Getting the Student to Like Writing

If it is getting kids to like writing when their parents shove it down their throats, one needs to diffuse the situation first, so that the child is receptive and then work with him so that he can enjoy the writing he does. In the end, I do not think that just by putting the student through the ropes, he will like it as much as the teacher does because the professional gets fulfillment when imparting his knowledge and the child feels controlled and ridiculed because he cannot spell. The situation becomes even more complex when the student has had a history of being unable to put his thoughts into words.

Firstly the teacher should know about the history of the student and if he has had difficulty with another teacher. It helps knowing what methods were used to drive the student forward and how he reacted to them. For teachers who do not have the means or time to do this kind of investigative work a few questions to the student will give the teacher an idea on how the student feels towards writing and what kind of writing he might want to do first.

Let’s face it, getting the student to write a autobiography when he is not comfortable about who he is would put a damper on getting the student to want to continue because the student might attach a feeling of low self-esteem every time he writes. It would be better then to pick a neutral topic or to find out what interests the student has that can be used as subject material and then move forward from that.

Participating with the student in his efforts to improve his writing often works best with the positive student who does not mind corrections to be made. An experienced teacher should be able to pick when the student is sensitive to being corrected in public and a softer approach can be used. One suggestion is to move from an uncomfortable spelling exercise to a story telling time where the student can use other words related to the one in question. I encourage students to write out words on post-its just as I would encourage adults in continuing education because the too can take advantage of seeing the written word as often as possible. That would help to break their fear of using those words in descriptive sentences or in dialogs.

In summary writing exercises should generally be integrated with other exercises so that the teacher does not risk dwelling on student weaknesses. One outlet that I find appropriate is the use of audiovisuals and film shorts that the person can describe orally and in written. Remember that students are young adults with access to all sorts of media, so there is no reason why the approach to writing should not be softened through the use of subtitled videos that gets the student to recognize the idiomatic expressions they will want to use in public. The actor in the film could even be one of their idols and that will also work as a catalyst in the learning process. Kids want to know the language that is found in musical lyrics too, not just the structured material the teacher read thirty years ago, not that the classics would do the student any harm.

Care should be taken to know what type of literature the student had been exposed to before he is coached in writing especially if this is an international student who is expected to analyze the plot of a western classic and put those thoughts down in black and white. If the student is complemented for his accepting a new culture and interest is shown in the culture he is putting aside mentally to accommodate the new, then he will be more likely to assimilate the new literature. This however depends on the cognitive ability of the child just as it does with the local child but in addition it depends on his learning a new approach at discovering what messages underline the story he has to describe in written form. It might help to get an oral overview first before the teacher goes into depth with the student.