Creative Ways to Jumpstart Student Writing
Helping students develop a better understanding of what they should do before, during, and after writing can make the actual process less intimidating.
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Go to My Saved Content.Before pens and pencils even hit paper, students in Jamie Searsâ class would moan and groan with reluctance. âUgh,â theyâd mutter, âdo we have to do writing today?â
Some simply donât like to write âbecause their previous writing experiences havenât been enjoyable,â the former elementary school teacher explains. Whether itâs lack of interest in the assigned topic, fear of being judged for their mistakes, or good old fashioned writerâs block, the act of putting your thoughts down on (virtual) paper can be daunting. By the time students reach middle and high school, the pressure has peaked, and the prospect of writing a flawless research paper or the perfect essay is enough to send shivers down their spines.
But writing can be made easier for those who are reluctant or anxious, and âhow we mediate student perception of writing is as important as teaching the skillsâ of writing, explains education consultant Jonathan McCarthy. Getting kids to write more often across a range of stylesâsupported by an equally rich range of strategiesâensures âthat when a student struggles to write, a different approach is readily available.â
From film scripts and short stories to poetry, book reviews, and travel journals, providing myriad low-stakes opportunities to explore what writing looks like in all of its different forms can help put students on a path toward ârefining oneâs voice, organizing and reorganizing oneâs thoughts, and learning how words spill out of oneâs head and onto the page,â says English teacher Matthew M. Johnson.
For some students, getting started is often the hardest part, especially if they think of writing as purely âfixed and formal,â . She, like McCarthy, recommends demystifying the process with lots of âspecific activities for students to do before and after writing,â which help them to âtrial ideas, structures and argumentsâwhile not losing their own views along the way.â
BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION
Students can often be their own worst critics, tearing their work to shreds to get ahead of the negative critique they fear theyâll receive, writes eighth-grade English teacher Christina Torres Cawdery. Allotting time for students to âbreak through their own judgmentsâ and practice low-stakes writing can help them move away from a âmindset of defeatâ when itâs time to be graded.
Build the Habit: According to writing researchers and teachers, students should spend âbetween 30 and 60 minutes every dayâ writing, Johnson says, but itâs fine to start a bit smaller. English teacher Meghan Rosa uses daily seven-minute writes while in Cawderyâs classroom, for the first five minutes of each period, students engage in daily journalingâresponding to a range of prompts like âTell me about your favorite place,â discussing assigned reading, or reflecting on a piece of media. But if theyâd like, students can write about anything.
When time is up, they record their word count with an aim of reaching 200 words daily. Every two weeks, journals are submitted and Cawdery reads them. âI will also occasionally make casual comments on what they write, like sharing that I also love watching reruns of The Office,â she says. âItâs a great way to get them writing and also build connections with them.â
Bolster Their Authority: Who am I to say what the author meant, a student might wonder. Thatâs a common problem, Jarmy says. âStudents often feel they lack the authority to make their own contribution to the subject and question their ability to write something well-informed.â
To help them understand that their theories and analysis are important, Jarmy has classes evaluate and critique essays produced by generative AI like ChatGPT. Using assessment criteria discussed in advance, students study ChatGPTâs outputs and find places where they can strengthen or improve the work theyâre reading. âThey might find an essay that ChatGPT produces on Plato and Aristotleâs views on mind and body is largely accurate, but that it lacks judgment or evaluation,â she writes.
Motivate With Mentor Texts: One of the best ways to inspire kids to write well is to get them reading great writing, Sears suggests. Provide examples of what success looks like across a variety of genres, and as different skills present themselvesâfrom realistic dialogue and descriptive details to a strongly communicated argumentâstudents can mark them, saving each passage as a resource for when they need to do the same themselves.
âPick fun, engaging stories that students will relate to,â she says. âWhen they see examples of good writing, theyâll be motivated to write better themselves.â
OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF GETTING STARTED
Filling a blank page can be intimidating, but much less so with a plan of action. Pre-planning activities allow students to carve a path forward for themselves in a âsafe and well-resourced environment,â Jarmy writes. âIt helps to build their confidence and allows them to break up the task of essay writing into manageable chunks.â
Share a Snowball: Writing can be a lonely pursuit, so allowing students to put their heads together and swap ideas can de-escalate any negative feelings. Try a snowball task, where each student begins an outline for what theyâre writingâan essay, blog, or the beginnings of a debate argumentâthen passes it to a classmate, who builds on the ideas of their peers. The process continues, Jarmy says, until a fully fleshed out plan has been created.
An alternative she uses is the three-minute planner, where students map out the main features of what theyâre about to write: for example, âthree key argumentative points theyâd make, plus a conclusion,â in three minutes' time.
Writing Your âWorst Draftâ First: Students often misconstrue the writing process as linear and squeaky clean, but the etymology of the word âessay,â Jarmy writes, stems from the French word essayer, meaning âto try.â Sharing this with students leads them to see writing as something malleable âthey can play with, rethink and redraft.â
But trying is much more difficult when youâre aiming for perfection, so Cawdery likes to encourage students to embrace the rough and even bad writing they may initially produce. In fact, she often tells them when they receive an initial assignment to âwrite the very worst versionâ of the paper or poem they can imagine. Everything from poor grammar and informal phrasing are fair game, because it can all be refined later. Itâs even possible that in their pursuit of the worst first draft that a few pearls of wisdom rise to the surface.
Sketch to Start: When writerâs block inevitably comes knocking on studentsâ doors, assistant professor of secondary education Jonathan T Bartels briefly takes writing off the table and replaces it with drawing. "If I asked you to draw a picture of your topic, do you think you could?,â he asks. Itâs helpful to model for students what this looks like with an exampleââwhen writing about a sequence of things, I have often had students draw it out as a comic strip,â Bartels says.
While the act of drawing itself can help students better visualize the topic they want to write about, it's the discussion afterwards thatâs most important, Bartels says. Try asking questions like:
- Why did you decide to draw it this way?
- What's happening here?
- Why is this here? (in regards to spatial organization)
- How are these specific items related?
- What did you purposefully leave out?
âDiscussing the students' drawing in this way gives me a very clear idea of what the student understands and thinks about the given topic,â he says. âFor the student, it is an opportunity to articulate his or her thoughts about the topic in a non-threatening way.â
Talk First, Then Write: Similar to Bartels, educational consultant and former educator Alexandra Parrish Cheshire has also found taking writing out of the equation to be the best accelerant. When she observed that some of her students were able to speak at length about a topic but froze up when asked to translate their thoughts to paper, she had an idea.
âIdentify a way your students can record themselves speaking their essay rather than writing it,â she says. Students can âstep out in the hall and recite their essay,â for example, then return and write down what they recorded. Anything from a computer with a microphone to an audio recording app on a phone will do.
Alternatively, consider setting up one-on-one sitdown meetings to talk through a topic with students who are particularly struggling. Cheshire writes down studentsâ bright ideas while theyâre talking, providing them not only with a starting point to work from but allowing them to âexpress their thoughts without the hesitation that makes some studentsâ minds go blank as they pick up that pen or pencil.â
GETTING THEM TO REFLECT AND REVISE
Revising is one of the âmeatiest components of the writing process,â says educator Joanna Marsh. Her students often âresisted editing because they didnât know how to make their work better.â Providing models of how to engage with critique, what revision looks like, and making the process collaborative can lower the stakes while laying out a clear road map for students.
Feedback Foresight: Before students receive any sort of feedback on their work, high school English teacher Marcus Luther has his students try to . This not only âincreases engagement in feedback conversation/reflections,â but infuses the revision and reflection process with purpose, he says.
Luther creates a slide that he displays for the class to see, outlining six pieces of feedback he most widely identified as areas for growth. âWhich do you think will be on your essay?,â he asks. Students can review their work through this lens, looking for places where âtextual evidence is mishandled,â evaluating their ârushed finish,â or looking at paragraphs that need to âmove beyond summary to analysis.â
Read-Aloud to Revise: Many donât like to read their work aloud, McCarthy explains, but itâs a beneficial post-writing practice that âhelps them catch problems in mechanics, word choice, and sentence fluency.â
First, students read their work aloud at low volumeâjust loud enough that only they can hear it. As they navigate their text, McCarthy suggests having students mark it up based on the focus problems suggested by the teacher like action verbs or passive voice. Lastly, writers circle back to the regions of the work theyâve indicated as areas for change, reflecting on what needs to be done to improve.
Peer-Powered Review: Feedback doesnât always need to come from you, explains high school English teacher Jamie Kobs. âBesides relieving me of some of the pressure,â she says, âcreating a classroom culture where students give each other feedback has helped me increase engagement and build community.â
In Mark Gardnerâs high school English class, students edit each other often, though he admits few ninth graders have âmastered the conventions of writing well enough to function as reliable editors.â So he provides a bit of structure; students' feedback on each otherâs work is always reflective, not corrective.
âMy students focus on idea development, clarity, and arrangement to make sense of the writerâs text,â he explains. Emphasize providing feedback that is targeted, actionable, respectful, and inspires growth. For example: âI am confused about who âtheyâ are in this sentenceâ or âI like how you repeated keywords from your hook here in your conclusion.â
Summarize and Strengthen: Having students write an abstract for their essay âhelps them to hone their line of argument, while also developing a sense of focus and precision,â Jarmy writes. She asks the class to create 200-word abstracts summarizing the main idea of the stance they took and its supporting points. âIf they donât understand their essay, or they have forgotten what they wrote,â Jarmy says, âthis is a great way to get them to invest in their work and take ownership of it - all of which will help them to improve next time.