Writing prompts should be used as a TOOL to help students learn to write better. Writing prompts help students learn how to:

• Write to a prompt
• Follow directions
• Stay on topic

However, students also need to learn how to:

• Think for themselves    AND
• Get their work done independently

Over-relying on writing prompts for students “who can’t think of anything to write” is a trap that leads to learned helplessness. Don’t teach your students to be reliant on the teacher.

Using Writing Prompts to Teach Different Types of Writing

When students are learning new styles of writing, writing prompts can be very effective. In fact, with every new “style or purpose,” both bridging the gap and modeling will help your students.

Instead of simply using one of the prompts below, you may want to make the process a little more interactive and provide even more guidance and modeling than a prompt alone will do.

You can:

• Brainstorm a list of prompts together.  
• Then you may want to brainstorm for main ideas and details.
• You may want to outline how all the paragraph will fit together.

From time-to-time you may want to write a group essay, however I have usually found it sufficient to teach students how to come up with ideas and then to organize their ideas. Once you have done that, they should be able to write a complete essay or story, quickly and easily.

Remember that “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” is the fastest, most effective way to get your elementary students and remedial middle school students writing fantastic essays, quickly and easily! 

Be sure to learn more about how to use writing prompts with students here:

1. Using Writing Prompts with Kids: Tips, Tricks, Pros and Cons of Writing Prompts

2. How to Use Writing Prompts in Teaching Writing

Wishing you and your students total essay writing success! Have a great summer!

Summertime Cause and Effect Essay

• My lazy days cause my parents to…
• It gets hotter and hotter and hotter and pretty soon everyone is…
• I goofed off all school year and now I pay the price in summer.
• I worked hard all school year and my parents are really proud of my effort. Now it’s summer.
• Cause and effect of a sunburn.
• Kids have summer vacation, what is the effect for the parents?
• In the pool and at the beach all day, what’s the effect?

Summertime Persuasive Essay

• Summer should be equal in length to the school year.
• Parents must not over program kids during the summer. Summer is our time to relax.
• In this modern age, summer vacation is too long and should be reduced to something more reasonable.
• Summer vacation should be a time for self-learning as opposed to guided learning. Students must engage in learning activities over the summer.
• Summertime is fun time. No work! All fun!
• Families must take at least one family vacation during the summer.
• This is how you should spend your summer…
• Going to camp is terrible, or going to camp is great!

Summertime Process Essay / How-To Essay

• Step-by-step guide to having fun in the sun.
• How to eat a Popsicle in the summertime heat without dripping a drop.
• How to make sure your parents know how you want to spend your summer vacation.
• How to plan out your summer.
• How to have fun at the beach.
• How to stay cool on hot, hot days.
• Steps to making your parents happy during the summer.

Summertime Argumentative Essay

• The real purpose of summer vacation is…
• Summer is better than winter…

Summertime Evaluation Essay

• How summer vacation affects students’ mental attitude for the following year.
• How summer vacation has changed from when the summer was based on the agricultural growing cycle.
• Is summer vacation an outdated tradition that is not valid in these modern times?
• Who needs summer vacation more, teachers or students?

Summertime Narrative/ Personal Narrative Essay

• Remembering summers past.
• A special summer vacation family trip.
• The greatest summer ever.
• My family, my friends, and me… all summer long.
• When the air conditioner broke.
• My parents put me to work.
• Fun times.

Summertime Informational Essay

• History of summer vacation.
• Summer vacation through the ages.
• Things you can do to keep busy over summer vacation.
• Fun ways of learning over summer vacation.
• Different kinds of summer camp.
• Summer around the world
• Movies about hot summers.

Summertime Descriptive Essay

• It was a hot and humid night…
• Describe how it feels on the hottest day of summer.
• See, hear, feel, and taste all summer long.
• Describe how summer is.

Summertime Five-Paragraph Essay

• Three things you must absolutely do in the summer.
• The three stages of summer.
• Summer days – morning, afternoon, and nighttime.
• Three reasons summer is…
• Summer with friends, family, and camp.
• Working, playing, and learning… all summer long.

Summertime Compare and Contrast Essay

• Summer for kids compared to summer for adults.
• Summer before air conditioning compared to summer now.
• A working summer compared to a fun summer.
• My perfect summer compared to how my parents want me to spend my summer.
• Summertime for young kids compared to summertime for older kids.
• This summer compared to last summer.
• What makes summer good? What makes summer bad?
• Summer for teachers vs. summer for students

Summertime Story Ideas

• Back on the farm, on the hot summer days…
• The Global Warming Summer of Dry, Hot, Heat
• An amazing summer with dolphins.
• Splish, Splash, Crash!
• Warning: Record Heat!
• The Snowy Summer
• Straight A’s and Fun!

Have a great summer!

Should you help your child with writing? YES. The Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) suggests that you help your child with writing. OERI believes you, a parent, can make a big difference. You can use helping strategies that are simple and fun. You can use them to help your child learn to write well–and to enjoy doing it!

Helping your child with writing will help your child to:
• Do well in school
• Enjoy self-expression
• Become more self-reliant

You know how important writing will be to your child’s life. It will be important from first-grade through college and throughout adulthood.

Unfortunately, “many schools are unable to give children sufficient instruction in writing.” There are various reasons: teachers aren’t trained to teach writing skills, writing classes may be too large, it’s often difficult to measure writing skills, etc.

Study after study shows that students’ writing lacks clarity, coherence, and organization. Only a few students can write persuasive essays or competent business letters. As many as one out of four have serious writing difficulties. And students say they like writing less and less as they go through school.

Things to Know about Student Writing

Writing is more than putting words on paper. It’s a final stage in the complex process of communicating that begins with “thinking.” Writing is an especially important stage in communication, the intent being to leave no room for doubt. Has any country ratified a verbal treaty?

One of the first means of communication for your child is through drawing. Do encourage the child to draw and to discuss his/her drawings. Ask questions: What is the boy doing? Does the house look like ours? Can you tell a story about this picture?

Most children’s basic speech patterns are formed by the time they enter school. By that time children speak clearly, recognize most letters of the alphabet, and may try to write. Show an interest in, and ask questions about, the things your child says, draws, and may try to write.

Writing well requires:
• Clear thinking. Sometimes the child needs to have his/her memory refreshed about a past event in order to write about it.
• Sufficient time. Children may have `stories in their heads’ but need time to think them through and write them down. School class periods are often not long enough.
• Reading. Reading can stimulate a child to write about his/her own family or school life. If your child reads good books, (s)he will be a better writer.
• A Meaningful Task. A child needs meaningful, not artificial writing tasks. You’ll find suggestions for such tasks in the section, “Things To Do.”
• Interest. All the time in the world won’t help if there is nothing to write, nothing to say. Some of the reasons for writing include: sending messages, keeping records, expressing feelings, or relaying information.
• Practice. And more practice.
• Revising. Students need experience in revising their work– i.e, seeing what they can do to make it clearer, more descriptive, more concise, etc.

Pointers for Parents in Helping Their Child Write Better

In helping your child to learn to write well, remember that your goal is to make writing easier and more enjoyable.

Provide a place. It’s important for a child to have a good place to write–a desk or table with a smooth, flat surface and good lighting.

Have the materials. Provide plenty of paper–lined and unlined–and things to write with, including pencils, pens, and crayons.

Allow time. Help your child spend time thinking about a writing project or exercise. Good writers do a great deal of thinking. Your child may dawdle, sharpen a pencil, get papers ready, or look up the spelling of a word. Be patient–your child may be thinking.

Respond. Do respond to the ideas your child expresses verbally or in writing. Make it clear that you are interested in the true function of writing which is to convey ideas. This means focusing on “what” the child has written, not “how” it was written. It’s usually wise to ignore minor errors, particularly at the stage when your child is just getting ideas together.

Don’t you write it! Don’t write a paper for your child that will be turned in as his/her work. Never rewrite a child’s work. Meeting a writing deadline, taking responsibility for the finished product, and feeling ownership of it are important parts of writing well.

Praise. Take a positive approach and say something good about your child’s writing. Is it accurate? Descriptive? Thoughtful? Interesting? Does it say something?

Things to Do to Help Your Child Write Better

Make it real. Your child needs to do real writing. It’s more important for the child to write a letter to a relative than it is to write a one-line note on a greeting card. Encourage the child to write to relatives and friends. Perhaps your child would enjoy corresponding with a pen pal.

Suggest note-taking. Encourage your child to take notes on trips or outings and to describe what (s)he saw. This could include a description of nature walks, a boat ride, a car trip, or other events that lend themselves to note-taking.

Brainstorm. Talk with your child as much as possible about his/her impressions and encourage the child to describe people and events to you. If the child’s description is especially accurate and colorful, say so.

Encourage keeping a journal. This is excellent writing practice as well as a good outlet for venting feelings. Encourage your child to write about things that happen at home and school, about people (s)he likes or dislikes and why, things to remember or things the child wants to do. Especially encourage your child to write about personal feelings–pleasures as well as disappointments. If the child wants to share the journal with you, read the entries and discuss them–especially the child’s ideas and perceptions.

Write together. Have your child help you with letters, even such routine ones as ordering items from an advertisment or writing to a business firm. This helps the child to see firsthand that writing is important to adults and truly useful.

Use games. There are numerous games and puzzles that help a child to increase vocabulary and make the child more fluent in speaking and writing. Remember, building a vocabulary builds confidence. Try crossword puzzles, word games, anagrams and cryptograms de- signed especially for children. Flash cards are good, too, and they’re easy to make at home.

Suggest making lists. Most children like to make lists just as they like to count. Encourage this. Making lists is good practice and helps a child to become more organized. Boys and girls might make lists of their records, tapes, baseball cards, dolls, furniture in a room, etc. They could include items they want. It’s also good practice to make lists of things to do, schoolwork, dates for tests, social events, and other reminders.

Encourage copying. If a child likes a particular song, suggest learning the words by writing them down–replaying the song on your stereo/tape player or jotting down the words whenever the song is played on a radio program. Also encourage copying favorite poems or quotations from books and plays.

In order to transform your child into a confident author, be sure to check out the “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” school and home study program.

Ready for essay success!

You and your students have worked hard on writing all year… and now it’s time to make sure it gets all the credit it deserves. Sometimes mandated writing rubrics can have harsh consequences… because sometimes fantastic writing misses the mark when it comes to the rubric.

The goal here is to not only to improve overall writing skills but also to hit a bull’s-eye when it comes to the writing rubric. Almost all writing rubrics will contain the basic topics found here.

1. Address the writing prompt and stay on target:
• How on target is the writing? What is being asked for in the prompt?
• Do the titles for your students’ essays contain any words from the writing prompt?
• Are the words used in the writing prompt sprinkled throughout the essay?
• How can the writing be on target if students don’t use any of the words from the writing prompt in either the title or the essay?

2. Make sure students have an understanding of big picture essay structure and organization. Their essay needs to demonstrate a clear beginning, middle and ending. Students need to have an understanding of how paragraphs flow throughout an essay:
• Introduction – Idea 1 – Idea 2 – Idea 3 – Conclusion
• Introduction – First – Then – Finally – Conclusion
• Introduction – Cause – Effect – Conclusion 
• Introduction – Cause/Effect #1 – Cause/Effect #2 – Conclusion 
• Introduction – Cause #1 – Effect #1 – Cause #2 – Effect #2 – Conclusion
• Introduction – Problem – Solution – Conclusion  (See Cause/Effect for more variations)
• Introduction – Similarities – Differences – Conclusion  (See Cause/Effect for more variations)
• Once Upon a Time – Rising Action – Rising Action – Climax – and They (or I) Lived Happily Ever After

3. Plan, Write, and Revise – Students must allow at least a little time for each of these. Cover the concept of breaking up their allowed time. (Plan 15% Write 70% Revise 15%) If students don’t spend at least a little time in each area, it’s unlikely their writing will be as good as it can be.

4. Sentence Varity – A simple way to bring about sentence variety is to focus on how sentences start. It’s amazing how quickly these simple and fun sentence starting patterns can transform student writing. Kids like them. They bring a lot of rhythm, flow, and beauty to language… without a lot of rules. 

Nine Fun Ways to Start Sentences
1. -ly Beginnings - Surprisingly, my parents liked the clubhouse I had built in our backyard.
2.  Prepositional Phrase Beginnings – Beyond the moon, laid infinite possibilities for exploration.
3. Two Adverb Beginnings - Fast and furious, the little mouse scurried towards the cake.
4. Two Adjective Beginnings-  Beautiful and elegant, the princess bride descended the stairs.
5. -ing Beginnings - Falling down the garbage chute, Billy started to wonder if he had made a wise decision.
6. -ing in the Middle - I brought my secret stash of money to the fair, hoping no one would stop me from spending every last cent of it.
7. Balanced Sentence Structure (Items in a series/ Parallel structure) – Eating ice-cream, watching TV, and wrestling tigers may be fun… but they are not healthy activities.
 8. Appositives (Insert information or explanation) – Shark Cove, the place where all the sharks hang out, is not a place I like to go swimming.
9. Dependent Clauses – After the storm had ended, the sun began to break through the cloudy gloom.

5. Don’t Mix First Person and Third Person – The way students begin their writing is the way they will need to finish their writing. It’s best if students make a conscious choice right at the beginning of their essay. However, this is often doesn’t happen.  Late in the essay process, it’s often better if students simply focus on how they began their essay and continue forward using that same point of view.
Example::: 
Student started with third person:
• “More and more people are developing a deep concern for protecting the environment.”
• “The government has started to enforce stricter environmental laws.”
Student wants to switch to first person:
• “I feel it is a person’s duty to help protect the environment.”
• “Everyone in my family recycles.”
Student should continue with third person:
• “Many people feel it is a person’s duty to help protect the environment.”
• “Studies show that more and more families are recycling.”

6. More Random Tips:
• Make sure the introduction contains a clear thesis statement. A thesis statement is a clear, explicit statement defining the purpose of the essay.
• Along with a clear thesis… see if you can also have a clear “hook.” (Curiosity, pose a question, pose a challenge, or pose a problem.)  
• Have specific transitions between paragraphs. It’s best if there is some variety in the transitions.
• Students should demonstrate that they know who their audience is. Language, vocabulary, and tone all reveal who the author is talking to.
• Demonstrate purpose. Using the words “persuade” and “inform” can be a bit obvious, but they are effective. Have students consider all the possible synonyms they can use to be secretly effective. (Convince, facts, knowledge, information, data, report, statistics…) 
• Give relevant supporting details. What’s relevant? Give value with every detail. Eliminate everything that does not give value.
• Details support, prove, clarify, explain, and give information about the topic sentences. If all else fails… focus on “prove it.” For centuries kids have said “prove it.” Having to prove something makes sense to them. “I had fun at the park.” Prove it. “Okay. I went with my best friend. We played soccer. My mom made a great picnic. I REST MY CASE.” 
• Do not make the details sound like a list.
• Have the conclusion readdress the prompt and more explicitly state the thesis.
• Uses Standard English grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure. Use formal language. Students are not talking to their buddy out on the playground.
• Don’t repeat ideas and sentences. Each sentence communicates a unique idea.
• Don’t generalize. Compare “Peace would be good.” Vs. “Elimination of all war, hatred, and intolerance would be fantastic.”
• Have paragraphs end with a conclusion sentence. Beginning, middle ending… beginning, middle…
• Don’t add new information in the conclusion.
• Every sentence should either be “simple and concise” or “a work of art.” Alternate between these two types of sentences.  
• Write neat!

I once taught a 5th grade G.A.T.E. class at a very affluent school for the final two months of the school year.  It was my off-track vacation time and their teacher could not finish the year. I had never seen students like these before. These kids openly, in fact brazenly did the math when receiving an assignment. They cared about the writing assignment exactly as much as the math told them to care about it.

These are the two “MATH QUESTIONS” that came out of their mouths NON-STOP:
1. Is this graded?
2. How much of our grade is it?

Depending on the answers to those two questions they would quickly determine how much they were going to invest in the assignment.

They would decide:
• I better get started on it now and I better do a great job. Also, I had better check my work for careless mistakes.
Or
• I can goof off for 7 minutes and then quickly dash off the assignment. I’ll probably get an A, but if I get a B, it’s not that important because this one grade shouldn’t affect my overall grade.
Or
• This isn’t graded? Hey, Joe, what are you doing after school?

If it wasn’t graded… they didn’t care about the assignment. (It is different when a class has experienced multiple teachers but still… I had never done so much grading in my life. I learned a lot from that high-achieving G.A.T.E. class.) 

Struggling Students ALSO Do the MATH before they do the WRITING

A lot of inner-city students, remedial students, ESL students, and students with learning disabilities also do the math before they start their writing assignment… and for them, they don’t like how it all adds up.

For them… it adds up to failure… so why get started?

I teach lots of kids in this latter category and I learned early in my teaching career that I have got to get them writing and I have got to get them writing fast. Quite simply, teaching students how to get an assignment, break it down, and then start and finish the assignment changes “the math” for them.

After they are “writing fast” I can layer all kinds of fantastic writing instruction on top of these core writing skills. With these core writing skills firmly in place, students seem to respond about 50% better to all the other writing instruction I layer on top.

With these core skills in place “THE MATH” has changed so students invest more. They are just like the G.AT.E. kids!

THEN ADD LAYERS OF DEPTH

Acting with an Accent

In “acting” an actor creates the character and then they just “layer on” the accent.  The accent is like a hat or a costume that they put on top of the character. The character is all the things the person says, does, thinks, feels, and believes. The character is THE PERSON they are playing. The accent is not the character. The accent is just a layer on top of the person.

Poor actors think the accent is the character. With these actors it is very easy to see the accent. In fact, that is often all you can see. This makes it very difficult to see a real person underneath that accent.

The heart of teaching elementary students (and remedial writers in higher grades) how to be successful writers has to do with three aspects of writing:
1. How real writing is really about communication
2. How to get the job done in the time allowed
3. How to approach an assignment

Good writers and successful students have mastered how to receive an assignment… break it down, organize their thoughts and then quickly start and finish the assignment. In short, they can write fast!

Be sure to read the next blog post on “Teaching Children to Write FAST Using the Timed Writing System.”