

Disconnected from the Assignment

Either let your students choose from a list of approved topics or give them the option to pick their own for approval. Often, students who feel invested in a subject are more likely to write more and try harder.
Writing an essay for a grade isn’t always enough to get some students engaged, especially if they’re struggling already. Raise the stakes and give them a greater purpose by creating unique assignments. For example, have them write a blog post they have to share with the class or a travel brochure to their favorite destination.
Whether in small groups or one-on-one, it’s vital for teachers to pay attention to each student and identify where they are struggling. When students feel disengaged, it may be because they think they lack the skills to do well. Make sure to target different areas for each student.

AT HOME ACTIVITIES FOR PARENTS

Just as in the classroom, teaching your kids writing skills at home is essential because it shows your kids multiple methods and ways to write. Writing at home also keeps what your child learned in school fresher in their minds. Remember the length of that attention span? Knowing how to help kids with writing isn’t always easy, so we’ve got a few helpful tips.

Here are a few ways parents can help at home:

Task your child with writing instructions for taking care of the family pet.
Dictate to your child what you need on your shopping list and have them write the items down.
Have them spend five minutes after school journaling about their day.
Write an online review of something they like.

Create a space in your home where your child will feel comfortable doing homework and other writing exercises. When doing exercises with them, don’t be afraid to make it fun with crayons, colored pencils, and markers.

If you enjoy reading to your child, try and write a story together. By reading and writing together, you’ll help your child develop ideas more efficiently, which will translate to their performance in the classroom.

Improving young students’ writing skills may seem like a tall challenge, but by doing a little planning yourself and identifying the individual needs and issues of each student, you’ll be able to transform your classroom into a great writers workshop.

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How to write a perfect essay

Need to write an essay? Does the assignment feel as big as climbing Mount Everest? Fear not. You’re up to the challenge! The following step-by step tips from the Nat Geo Kids Almanac will help you with this monumental task.

Sometimes the subject matter of your essay is assigned to you, sometimes it’s not. Either way, you have to decide what you want to say. Start by brainstorming some ideas, writing down any thoughts you have about the subject. Then read over everything you’ve come up with and consider which idea you think is the strongest. Ask yourself what you want to write about the most. Keep in mind the goal of your essay. Can you achieve the goal of the assignment with this topic? If so, you’re good to go.

WRITE A TOPIC SENTENCE

This is the main idea of your essay, a statement of your thoughts on the subject. Again, consider the goal of your essay. Think of the topic sentence as an introduction that tells your reader what the rest of your essay will be about.

OUTLINE YOUR IDEAS

Once you have a good topic sentence, you then need to support that main idea with more detailed information, facts, thoughts, and examples. These supporting points answer one question about your topic sentence—“Why?” This is where research and perhaps more brainstorming come in. Then organize these points in the way you think makes the most sense, probably in order of importance. Now you have an outline for your essay.

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, WRITE!

Follow your outline, using each of your supporting points as the topic sentence of its own paragraph. Use descriptive words to get your ideas across to the reader. Go into detail, using specific information to tell your story or make your point. Stay on track, making sure that everything you include is somehow related to the main idea of your essay. Use transitions to make your writing flow.

Finish your essay with a conclusion that summarizes your entire essay and 5 restates your main idea.

PROOFREAD AND REVISE

Check for errors in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar. Look for ways to make your writing clear, understandable, and interesting. Use descriptive verbs, adjectives, or adverbs when possible. It also helps to have someone else read your work to point out things you might have missed. Then make the necessary corrections and changes in a second draft. Repeat this revision process once more to make your final draft as good as you can.

Download the pdf .

Homework help

Science lab, (ad) national geographic kids almanac.

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How to Teach Writing to Elementary Students in 2024: 6 Steps of the Writing Process

This post is all about how to teach writing to elementary students using the 6 steps of the writing process. Your students will be entering your classroom with a diverse set of writing skills at the start of the school year, which is why administering a formative assessment the first month of school will be so important. You’ll be able to quickly identify students’ strengths and weaknesses. This information will help you design whole group and small group lessons based on your students’ needs.

The seasonal writing bundle will help you collect this data at the start of the school year, as well as periodically through the year! It includes a writing formative assessment for each of the four seasons:

Autumn Writing Formative Assessment
Winter Writing Formative Assessment
Spring Writing Formative Assessment
Summer Writing Formative Assessment

At the end of the school year, you’ll have four writing samples that show your students’ growth in writing. These writing samples are great for sharing with parents during conferences. You can also share them with your students’ teacher for the following school year. They are a great way to compare their writing from the different parts of the year because they follow the same format, which allows you to compare apples to apples. This is a great resource for your whole team, or better yet, your whole school to do.

This blog post will explain how to teach writing to elementary students using the 6 steps of the writing process and will share more information about these writing assessments for elementary students.

6 Steps of the Writing Process

Here is some information about the six steps of the writing process , which is also called the 6 stages of writing. This information will help you with how to teach the writing process to elementary students.

1. Pre-Writing

The first step of the writing process is pre-writing. Prewriting involves considering purpose for writing, brainstorming ideas, using graphic organizers to connect those ideas, and designing a coherent structure. There are different ways to work through the prewriting phase and it is important to identify which is best for your students.

It is often helpful to engage students in a whole-class brainstorming session to come up with ideas to get them started. You could instead have them brainstorm general ideas in small groups. Graphic organizers help all students to organize their ideas during the prewriting stage. We’ve included a variety of options for you to choose from in our seasonal writing bundle resources .

2. Planning and Organizing

The second step of the writing process is planning and organizing. I recommend using a top-down web. A top-down web is a graphic organizer that presents topics and sub-topics in a hierarchical way, using varied shapes and placement on the page to represent the connections among the topics.

It is often used to improve reading comprehension to frame students’ thoughts and help them to understand the information they are reading. They also work amazingly well as a tool for designing the structure of writing.

There are five different styles of top-down webs included in this seasonal writing packet . Some include lines to help with fine motor skills while others are open. There are also options for simple and more complex paragraphs as well as multi-paragraph essays. Select the one that is best for your students. You can easily differentiate to meet their varied needs by using multiple styles within your classroom.

3. Drafting

The third step of the writing process is drafting. Students work independently at this stage. As they write their drafts, circulate the room, confer with each of them and offer constructive criticism. Observe areas with which students show challenge and informally assess areas in which an individual conference, small group intervention, or a whole class mini-lesson would be beneficial. The seasonal writing packet includes three options for drafting.

4. Revising and Editing

The fourth step of the writing process is revising and editing. This is best done in a 1:1 conference between the student writer and an adult. Teach students to reread their own work more than once as they think about whether it really conveys what they want to tell their reader. Reading their work aloud to classmates and other adults helps them to understand what revisions are needed.

Show students how to revise specific aspects of their writing to make it more coherent and clear. You can model reading your own writing and do a think-aloud about how you could add more details and make it clearer in a mini lesson.

Be cautious not to “over-correct” a student’s writing, but instead certain areas to focus on during each editing session.

Set goals for your students and assess them on their progress in those areas. Teach them how to be resourceful in finding the correct spelling of misspelled words.

5. Rewriting

The fifth step of the writing process is rewriting. Have your students incorporate the changes discussed during your writing conference as they carefully rewrite their drafts.

If you are using the seasonal writing printables , then select the final copy stationary that is best for each student. There are two options of each stationary style. The first has a black bar with white text and the other is a printer-friendly version.

6. Publishing

The final step of the writing process is publishing. There are a variety of ways to publish student writing, but the seasonal writing pages were designed specifically to help showcase additional measures of student growth and progress. Have them illustrate a scene to supports their paragraph at the bottom of the page. Encourage them to do their personal best.

Add a photo of the student taken in that season to the top section. If you live in an area with four seasons, we recommend taking the photos outside to reflect each season. At the school I taught at in Massachusetts, there was a beautiful tree on the property. It served as the perfect location for taking students’ pictures for this activity. The tree changed with the seasons. If you live in a climate that lacks major seasonal changes, you could use fun props to create a “photo booth” for each season.

When you use our full-year seasonal writing portfolio option and include these drawing and photos it really shows how much a child changes and advances throughout your time together. This is a wonderful way to document progress and provides a precious keepsake your students’ families will cherish in the future.

It’s important to note that each one can stand on its own. This means you can use it with your students without administering the others. For example, you can just use the fall and spring ones to show students’ growth from the beginning of the year to the end. You do not have to use all four of the elementary writing assessments. You can decide what works best for you and your classroom.

3 Resources for Teaching Writing

I hope you found this information about how to teach writing to elementary students through the 6 steps of the writing process helpful! If you need resources for assessing your students’ progress throughout the school year, then I highly recommend checking out the resources below.

1. Quarterly Writing Assessments

The seasonal writing bundle includes 4 writing formative assessments. You can learn more about the resources in the Winter Writing Assessment blog post and Spring Writing Assessment blog post. They also provide additional information about how to teach elementary writing. Check out the resources below!

Autumn writing assessment
Winter writing assessment
Spring writing assessment
Summer writing assessment
Bundle of all 4 writing assessments

2. Monthly Writing Prompts

These monthly writing prompts are a great fast finisher activity and writing center. Students love using the prompts to craft unique stories and parents love to see how their child’s writing grows throughout the school year.

3. Paragraph of the Week Writing

In addition, you may find these Paragraph of the Week helpful for how to teach the writing process to elementary students. Paragraph of the Week is a proven, step-by-step, scaffolded system. It makes teaching kids how to improve sentence structure and write a paragraph easy by guiding them through the writing process. This resource pairs perfectly with the seasonal writing resources. Learn more about it in this post all about paragraph of the week !

Read more about: ELEMENTARY TEACHING , LITERACY

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May would you rather questions and activities for elementary students, april would you rather questions and activities for elementary students, november coloring: elementary color by code activities for 2024.

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How to Teach Essay Writing

Last Updated: June 26, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 88,839 times.

Teaching students how to write an essay is a big undertaking, but this is a crucial process for any high school or college student to learn. Start by assigning essays to read and then encourage students to choose an essay topic of their own. Spend class time helping students understand what makes a good essay. Then, use your assignments to guide students through writing their essays.

Choosing Genres and Topics

Step 1 Choose an essay genre to assign to your students.

Narrative , which is a non-fiction account of a personal experience. This is a good option if you want your students to share a story about something they did, such as a challenge they overcame or a favorite vacation they took. [2] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
Expository , which is when you investigate an idea, discuss it at length, and make an argument about it. This might be a good option if you want students to explore a specific concept or a controversial subject. [3] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
Descriptive , which is when you describe a person, place, object, emotion, experience, or situation. This can be a good way to allow your students to express themselves creatively through writing. [4] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
Argumentative or persuasive essays require students to take a stance on a topic and make an argument to support that stance. This is different from an expository essay in that students won't be discussing a concept at length and then taking a position. The goal of an argumentative essay is to take a position right away and defend it with evidence. [5] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

Step 2 Provide models of the type of essay you want your students to write.

Make sure to select essays that are well-structured and interesting so that your students can model their own essays after these examples. Include essays written by former students, if you can, as well as professionally written essays.

Tip : Readers come in many forms. You can find readers that focus on a specific topic, such as food or pop culture. You can also find reader/handbook combos that will provide general information on writing along with the model essays.

Step 3 Divide students into small groups to discuss model essays.

For example, for each of the essays you assign your students, you could ask them to identify the author's main point or focus, the structure of the essay, the author's use of sources, and the effect of the introduction and conclusion.
Ask the students to create a reverse outline of the essay to help them understand how to construct a well-written essay. They'll identify the thesis, the main points of the body paragraphs, the supporting evidence, and the concluding statement. Then, they'll present this information in an outline. [8] X Research source

Step 4 Encourage students to choose a topic that matters to them.

For example, if you have assigned your students a narrative essay, then encourage them to choose a story that they love to tell or a story they have always wanted to tell but never have.
If your students are writing argumentative essays, encourage them to select a topic that they feel strongly about or that they'd like to learn more about so that they can voice their opinion.

Explaining the Parts of an Essay

For example, if you read an essay that begins with an interesting anecdote, highlight that in your class discussion of the essay. Ask students how they could integrate something like that into their own essays and have them write an anecdotal intro in class.
Or, if you read an essay that starts with a shocking fact or statistic that grabs readers' attention, point this out to your students. Ask them to identify the most shocking fact or statistic related to their essay topic.

For example, you could provide a few model thesis statements that students can use as templates and then ask them to write a thesis for their topic as an in-class activity or have them post it on an online discussion board.

Tip : Even though the thesis statement is only 1 sentence, this can be the most challenging part of writing an essay for some students. Plan to spend a full class session on writing thesis statements and review the information multiple times as well.

Step 3 Show students how to introduce and support their claims.

For example, you could spend a class session going over topic sentences, and then look at how the authors of model essays have used topic sentences to introduce their claims. Then, identify where the author provides support for a claim and how they expand on the source.

For example, you might direct students to a conclusion in a narrative essay that reflects on the significance of an author's experience. Ask students to write a paragraph where they reflect on the experience they are writing about and turn it in as homework or share it on class discussion board.
For an expository or argumentative essay, you might show students conclusions that restate the most important aspect of a topic or that offer solutions for the future. Have students write their own conclusions that restate the most important parts of their subject or that outline some possible solutions to the problem.

Guiding Students Through the Writing Process

Step 1 Explain the writing process so students will know to start early.

Try giving students a sample timeline for how to work on their essays. For example, they might start brainstorming a topic, gathering sources (if required), and taking notes 4 weeks before the paper is due.
Then, students might begin drafting 2 weeks before the paper is due with a goal of having a full draft 1 week before the essay's due date.
Students could then plan to start revising their drafts 5 days before the essay is due. This will provide students with ample time to read through their papers a few times and make changes as needed.

Step 2 Discuss the importance of brainstorming to generate ideas.

Freewriting, which is when you write freely about anything that comes to mind for a set amount of time, such as 10, 15, or 20 minutes.
Clustering, which is when you write your topic or topic idea on a piece of paper and then use lines to connect that idea to others.
Listing, which is when you make a list of any and all ideas related to a topic and ten read through it to find helpful information for your paper.
Questioning, such as by answering the who, what, when, where, why, and how of their topic.
Defining terms, such as identifying all of the key terms related to their topic and writing out definitions for each one.

Step 3 Instruct students on different ways to organize their thoughts.

For example, if your students are writing narrative essays, then it might make the most sense for them to describe the events of a story chronologically.
If students are writing expository or argumentative essays, then they might need to start by answering the most important questions about their topic and providing background information.
For a descriptive essay, students might use spatial reasoning to describe something from top to bottom, or organize the descriptive paragraphs into categories for each of the 5 senses, such as sight, sound, smell, taste, and feel.

Step 4 Use in-class writing exercises to help students develop ideas.

For example, if you have just gone over different types of brainstorming strategies, you might ask students to choose 1 that they like and spend 10 minutes developing ideas for their essay.

Step 5 Create a discussion board and require students to post regularly.

Try having students post a weekly response to a writing prompt or question that you assign.
You may also want to create a separate discussion board where students can post ideas about their essay and get feedback from you and their classmates.

Step 6 Give students homework to help them develop their essays.

You could also assign specific parts of the writing process as homework, such as requiring students to hand in a first draft as a homework assignment.

Step 7 Schedule in-class revision sessions.

For example, you might suggest reading the paper backward 1 sentence at a time or reading the paper out loud as a way to identify issues with organization and to weed out minor errors. [21] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source
Try peer-review workshops that ask students to review each others' work. Students can work in pairs or groups during the workshop. Provide them with a worksheet, graphic organizer, or copy of the assignment rubric to guide their peer-review.

Tip : Emphasize the importance of giving yourself at least a few hours away from the essay before you revise it. If possible, it is even better to wait a few days. After this time passes, it is often easier to spot errors and work out better ways of describing things.

Community Q&A

Students often need to write essays as part of college applications, for assignments in other courses, and when applying for scholarships. Remind your students of all the ways that improving their essay writing skills can benefit them. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/essay_writing/index.html
↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/essay_writing/narrative_essays.html
↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/essay_writing/expository_essays.html
↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/essay_writing/descriptive_essays.html
↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/essay_writing/argumentative_essays.html
↑ https://wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v1n2/petrie.pdf
↑ https://www.uww.edu/learn/restiptool/improve-student-writing
↑ https://twp.duke.edu/sites/twp.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/reverse-outline.original.pdf
↑ https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/brainstorming.shtml
↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/faculty-resources/tips-on-teaching-writing/situating-student-writers/
↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/faculty-resources/tips-on-teaching-writing/in-class-writing-exercises/
↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/revising-drafts/

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Teaching essay writing is an essential skill for educators, as it helps to develop critical thinking, creativity, and communication abilities in students. However, teaching essay writing can be challenging because students often find it daunting and may lack the necessary knowledge and skills to excel in this area. In this article, we discuss three effective ways to teach essay writing that can simplify the process and ensure that students gain a firm foundation in writing outstanding essays.

1.Focus on Teaching Structure and Organization

The first step in teaching essay writing is guiding your students on how to structure their essays properly. This involves breaking down the main components of an essay, such as the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Teach your students to organize their thoughts coherently and engage their readers from start to finish.

– Introduction: Explain that the introduction is intended to grab the reader’s attention, provide background information, and state a clear thesis. A powerful hook should come first, followed by a brief outline of the main points that will be discussed.

– Body Paragraphs: Teach students how to create well-developed body paragraphs by focusing on a single main idea or argument that supports their thesis. Each paragraph should include a topic sentence, evidence or examples, analysis or explanation of the evidence, and a concluding sentence.

– Conclusion: Show students how to summarize their main points effectively and restate their thesis statement to create a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression on readers.

2.Foster Strong Argumentation Skills

One of the hallmarks of an excellent essay is its ability to persuade readers by presenting logical arguments supported by relevant evidence. Teach your students how to craft strong arguments by providing them with activities like debates or brainstorming sessions where they can practice presenting different viewpoints on various subjects. Instruct them to:

– Establish their position clearly by providing a strong thesis statement.

– Use credible sources of evidence like academic articles, expert opinions, statistics, or anecdotes to back up their claims.

– Practice identification techniques for counterarguments and address them in the essay to demonstrate an awareness of competing perspectives.

Make sure to emphasize the importance of avoiding logical fallacies and maintaining a balanced, unbiased tone when presenting arguments.

3.Encourage Peer Review and Constructive Feedback

To help your students refine their essay writing skills, encourage peer review sessions and constructive feedback from classmates. Ask students to exchange drafts and provide critical input on areas that need improvement in terms of content, structure, and clarity. This will foster a collaborative learning environment where students support each other in achieving better writing outcomes.

When providing feedback, teach your students to focus on:

– The overall coherence of the essay, including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

– The quality of arguments and supporting evidence presented in the essay.

– Any instances of grammar or punctuation errors that may need attention.

Teaching essay writing does not have to be a difficult task if you approach it with patience and persistence. By focusing on teaching structure and organization, fostering strong argumentation skills, and encouraging peer review and constructive feedback, you can help your students build a strong foundation in essay writing that will serve them well throughout their academic careers.

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ESL Essay Writing: 7 Important Tips to Teach Students Plus Resources for Writing Lessons

“Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end.”

This is true for a good essay, too.

An essay needs a coherent structure to successfully articulate its arguments. Strong preparation and planning is crucial to providing that structure.

Of course, essay writing can be challenging for ESL students. They must order their thoughts and construct their arguments—all in their second language.

So, here are seven ESL essay writing tips that will allow your students to weave together a coherent and persuasive essay, plus teacher resources for writing activities, prompts and lessons!

1. Build the Essay Around a Central Question

2. use the traditional 5-paragraph essay structure, 3. plan the essay carefully before writing, 4. encourage research and rewriting, 5. practice utilizing repetition, 6. aim to write a “full circle” essay, 7. edit the essay to the end, esl essay writing resources.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Encourage your students to build all their writing around one central question.

That central question is the engine of the writing—it should drive everything!

If a word or sentence is not assisting that forward motion toward the explication of that question and its possible answers, then it needs to be reworded, rephrased or just plain cut out and discarded.

Lean writing is merciless. Focusing on a central question throughout the prewriting, writing and rewriting stages helps develop the critical faculties required to discern what to keep and what to throw away.

Providing a clear structure for the student to approach essay writing can do a lot to build their confidence. The 5-paragraph essay, or “hamburger” essay, provides that clear structure for ESL writers.

Generally, this structure employs five separate paragraphs for the entire essay. Each paragraph serves a specific purpose, melding together to form a coherent whole:

Paragraph 1: The introductory paragraph. This includes the thesis statement, orientating the reader to the purpose of the essay.
Paragraphs 2 to 4: The body paragraphs. These make individual points that are further backed up by various forms of evidence.
Paragraph 5: The conclusion paragraph. This provides a summation of the arguments and a final statement of the thesis.

While students do not need to rigidly follow this format forever, the simple structure outlined above can serve as excellent training wheels for your writers.

Using the 5-paragraph structure as outlined above makes planning clear cut.

Once they have their theses and are planning their paragraphs, share with the students the ridiculously useful acronym P.E.E. This stands for Point, Explanation and Evidence.

Each body paragraph should make a point or argument in favor of the central thesis, followed by an explanation of this point and relevant evidence to back it up.

Students can make note of all their points, explanations and evidence before they start writing them in essay form. This helps take away some of the pressure ESL writers feel when faced with a blank page.

Extol the necessity for students to constantly refer to their planning. The mind-mapping techniques popularized by Tony Buzan can be useful at the planning stage and make for easy reference points to ensure focus is maintained throughout the essay.

Having a visual reference such as this can help ensure that your student-writers see each piece of the whole as well as that elusive “bigger picture,” so it becomes a case of seeing the forest and the trees!

Just as planning is crucial, so too is research.

Often ideas or connections do not occur until the writing process has begun. This is a good thing! Essay writing is a creative act, so students can have more ideas along the way and work them in as they go.

The key is to always be able to back up these ideas. Students who have done their research on their subject will be much more confident and articulate in expressing their arguments in their writing.

One way you can help students with context and research is to show relevant video content via FluentU . This language learning program uses authentic videos made by and for native speakers to help students learn English.

You can watch videos as a class or assign them directly to students for individual viewing. Videos come equipped with interactive bilingual subtitles and other learning tools such as multimedia flashcards and personalized quizzes so you can see how each student is doing.

No matter how your students do their research, the important thing is that they explore and understand their topic area before beginning the big task of writing their essay.

Even with thorough planning and research, writing oneself into a linguistic cul-de-sac is a common error. Especially with higher-level students, unforeseen currents can pull the student-writer off course.

Sometimes abandoning such a sentence helps. Going back to the drawing board and rewriting it is often best.

Students can be creative with their sentence structures when expressing simpler ideas and arguments. However, when it comes to more complex concepts, help them learn to use shorter sentences to break their arguments into smaller, more digestible chunks.

Essay writing falls firmly in the camp of non-fiction. However, that doesn’t mean that essay writers can’t use some of the techniques more traditionally associated with fiction, poetry and drama .

One technique that’s particularly useful in essay writing is repetition. Just as poetry relies heavily on rhythm, so too does argument. Repetition can provide that sense of rhythm.

This is because written language has its origins in oral language. Think of the great orators and demagogues and their use of repetition. Speechwriters, too, are well aware of the power of repetition.

The writing principle of the “rule of 3” states that ideas expressed in these terms are more convincing and memorable. This is true of both spoken and written words and the ideas they express. Teach your students to use this method in their essay writing.

The very structure of the 5-paragraph essay lends itself to planning for this repetition, in fact. Each idea that is explored in a body paragraph should be outlined first in the introductory paragraph.

Then, the single body paragraph devoted to the idea will explore it at greater length, supported by evidence. And the third rap of the hammer occurs in the summation of the concluding paragraph, driving the point securely and convincingly home.

As mentioned at the start of this post, every good essay has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Each point made, explained and supported by evidence is a step toward what the writing teacher Roy Peter Clark calls “closing the circle of meaning.”

In planning for the conclusion of the essay, the students should take the opportunity to reaffirm their position. By referring to the points outlined in the introduction and driving them home one last time, the student-writer is bringing the essay to a satisfying full circle.

This may be accomplished by employing various strategies: an apt quotation, referring to future consequences or attempting to inspire and mobilize the reader.

Ending with a succinct quotation has the double benefit of lending some authoritative weight to the argument while also allowing the student to select a well-written, distilled expression of their central thesis. This can make for a strong ending, particularly for ESL students.

Often the essay thesis will suggest its own ending. If the essay is structured around a problem, it’s frequently appropriate to end the essay by offering solutions to the problem and outlining potential consequences if those solutions are not followed.

In the more polemical type of essay, the student may end with a call to arms, a plea for action on the part of the reader.

The strategy chosen by the student will depend largely on what fits the central thesis of their essay best.

For the ESL student, the final edit is especially important.

It offers a final chance to check form and meaning. For all writers, this process can be daunting, but more so for language students.

Often, ESL students will use the same words over and over again due to a limited vocabulary. Encourage your students to employ a thesaurus in the final draft before submission. This will freshen up their work, making it more readable, and will also increase their active vocabulary in the long run!

Another useful strategy at this stage is to encourage students to read their work aloud before handing it in.

This can be good pronunciation practice , but it also provides an opportunity to listen for grammatical errors. Further, it helps students hear where punctuation is required in the text, helping the overall rhythm and readability of the writing.

To really help your students become master essay writers, you’ll want to provide them with plenty of opportunities to test and flex their skills.

Writing prompts and exercises are a good place to start:

Descriptive writing activities encourage students to get creative and use their five senses, literary devices and diverse vocabulary. Read on for eight descriptive writing…

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-writing-projects/ https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-picture-description/

Giving good ESL writing prompts is important because inspiring prompts inspire students to write more and writing more is how they improve. Read this post to learn 50…

You’ll likely also want to teach them more about the mechanics of writing :

Are you looking for ESL writing skills to share with your ESL students? In this guide, you’ll find different ESL writing techniques, such as helping students understand…

Would you like to introduce journal writing into your ESL classes? Fantastic idea! Here are 9 essential tips to make it creative, engaging and fun.

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-writing-lessons/

Essays are a great way not only for students to learn how the language works, but also to learn about themselves.

Formulating thoughts and arguments about various subjects is good exercise for not only the students’ linguistic faculties, but also for understanding who they are and how they see the world.

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Planning Writing Lessons for the Early Elementary Grades

Teachers can provide thoughtful instruction that supports the sustained development of young students’ literacy skills.

Elementary student writing while teacher assists other students

Often, attempting to plan effective and purposeful writing instruction raises many questions: What does lesson planning look like? How will I manage so many students who may be in different stages of their writing? How often should they be editing and revising? The list doesn’t stop there.

By utilizing on-demand writing for assessment and long-range writing for scaffolded practice of applying various writing techniques, teachers can approach their instruction with intentional and tailored lessons that meet the needs of the learners in the classroom, as well as help students develop self-regulated behaviors when crafting a piece of text.

On-Demand Writing

Just like any area of instruction, assessment is critical for knowing what the students’ strengths and areas of growth are, and on-demand writing is how teachers can gather that evidence. An on-demand piece of writing simply means that the teacher provides a specific prompt for the student to write to for the purpose of anecdotal data. For example, let’s say a second-grade teacher prepares for a narrative writing cycle. In the first couple of days before the cycle begins, they’ll ask students to write a narrative about something fun they’ve experienced (with their family or a friend).

After the prompt is given, students get one or two days to write and are provided with all necessary tools to carry out the process of developing a piece of writing without additional modeling or instruction. Effective tools might include graphic organizers, writing paper, tools for editing, and a writing checklist. However, the teacher will not model how to use the tools. The teacher is informally assessing if the students know how to use these resources to develop a story.

After students complete their piece, the teacher collects them for analysis. It is critically important to determine realistic expectations for what writing should look like throughout various points of the year, so creating a common rubric as a grade level is a great way to stay on the same page for analyzing the assessment.

Writing growth, similar to reading, happens along a continuum of skills. At the beginning of the year, a second grader can’t be expected to write like an end-of-the-year second grader because they haven’t been taught the grade-level skills necessary to do so yet. On-demand benchmark assessments along the way will gradually raise the expectation of what that student should be able to do. Websites such as Reading Rockets and Achieve the Core provide useful anchor examples of real student writing in various genres that provide annotated explanations of students’ overall writing ability and possible next steps for instruction.

As students engage in daily lessons about crafting a narrative within the instructional cycle of a long-range writing piece, another on-demand prompt may be given at the halfway point of the cycle to track growth and drive future instruction. This could be the same prompt as before or a prompt given in response to a story or passage the student has read.

It’s important to remember that it’s easy to fall into the trap of using writing prompts daily for students to produce writing simply because it’s easy to manage. If we use this approach exclusively, we rob our students of the opportunity to dive deeply into producing self-chosen, elaborate pieces full of voice and author’s craft.

Long-Range Writing

Long-range pieces give students the autonomy to choose their own writing topic while the teacher assists in walking them through the process. This type of instruction instills the executive-functioning behaviors needed when students are asked to write a piece on demand. When considering how to implement this type of writing instruction, it can be overwhelming. Breaking down long-range instruction using the following components allows for a more manageable approach.

Keep your lesson mini: A mini lesson is 15 to 20 minutes long and organized in a gradual release format, and it allows the teacher to model a specific, focused lesson. For example, narrative writing could be broken into the following mini lessons for a beginning-of-the-year cycle for second grade: introduce and describe a setting, introduce and describe the character, edit on the go (this means to stop and edit before we add more writing), describe the first event in the narrative, introduce a problem, etc. Essentially, each lesson will invite students to add to their story one chunk at a time.

Model, provide independent practice: The teacher begins by modeling one learning target using a well-crafted organizer . An effective organizer teaches students that each genre has a specific structure. As learners begin to recognize the pattern in text structure, they can replicate it when assessed in on-demand pieces. For example, the teacher can start by using a text that clearly introduces and describes the setting, and then read that page out loud and ask students what they notice about how the author introduced the setting.

Next, students are invited to help the teacher write a setting to a story together by offering verbal suggestions. The teacher records the students’ ideas and writes an example introduction in the organizer. Then students think about an idea for an introduction of a setting on their own and are prompted to talk to a partner about their story. The students verbally rehearse what they plan to write, as this provides them an opportunity to organize their thoughts and prepares them to get started as soon as they are released to write independently, using the same organizer that the teacher used to model the mini lesson.

The benefit of this approach is that it gives the teacher time to provide specific feedback over the same crafting element. Having every student write their complete thoughts directly in the organizer in a chunked manner allows for a better visual of where to correct capitalization and punctuation. Essentially, each lesson should invite students to write one or two complete sentences that can be quickly edited before adding the next part of the story.

Share and reflect: Close each lesson by bringing students back together so that they have an opportunity to share what they’ve produced. This time celebrates students’ creativity, as well as giving them an opportunity to reflect on how they can improve their writing.

Both on-demand writing and long-range writing are vital in developing confident writers across various genres. It’s important to approach them with a cyclical scope and sequence that allows students to learn the craft, structure, and development of narrative, informative, and opinion styles of writing. By scaffolding and supporting students’ growth in each genre of writing, learners will begin to automatically apply these techniques more independently as the year progresses because of the solid foundation that has been built.

COMMENTS

Essay Writing: A complete guide for students and teachers
The number of paragraphs contained in an essay will depend on a number of factors such as word limits, time limits, the complexity of the question etc. Regardless of the essay's length, students should ensure their essay follows the Rule of Three in that every essay they write contains an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers
Students also should apply their handwriting skills in sentences and in authentic writing activities. 2. Teach students to spell words correctly. A relatively small number of words (850) account for 80 percent of the words elementary- grade students use in their writing. Teachers should help students learn to spell words they commonly use.
PDF Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers
Provide daily time for students to write. Recommendation 2. Teach students to use the writing process for a variety of purposes. Recommendation 2a. Teach students the writing process. 1. Teach students strategies for the various components of the writing process. 2. Gradually release writing responsibility from the teacher to the student. 3.
How to Teach Your Students to Write an Essay
Outline. The last thing to do before starting to write an essay is to make its outline. Choose some topic and make a list of points your students would need to mention if they wrote an essay on it. Such a technique will give them a better understanding of what and essay is, and how it should be written. Make sure that all students perfectly ...
Four Strategies for Effective Writing Instruction
The Four Square is a graphic organizer that students can make themselves when given a blank sheet of paper. They fold it into four squares and draw a box in the middle of the page. The genius of ...
Teaching Writing in Elementary School
Know their writing behaviors and ability level. There are three ways to accomplish this. First, you'll want to administer and analyze an "on demand" writing piece, a piece of writing that's written independently in one period of time. As the students are writing, take note of their behaviors and record what you notice—are they engaged ...
High-Impact Writing Strategies for Elementary Students
For us as teachers, it's vital that we share a common language and understanding about the types of high-impact writing strategies that students can engage in and how to effectively implement them in the classroom. 1. Handwriting in the Early Grades. In the digital age, prioritizing handwriting education during phonics instruction remains ...
An Equitable (and Engaging) Way to Teach Writing in Elementary School
Writing assignments are rooted in the texts that students are reading, and texts connect important topics like history, science, or art. I'm grateful that my school went on to adopt this kind of knowledge-building approach. What a difference it made. To give you a sense of the change, in a fourth-grade class, students studied the American ...
Essay Writing Tips for Elementary Students
Critical thinking is essential for long-term success in any field, especially writing. Teachers can help students develop this skill by hosting a question-and-answer period after students have read a book or written an essay and read it aloud to the class. Promoting confidence in the writer is also crucial. The questions students ask advance ...
How to Teach Writing to Elementary Students Without Fear
As Dr. Hicks says, "When learning how to write, students must study mentor texts to understand the specific craft moves that highly skilled authors make in their work.". Showing students writing, instead of just talking about it, is a huge step in teaching writing to elementary students effectively. One last step I often share with teachers ...
How to Teach the Writing Process to Elementary Students: 4 Best Tips
Tip #2: Write One Step at a Time. Just like any journey, the writing process is best enjoyed when taken at an even pace, one step at a time. Walking beside your students as they work through each separate stage of the writing process gives them time to better process and internalize the things they're learning along the way, while ...
Teaching Writing to Elementary Students
When teaching writing to elementary students, I teach the majority of my writing standards by units of study: genre by genre, rather than mixing all genres together. ... A student won't use the same writing strategies that they use in a fictional narrative in an informational essay. Of course all writing needs certain elements, such grammar ...
How to Begin Teaching Writing in the Elementary Grades (Even if You've
When I moved from 5th to 3rd grade, I worried about how to teach writing to lower elementary students, specifically research. You can't just let them go out and do research on their own online. ... In fourth grade and fifth grade, students move into multi-paragraph writing with the classic three or five paragraph essay.
How To Teach Writing: What Educators Need To Know
Provide as much detail as possible. In addition to giving insight into your student's writing ability, asking these questions can also show how comfortable your students are with the writing process. You'll notice that some students excitedly get to work while others give short or vague answers. Step 5.
How to Motivate Elementary School Students to Develop Writing Skills
Instead of focusing on an essay as a whole, teach smaller chunks of the essay and its structure. Take 10 - 15 minutes to focus solely on lead sentences or transitional phrases. Give your students a toolbox. A writing toolbox can include anything you think may help struggling students improve their writing.
How to write a perfect essay
Follow your outline, using each of your supporting points as the topic sentence of its own paragraph. Use descriptive words to get your ideas across to the reader. Go into detail, using specific information to tell your story or make your point. Stay on track, making sure that everything you include is somehow related to the main idea of your ...
How to Teach Writing to Elementary Students in 2024: 6 Steps of the
3. Paragraph of the Week Writing. In addition, you may find these Paragraph of the Week helpful for how to teach the writing process to elementary students. Paragraph of the Week is a proven, step-by-step, scaffolded system. It makes teaching kids how to improve sentence structure and write a paragraph easy by guiding them through the writing process.
3 Ways to Teach Essay Writing
Try having students post a weekly response to a writing prompt or question that you assign. You may also want to create a separate discussion board where students can post ideas about their essay and get feedback from you and their classmates. 6. Give students homework to help them develop their essays.
How to Teach Writing in an Elementary Classroom
Word banks can also help students broaden their writing abilities. After reading, ask your class to select words from the text that were important to the meaning of the passage. Have students ...
6 Tips to Teach Informational Writing to Elementary Students
Organize or Sort the Facts. Once students have their facts written down, the next step is to help students organize their facts and ideas within categories. Again, you'll want to work with students using multiple examples. Start by giving students the topics and have students sort the facts into categories.
3 Ways to Teach Essay Writing
Make sure to emphasize the importance of avoiding logical fallacies and maintaining a balanced, unbiased tone when presenting arguments. 3.Encourage Peer Review and Constructive Feedback. To help your students refine their essay writing skills, encourage peer review sessions and constructive feedback from classmates.
How Do I Teach Argumentative Writing?
While students are writing their essays, the teacher should be conferring with students one-on-one or in small groups. The focus should be about particular grammar skills previously taught. Consider this another form of application. This is your opportunity to provide feedback to students. If the feedback is positive, praise the work, not the ...
4 Strategies for Teaching Students How to Revise
Here's what the classroom writing process looks like: Brainstorming (Think About It) Drafting (Getting It Down) Revising (Making It Better) Editing (Making It Right) Publishing (Sharing It) At the beginning of the writing process, I have had students write silently. For it to be successful, in my experience, students need plenty of topics ...
ESL Essay Writing: 7 Important Tips to Teach Students Plus ...
ESL Essay Writing: 7 Important Tips to Teach Students Plus Resources for Writing Lessons "Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end." This is true for a good essay, too. An essay needs a coherent structure to successfully articulate its arguments. Strong preparation and planning is crucial to providing that structure.
Planning Early Elementary Writing Lessons
Next, students are invited to help the teacher write a setting to a story together by offering verbal suggestions. The teacher records the students' ideas and writes an example introduction in the organizer. Then students think about an idea for an introduction of a setting on their own and are prompted to talk to a partner about their story.