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...
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...
Two Kinds of Writing Assignments for Student Essays and Reports 1. The topic has not been assigned. Students choose the topic. 2. The topic has been assigned. Students must follow the directions and stay on topic. Teachers must find the right balance between these two...
Using and Benefiting From Prewriting: Elementary and Middle School Students The benefits of mastering prewriting skills for elementary and middle school students are really quite profound. By learning effective prewriting techniques students can develop the skill of...
Transitions 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 just sit back and enjoy the ride! We don’t want our readers to feel that we are jumping all over...
Mass Idea Generation: Another Important Trait from the Six Traits of Writing Along with organization, ideas are the other trait that Paul B. Diederich felt deserved greater weight. Good prewriting skills lead to good ideas. If students think the first idea that...
The fastest, most effective way to teach students clear and organized multi-paragraph writing… Guaranteed!