In my school district, middle school students take two ELA courses: one for reading and one for writing. While I’m not interested in teaching middle school, my co-workers and I often speculate whether we would enjoy teaching reading or teaching writing.
My co-wokers almost always indicate that they would prefer to teach reading. Middle school reading provides lots of opportunities for fun activities and book clubs, so I get that.
However, I would 100% choose teaching writing. From the first day of school, I know without a doubt that my students will grow as writers. There are few parts of teaching more rewarding than seeing (and guiding) that kind of growth. I also appreciate the slow, methodical nature of teaching writing.
Since teaching writing is one of my passions, I wanted to share my 6 non-negotiables for success.
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Brainstorming or Planning
As a new teacher, I derided the process of brainstorming or planning. I totally blew it off as flimflammery and a waste of time.
Well, that was stupid. (More about that here.)
Brainstorming or planning are essential parts of teaching writing. Students benefit from practicing idea generation, which is why I often use this brainstorming menu to get them started.
For structured writing, students also benefit from planning their work, thinking about what point or claim they will make in each paragraph, what evidence they will use, what research they need to conduct, and where they will incorporate persuasive language. Planning also helps dispel the myth that writing has to begin at the beginning; in fact, I usually encourage students to start with evidence rather than a topic sentence.
For underclassmen, I generally provide a paragraph-planning document. I just create a table in Google Docs and label each row and column. Here’s the rows I include:
- Topic Sentence
- Context
- Evidence #1
- Analysis #1
- Evidence #2
- Analysis #2
- Concluding Sentence
It’s a simple structure, but it’s one that students internalize as freshmen and sophomores so when they become juniors, they can create their own outlines and planning documents.
I also color-code the rows: structural pieces are green, evidence is blue, analysis is purple, and context is orange. This makes it particularly easy to talk to students about the process because you can ask questions like “Are you on the first or second blue box?”
Models and Sentence Frames
In the Google Doc outline I provide to students, I often add a column where I provide my own example paragraph and/or sentence frames. I never write to the same prompt in my example, but I will write to a similar prompt. When students get stuck, the example gives them a solid roadmap.
By the time students are sophomores, the example column typically goes away. The goal is to scaffold students toward independence, so removing those training wheels is an important step.
In place of the example, I often put sentence frames or links to important resources. For example, I sometimes include screenshots of important classroom anchor charts: one for citing evidence, one for embedding evidence, and one for the qualities of strong analysis. Additionally, I may also include links to helpful websites like the Purdue Online Writing Lab or the MLA Style Center. If there’s an instructional video or tutorial I’ve created, I can also link that.
Pro-Tip: As part of scaffolding instruction, it is important to respond with a resource rather than telling students what to do. For example, when students say “How do I start my topic sentence?”, I will ask them if they have looked at the sentence frames rather than telling them how to start.
Clear Rubrics and Expectations
While clear rubrics and expectations are key to teaching writing, they are really part of all great lessons. As students dive into their writing, we continually reference the rubric so students have an understanding of how their writing will be evaluated.
In addition, we usually apply the rubric to an example paragraph from a past student. I find it best to provide several example paragraphs: an A, B, C, and D. Then, students can see what successful writing looks like and compare it to struggling writing. I also avoid asking students to score an example that I have written; that often intimidates rather than empowers.
Creating a rubric and writing out expectations also helps me clarify exactly what I want from students. There’s nothing worse than sitting down to grade and realizing you’re not certain what to look for. To simplify this process, I use this standard rubric for paragraph writing. It’s the one I use alongside the outline I described above.
Academic Honesty and Integrity
Perhaps this goes without saying, but academic honesty and integrity are a significant part of teaching writing.
Especially in the world of easy AI, it is more important than ever to explicitly teach students about academic honesty and the consequences of academic dishonesty. Here are a few ways to emphasize academic honesty:
- Put a strongly worded academic honesty policy in your syllabus
- Give a free academic honesty quiz. I use this one from Turnitin.com
- Employ and teach related academic vocabulary. I use these card sorts.
Providing High-Quality Feedback
High-quality, timely feedback is often the crux of teaching writing. Students grow through struggle, and feedback helps refocus student work. Here are some ways to make sure you are providing high-quality, timely feedback:
- During the writing process, have a series of check-ins where you give quick verbal feedback. I do this during the planning process and when students have drafted topic sentences, but you can do it as often as necessary.
- Host writing conferences where you read through paragraphs with students and ask them to grade their own writing with the rubric. Another option is to ask students to come to the writing conferences with 1 question or area of their writing on which they want feedback.
- Load the rubric into Google Classroom. If I’m grading writing, it’s in the Google grading shell. I just shared 13 life-changing tech hacks for teachers, and several of them focus on making the most of grading in Google Classroom.
- Finally, I usually provide feedback through Loom. It’s so easy to pull up a student’s writing in the Google Classroom grading shell and record myself providing feedback.
Revision is the Most Important Part of Teaching Writing
I said what I said.
It can be incredibly hard to find time to allow (or require) student revision, but writing is a recursive process.
After I have shared feedback with students, I give them one week to make revisions to their writing (not a full week of classes, but a week of time). For revisions, students are expected to make changes to their work and then leave comments explaining what they changed and why. I only adjust grades when students explain their revisions and provide a thorough explanation of their choices.
By making this the last part of the in-class writing process, this emphasizes the importance of continual growth.
Honorable Mentions
Peer editing definitely has its place in teaching writing. When I have time to incorporate this strategy, I reach for these peer editing tickets. This resource facilitates student conversation and provides a structure for feedback.
For incorporating editing into teaching writing, I often turn to these Ted-Ed listening guides:
- Comma Story
- Subjects and Objects
- How to Use a Semicolon
- How to Use an Apostrophe
- Ted-Ed Listening Guides Bundle
