Teaching Students How To Write
Is it fair to tell our students to do something – a descriptive essay for example – and let them submit it after 30 minutes without preparing them for the activity? Will we not dishearten our young students by telling them, “You will submit your essay before class dismissal whether you like it or not”?
How can we, teachers, inculcate the love for writing among our students?
Is it fair to tell them to do something, a descriptive essay for example, and let them submit it after 30 minutes without preparing them for the activity? Will we not dishearten our young students by telling them, “You will submit your essay before class dismissal whether you like it or not”?
Most of my teachers did this to me as a student. I always despised them and their way of “punishing” us. I don’t remember any of my teachers from high school and college guiding us through the writing process. We were always told to submit a composition or an essay but no one taught us how to write.
When I became a teacher, I promised that I will teach myself how to teach writing. I still cannot say with conviction that I can do it well but at least I have started doing it.
Here’s one writing activity that I implemented among my 4th year high school students from February 4-15, 2008.
Before I told the class about the activity, I asked who among them wanted to have an income. All of them raised their hands. Then I talked about blogging and the money that the bloggers earn from maintaining weblogs.
“Will we really have money just by uploading something to the internet?” somebody asked. I answered, “Yes, you will if you can create traffic to your website. How? Tell your friends about your site and make them hooked to your write-ups. If many people will visit your site, more advertisers will put ads on your site. But first, you will have to write your first entry – an essay – and we will do it right now, right here.”
Then we talked about the writing process, i.e., that it has several stages, that it may happen in a recursive fashion, and that it is not made and perfected in one sitting. We also talked about the parts of an essay and the functions of each part as well as the importance of establishing a purpose.
Prewriting
I told the class to do freewriting by writing without stopping. I explained that no idea should be rejected no matter how trivial it is because this could later lead to a more brilliant one. The purpose of the freewriting was to find a topic based on the word (SCHOOL) that I gave them. Once they decided on a topic, they submitted to me their outputs. I gave each one of them a perfect score of 10.
After the session, one student commented, “It was very entertaining. I didn’t know that writing could be fun and could be done that way.”
The following day, I returned to them their paper and encouraged them to make a list of ten thoughts, facts, or ideas about their topics. From the list, they made a “sublist” of thoughts, facts or ideas. Here, I encouraged them to give examples, features or facts that particularize the parent word.
Writing The First Draft
“Now you are ready to make your first draft,” I told them. I further explained, “This is where you will be stringing the words together into sentences and paragraphs that will make sense to a reader.”
Major Revisions
Three days after, I returned to them their first drafts with my comments. At this stage, we did the major revisions like: reorganizing poorly arranged paragraphs, adding some sentences and transitional paragraphs, and deleting unnecessary or redundant ideas.
I also made sure that I looked for one strong or good point from each paper and wrote this above the student’s name. Some of my comments included the following: well-written sentences, interesting tips given, gives sensible arguments, good concluding statement, excellent introduction, good thesis, etc.
Minor Revisions
Although the essays had gone through the first revision, some redrafting, reorganizing, adding and deleting were done again at this stage (their third draft).
Here, I made it a point that outright errors be identified but not rewritten. If I was uncertain about something, such as a possible spelling error, I noted my uncertainty in order that the writer will identify and correct the problem himself. If many students repeated the same mistakes, I did a short lesson on the particular topic. e.g, their vs. there; do, does, did + verb; use of punctuation marks, etc.
I allowed the students to rewrite their essays two times. On the third submission, it had to be typewritten. It was only on their fourth and final draft that I gave them their final grades.
Uploading The Material To the Internet
“Now, you are ready to receive your first paycheck,” I jokingly told them. The class became excited as I talked about one website of writers wherein anybody can submit a material and the administrators give comments on the material. I gave them a list of free websites so that they can start their own blogs. “I have high hopes in you and I look forward to that day when you become famous bloggers,” I concluded.
Making the students fall in love with the art of writing can be a very challenging task. It may not happen overnight, but it can be done. We may not immediately turn them into outstanding writers but through our guidance we can motivate them to write for the right reasons as well as give them an idea on how to go about the writing process.
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March 19th, 2008 at 2:21 am
ate dors you have said and done it right!
as a person with passion in writing i wanted to say that everyone has the potential to be a good writer. what stops the flow of that potential is our prejudgments of our capacity, almost everyone is so engross with how the others, the world and even our selves would say about our ideas. the starting ground is always to write with our hearts and remind ourselves that it is our impositions and judgments, our conditioning that keep the flow of our idea stuck. i always have that and i always ask myself “what if nobody judge, what if everything is free and everything can be written? what if im not afraid to write?” and everything flows that its almost so difficult to stop. write as if everything is free and one will be amazed of the ideas that just come out after.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I like it. I personally haven’t started my own blog yet and i’m sad about it. It was a good thing you’ve encouraged lots of them to learn to love writing ‘te.I, myself, wants to learn more about writing because I really love to write. In fact, I want to have my own book someday..I still want you to be my English critic..hehe. thanks a lot for all your help. For giving freely your time and expertise in reading my narrative report..I owe you. (,”) i’m still learning a lot from you.
You really inspire me..
March 19th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
this is a great article.
i am one of her students that has been encourage to write with the heart. though i have not written much, the love of writing is still within me. through writing i can express myself.
keep the spirit of writing burning…
posting articles online is really one of the best way to share thoughts and ideas. blogging is a very popular thingamajig on the internet this days.
i’m gonna be writing again soon and post it in my friendster and mypace blogs.
thank you sensei..
March 20th, 2008 at 3:23 am
Great job my friend! Would really help a lot of aspiring writers to start and organize their thoughts and put it all in writing.Remember,first year collge? I dont know about you but whenever we have an assignment to write or do some research,i was like what the??
Proud of you!!
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:30 am
nice article cousin!in this way , students will encourage to express their thoughts through writing.
March 24th, 2008 at 1:16 am
I certainly liked this article, Ate. We just had the same experience on the way elementary / high school teachers made us comply a number of theme writings without hints on the proper way of doing it. That is why some of the pupils in the elementary grades lose their interest in composition writing which reflect on their performance during high school years. Your article will somehow improve student’s perspective regarding composition or essay writing.
Positive feedback from the teachers after rating their output is a really good thing to upraise student’s spirit and would encourage them to perform better on their next composition writings.
;=)
March 25th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
WOW A1 teacher…haay, if all english teachers were like you…keep up the work Ate so that it will not be so difficult for them when they’re going to write in the future… and so that college instructors will be less burdened kay kapoy kau diri paita sa amoa
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:26 am
Thanks for diligently reading this article.
Believe it or not, I also go through the same process when writing. At 36, I still do freewriting in order that I can condition myself that I am going to write something.
If this will help you in any way, by all means you may use this article (for your classes or for personal use). Anyway, I just learned these techniques from my readings and from my graduate school teacher.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
fantabulous.
how about these as a parent word, huh, ate dors?
with my vineyard of limited vocab, i found myself a willing victim of coinage(not even existing in the dic)-by this i mean coining words together on two purposes. one, use few words to describe things. two, put different ideas and expressions in few words. (see? they even mean the same thing…hahahaha)
however, to be fair, i do not intentionally practice this crime to challenge the existing shelves of verbiage but to satisfy my i’ll-do-it-the-yummy-way of expressing things. i know this is so GAY,yeah.
okay, lemme explain. FANTABULOUS- meaning fantastic and fabulous. fantastic is an adjective generally used to commend a work or task done beautifully. in this case, ate doray is fantastic in creating her blog. why? blogs are usually narcistic in nature. this blog is simply not. it makes sense. people learn.period. on the other hand, fabulous is a fitting word to describe works of art, even art itself.writing is an art-it’s a given. helping people to write is something else. with this blog?this is where i’d say, “Fabulous ate dors! Right on!”
and finally, this is what freewriting means (hahahahahahahaha)
April 6th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
so ate dors, that’s my first draft.
lemme know when can i get my corrected draft so i’ll move on to my second one. happy writing!
i miss yah.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
erratum:
2nd line: ‘these’ is supposed to refer to fantabulous and fantamazing. but i deleted fantamazing for no reason. just don’t ask why.
3rd line: ‘in the vineyard’ is more appropriate as compared to ‘with my vineyard,
i am correcting myself coz my boss might read this and he is O.C grammatically (hahaaayyy…..)
April 7th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
u really is great. I agree ate doray.
even in my present job here in abroad, as in charge of the quality assurance of the college, even master’s and phd grads, u still have to correct some of the reports. and mind u, even elc teachers commit mistakes. i hope many teachers will read this articles of urs. stay happy. . .
April 10th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Thank you for sharing with us the techniques of creative writing. Its not only useful to students but to aspiring writers. A lot of useful ideas have been shelved due to lack of writing ability of the person.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:49 am
hi tdoray:
as promised, i will post my comments after reading your article. what can i say, you’ve influenced me into sumbitting my “drafts” for this website. Hope I get feedback from the administrators soon if my articles are publish-worthy. anyway, because of your article, i miss teaching the more and of course i miss my students. most of them said that humanities was a boring subject until i introduce them to the art of apreciating art. i appluaded them openly when at the end of each lesson/activity because i was able to impart to them whatever knowledge i have as their teacher. sabi pa nga, AJA!
April 29th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Nice!!!
May 7th, 2008 at 1:15 am
my apology,so you’re a hs tchr,i thought this article is about pupils learning to write,lol..so we’re you from ma’am Rhoda?
May 12th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Hi Mau, Athenia, Benson, Rose, Salyn, Sis Heide, Baying, Richel, Yummy, Dondon, Ate Demp, Aniceto, and the other Triond writers: Sardonyx, Alex, and Nobert,
Thanks for supporting me in my “writing endeavor” (according to Alex in our exchange of text messages). I’m blessed that I have you as friends. This page would have been “commentless” had it not been for friends like you. Your comments mean a lot. The usually boring life here in Leyte becomes bearable because of this newly-found hobby (writing for and reading Triond articles).
If any one of you decides to write for Triond, I will support you just as you supported me. Just send me a message and I will visit your page. Regards!
May 15th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
You did a good job Rhodora. I just would like to add a tip in writing.
When I teach my students to write, I always tell them to use the TSPU principle. That means T-opic, S-entence, P-aragraph, U-nity. After writing the topic sentence, the next sentences should all pertain to that topic sentence to expound, clarify, or just give more information about it. As a result, a well-structured paragraph is produced. Also, applying this technique when reading is helpful. Well written articles or books follow this structure.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Hi Patz, Thanks for your input. I’ll remember them.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Nicely written, such an interesting topic you tackled there.
God Bless YoU!
October 9th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Enjoy reading this, thank you:)
August 6th, 2010 at 3:46 am
oh, i miss teaching. =)
August 26th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
You should have been my teacher in writing! Hehehe. I used to hate essay writing as a student. Just like you, they give you a topic and you are expected to submit that before the one-hour class is through. You rack your brains about something that you have no interest in or can’t say much about. How do you expect to come up with a good article after an hour? You are right, writing is a process. You’ve done a very good thing. Truly, your passion for teaching is also admirable.
October 21st, 2010 at 7:47 pm
this is a great first article and the topic is so interesting too, namley Teaching Writing to Students. i read it several times before commenting and learnt alot of new facts from this aswell. thanks very much for sharing.
December 17th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
humble beginnings for a superb and successful writing career.
February 6th, 2011 at 9:09 am
You make writing so much fun for the students, great job, well-done.