Addressing the Writing Issue at Future View Middle School Addressing the writing issue to help at-risk students achieve better scores can be done by using different approaches, methods, techniques, and strategies. Some of the approaches and methods are reflected in the three discussed sources below. In their research study, Kapka, and Oberman (2001) focused on the writing process as an approach to foster the students’ writing skills. The targeted group of third and fifth graders scored low in writing due to their poor writing skills. To overcome this issue, the process writing with its five steps: pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing was introduced. Even though this approach is a process, teachers dealt with students according to their different needs. Thus, students were given the freedom to choose topics of their interest. Besides, students were given the opportunity to write at different pace and with the flexibility of going back and forth through the steps. The results of this study showed the effectiveness of the writing process. Students at both schools gradually fostered their writing skills and acquired new ones, and this made their writing scores improve. France (2003) showed in his research study the effect of integrating technology on increasing students’ interest in writing. The problem of the targeted fifth graders was their lack of motivation in writing, and this will certainly affect their writing achievement level. As a result,
While writing might seem like a simple task, it can be a daunting task for a lot of people. Sometimes it can be hard to express the ideas in your mind in the words of a paper. This results in a disconnect with what a writer may actually think. A great writer is one that can transform his thoughts into words perfectly. This is a craft that takes many years to perfect, which is why writing is troublesome for a lot of us. Many students also have had bad experiences with writing. Maybe they had a teacher that didn’t try to support them and their writing. They might not have ever gotten the help they needed and may feel that they are in a hole where their writing can’t get better. At this point, they just accept that their writing will never get better.
The survey result Berrett includes shows that students see writing as “basically a performance”. Berrett also introduced an argument from the “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing” report, which claims that writing is not a “linear process”. The author states that successful writing requires various processes, habits and experiences, such as “curiosity, flexibility, persistence and metacognition”. Since for most highschoolers, writing is ‘’framed as preparation of tests”, they do not have the opportunity to “develop ideas or raise prose”. The author suggests the students require change in their mindset of writing. However, the only evidence the author provides is from a students’ self-reported survey, instead of actual writing assignments. This rather subjective evidence results in a less convincing argument. Despite this flaw in logic, I personally agree with the author. I find the transformation of writing from high school to university is challenging. The main reason is that my writing experience back then was more about “following directions”. The format and structure of the writing assignment was provided, and all the information I need was spoonfed to me. As a result, there was no researching and developing my own idea, and in the first week of university, when I was asked to write a lab report with my own theory, I brainstormed for hours before eventually generated one. Nevertheless, I hold onto the hope that improvements on creativity in writing can be made as I gradually develop my “curiosity, flexibility, persistence and metacognition”. In general, although I agree with the author’s opinion, I felt his claim lacks
It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.
In the article Teaching Writing as a Process Not Product by Donald M. Murray, Murray argues that writing is a process of discovery not an end product. Rather than being criticized for a “perfect product” by the teachers, student should be provided with an environment of creativity to explore and discover. Murray states that many teachers focus on the end product rather than teaching students the process of writing in order to receive a better product. The writing process has three stages of writing which include: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. In the prewriting stage, students should take about 85% of their time dedicated to the writing process. Prewriting includes strategies such as daydreaming, note taking, outlining, and lead-writing. Next is the writing stage where it should take about one percent of a student’s time. The writing stage is where students produce their first draft. Finally, it is the
Scenario 1: You are preparing fifth grade students for the Alabama Writing Assessment. So far, students are struggling. Students are just not interested in writing. How can you peak their interest and improve their writing scores? Will you incorporate Writer's workshop? Two to three paragraphs.
Students are subjected to write an array of essays, but they lack the required tools needed to effectively deliver a great paper. They are struggling to write and teachers are needing to design and conform to their current student’s needs. New methods are created and implemented in order to execute the daunting task of learning how to write a well-developed paper. Practical recommendations are brought forth for teachers to use and good teachers will learn to design instruction and activities based on suitable references. Teachers must set goals and deliver their lesson with specific strategies to meet their objectives. They must learn to improve skills dramatically by observing and modifying the students. Teachers must plan strategies in order to help the struggling students catch up or exceed in their writing skills. They must learn to motivate their students by keeping them engaged throughout the writing process if not they risk losing the student’s ability and focus to do better.
Writing is an essential tool and has been noted as a precursor for great speaking by teachers at all grade levels. However, with writing being an important aspect throughout one’s academic career and beyond, it is one of the most tedious tasks to teach. It sounds like a cliché, but in order to get better at something, one has to keep completing the task and each time, accomplish something different while maintaining prior knowledge. There are various ways that enhance a student’s writing abilities and the focus of these research strategies will prove that encouraging students to write enhances writing.
This entails working on the Seven Steps to Writing Success will be taught twice a week and writing tasks will also be included during literacy groups. Sizzling Starts and recounts will be the focus text in term one. Narrative and creative writing will be taught too and in both cases the emphasis will be on creating strong sentences with good structure. The lesson format for sizzling starts and narrative/creative writing will be explicit teaching to the whole class. My role as a teacher will be to identify the student’s level and provide appropriate feedback to support to move students toward the next level.
Teachers, parents, and friends often tell students exactly what the writing process should entail and how long it should take. However, the older I get, the more I realize that the writing process varies not only from person to person, but also from one writing project to the next. Throughout my years of life, I have written countless papers, ranging from a persuasive speech to an extensive research paper, and each project requires an altered version of my personal writing process. While each individual has his own writing process, there can be many similarities between different writing processes. Finding one’s individual writing process takes trial, error, and repetition. When an individual finally uncovers his unique writing process, better thought, work, and writing is produced.
In chapter 9, Writing Across the Curriculum, the process of reading and writing was investigated and explained in comparison to one another. The reading-writing connection focuses on drawing from students’ prior knowledge and cognitive processes in order to build learning. The authors mentioned that the writing process is a strong tool for exploring and clarifying meaning and the two major instructional components used are writing to learn (WTL) and writing in disciplines (WID). The chapter also focused on the subareas of academic journals and writing disciplines.
In today’s workforce, jobs are heavily based upon the skills that one has and how well one can perform them in their field of study. A major component skill that lacks in many young people today is writing. Writing plays is an important role in life, one needs it to communicate with other people. If young people are not taught this in their years of schooling and do not learn to master it, consequently they will come out on the bottom with poor writing skills. Which in
Students are instructed on how to develop and organize their writing by developing a plan or out line to follow. Teachers should discuss with their students how to effectively plan out their writing strategy. Students need to be taught to question themselves about the purpose of their writing. Questions like; “Who am I writing for?” or “How will I organize my thoughts?” are two general examples. Gersten mentions the importance and purpose of the first draft and how it provides a concrete reminder for where the writing is going. The plan and its draft provide a common language for teacher and students to share making communication easier. He also speaks of the strengths of the revision process. Gersten illustrates how peer-editing can be a useful tool to employ during writing.
The participants include two classes those are 4th grade (Block A) and 6th grade (Block B) of an elementary school in Netherland. Both classes were asked to write a narrative text. Therefore, block A participants were evaluated in all critical component skills and written narrative skills, while block B participants measured with narrative skills only. In addition, the researchers used several critical component skill procedures to assess students’ progress in narrative writing. First, the written narrative including text length, syntactic complexity and story contents, researchers were providing 15 following pictures before the student starts to write and they gave limitless times to students to write a narrative text (Cragg & Nation, 2006). Second, Transcription skills, however, is to assess
Believe it or not, writing takes place in almost all aspects of our everyday life. As a future teacher, it will be important that I have the best education to enhance my student’s writing. I will need to understand what type of learners my students are and how to accommodate writing based on each learner. Standards also play an important role in student writing, standards help guide students to the grade level in which they need to be. Various factors can impact a student’s writing abilities, I’ve found many online tools that will help me teach writing and help my students become motivated in writing.
Nowadays, English is one of the important languages in the world because it is used as an international language in all fields. For this reason, it is necessary to know all aspects of this language. Academic English writing is also an important skill since it is used extensively in higher education and in the workplace. However, many Thai students are not able to write accurately even English major students. This study will find out the way to improve writing skill in university students. The researchers believe that one of the factors affecting the writing ability is the way of giving