It’s time for students and all writers to take control and ownership of their writing! You can do this by expanding your world of ideas. You can also do this by understanding the power of statements. Yes, I said statements, aka declarative sentences. I know. You...
Why Teach Kids Beginning, Middle, and Ending in Writing
Beginning, middle, and ending is so important in teaching kids to write that I created an acronym for it: BME. Clearly, I’m not trying to be creative with that acronym. I just use the term so often that I need an acronym for it. Over the centuries, humans have come up...
Teaching Students How to Get Great Ideas for Their Writing
How do we teach young students to get ideas for writing? It’s a process of inspiring students, setting the right tone, building the right habits, and teaching them specific idea-generation techniques. My goal is always to create a classroom full of writers as I teach...
How Do Elementary and Middle School Students Use Prewriting?
The benefits of mastering prewriting skills for elementary and middle school students are profound. By learning effective prewriting techniques, students can develop the skill of seeing the big picture before they start assignments or projects. When students have...
How to Skillfully Transition and Sequence Using Signal Words
We want our writing to flow naturally. We want our readers to feel that we know where we are headed and we are in control of our writing. This means they can sit back and enjoy the ride! We don’t want our readers to feel that we are jumping all over the place. We also...
Prewriting for Writing Success: Better Ideas, Better Organization
Paul B. Diederich’s traits model greatly influenced the Six Traits of Writing. Diederich believed that both IDEAS and ORGANIZATION deserved greater weight than the other traits. Since both are so important, prewriting becomes critical. Prewriting is the process of...