Authors: Carla Marie, Travis D. Smith, and Annie Brewer Stilz
The world of creative writing is as vast as it is rewarding. It’s a form of expression that allows the writer to explore different worlds, characters, and narratives – all within the power of their pen.
But what exactly is creative writing and why is it important? Let’s explore the value of creative writing and how to inspire young (or old!) minds to embark on the curious and exciting journey of writing creatively – it’s easier than you think!
Creative writing, in its simplest form, is writing that goes beyond the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature.
It’s characterized by its emphasis on:
From poetry to plays, scripts to sonnets, creative writing covers a wide range of genres . It’s about painting pictures with words, invoking emotions, and bringing ideas to life . It’s about crafting stories that are compelling, engaging, and thought-provoking.
Whether you’re penning a novel or jotting down a journal entry, creative writing encourages you to unleash your imagination and express your thoughts in a unique, artistic way. For a deeper dive into the realm of creative writing, you can visit our article on what is creative writing .
The benefits of creative writing extend beyond the page.
It’s not just about creating captivating stories or crafting beautiful prose. The skills developed through creative writing are invaluable in many aspects of life and work.
1. Creative writing fosters creativity and imagination.
It encourages you to think outside the box, broaden your perspective, and explore new ideas. It also enhances your ability to communicate effectively, as it involves conveying thoughts, emotions, and narratives in a clear and compelling manner.
2. Creative writing aids in improving critical thinking skills.
It prompts you to analyze characters, plotlines, and themes, and make connections between different ideas. This process activates different parts of the mind, drawing on personal experiences, the imagination, logical plot development, and emotional intelligence.
3. Creative writing is also a valuable tool for self-expression and personal growth.
It allows you to explore your feelings, experiences, and observations, providing an outlet for self-reflection and introspection. By both reading and writing about different characters in different situations, readers develop empathy in a gentle but effective way.
4. Creative writing skills can open up a host of career opportunities.
From authors and editors to content creators and copywriters, the demand for creative writers is vast and varied. You can learn more about potential career paths in our article on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .
In essence, creative writing is more than just an art—it’s a skill, a craft, and a powerful tool for communication and self-expression. Whether you’re teaching creative writing or learning it, understanding its value is the first step towards mastering the art.
Amongst the many facets of a creative writing teacher’s role, three vital aspects stand out: inspiring creativity , nurturing talent , and providing constructive criticism . These elements play a significant role in shaping budding writers and fostering their passion for the craft.
The primary function of a creative writing teacher is to inspire creativity.
They must foster an environment that encourages students to think outside the box and explore new possibilities . This includes presenting students with creative writing prompts that challenge their thinking, promoting lively discussions around various topics, and providing opportunities for students to engage in creative writing activities for kids .
Teachers should also expose students to a range of literary genres , styles, and techniques to broaden their understanding and appreciation of the craft. This exposure not only enhances their knowledge but also stimulates their creativity, encouraging them to experiment with different writing styles .
Nurturing talent involves recognizing the unique abilities of each student and providing the necessary support and guidance to help them develop these skills. A creative writing teacher needs to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each student and tailor their approach accordingly.
This means:
Encouraging students to participate in writing competitions or to publish their work can give them a confidence boost and motivate them to improve. Furthermore, teachers should educate students about various creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree . This knowledge can inspire students to pursue their passion for writing and explore career opportunities in the field.
Providing constructive criticism is a critical aspect of teaching creative writing. It involves assessing students’ work objectively and providing feedback that helps them improve .
Teachers should:
Constructive criticism should be specific, actionable, and encouraging . It’s important to remember that the goal is to help the student improve, not to discourage them. Therefore, teachers need to communicate their feedback in a respectful and supportive manner.
In essence, a teacher’s role in teaching creative writing extends beyond mere instruction. They are mentors who inspire, nurture, and shape the minds of budding writers. By fostering a supportive and stimulating environment, they can help students unlock their creative potential and develop a lifelong love for writing.
When it comes to understanding how to teach creative writing, there are several effective techniques that can help inspire students and foster their writing skills.
Free writing is a technique that encourages students to write continuously for a set amount of time without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or topic. This type of exercise can help unleash creativity, as it allows students to freely express their thoughts and ideas without judgment or constraint.
As a teacher, you can set a specific theme or provide creative writing prompts to guide the writing session. Alternatively, you can allow students to write about any topic that comes to mind. The key is to create an environment that encourages creative exploration and expression.
Free Writing Techniques | Description |
---|---|
Timed Writing | Students write for a set amount of time without stopping. |
Prompt-Based Writing | Students use a provided prompt as a starting point for their writing. |
Stream of Consciousness | Students write down their thoughts as they come, without worrying about structure or coherence. |
Another effective technique is to expose students to a wide range of writing genres. This can include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, fantasy, mystery, and more. By exploring different genres, students can discover their unique writing styles and interests. This variety also offers the chance to expand their writing skills and apply them to various writing formats.
To facilitate this exploration, you can assign writing projects in different genres, conduct genre-specific writing workshops, or invite guest speakers who specialize in different genres. You can also encourage students to critically analyze how different authors approach their work.
Genre | Description |
---|---|
Fiction | Involves creating imaginary events and characters. |
Poetry | Focuses on expressing feelings and ideas through rhythm and metaphor. |
Drama | Involves writing scripts for plays and films. |
Fantasy | Involves creating imaginary worlds and creatures. |
Mystery | Involves creating suspenseful stories with unpredictable outcomes. |
Analyzing published works is a powerful way to teach creative writing. This technique allows students to learn from established authors by studying their:
It also provides a practical context for understanding writing concepts and techniques.
As a teacher, you can select diverse pieces of literature for analysis , ranging from classic novels to contemporary short stories. Encourage students to identify elements they admire in these works and discuss how they can incorporate similar techniques into their own writing.
Published Works Analysis Techniques | Description |
---|---|
Author Study | Students focus on the works of one author to understand their style and technique. |
Comparative Analysis | Students compare and contrast different works to understand various writing approaches. |
Thematic Analysis | Students analyze how different authors approach a particular theme. |
These techniques for teaching creative writing are effective ways to inspire creativity, encourage self-expression, and develop writing skills. As a teacher, your role is crucial in guiding students through their creative journey and helping them realize their potential as writers.
One effective method on how to teach creative writing is through the use of targeted workshops and exercises. These interactive sessions can stimulate creativity, foster character development , and help in understanding story structures .
Idea generation is a crucial aspect of creative writing. It is the starting point that provides a springboard for writers to explore and develop their narratives. Idea generation workshops can be an interactive and fun way to help writers come up with fresh ideas.
Workshops can include brainstorming sessions , where writers are encouraged to think freely and note down all ideas, no matter how unconventional they may seem. Another method is the use of writing prompts , which can serve as a creative spark.
A prompt could be:
Editor’s Note : Encourage children to create a big scribble on a scrap piece of paper and then look for an image in it (like looking for pictures in the clouds). This can be a great creative writing prompt and students will love sharing their writing with each other! Expect lots of giggles and fun!
Characters are the heart of any story. They drive the narrative and engage the readers. Character development exercises can help writers create well-rounded and relatable characters.
Such exercises can include character questionnaires , where writers answer a series of questions about their characters to gain a deeper understanding of their personalities, backgrounds, and motivations. Role-playing activities can also be useful, allowing writers to step into their characters’ shoes and explore their reactions in different scenarios.
Understanding story structure is vital for creating a compelling narrative. Story structure workshops can guide writers on how to effectively structure their stories to engage readers from start to finish .
These workshops can cover essential elements of story structures like:
In addition to understanding the basics, writers should be encouraged to experiment with different story structures to find what works best for their narrative style. An understanding of story structure can also help in analyzing and learning from published works .
Providing writers with the right tools and techniques, through workshops and exercises, can significantly improve their creative writing skills. It’s important to remember that creativity flourishes with practice and patience .
As a teacher, nurturing this process is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching creative writing. For more insights and tips on teaching creative writing, continue exploring our articles on creative writing .
The process of teaching creative writing is as much about honing one’s own skills as it is about imparting knowledge to others. Here are some key strategies that can help in enhancing your creative writing abilities and make your teaching methods more effective.
Like any other skill, creative writing requires regular practice . Foster the habit of writing daily, even if it’s just a few lines. This will help you stay in touch with your creative side and continually improve your writing skills. Encourage your students to do the same.
Introduce them to various creative writing prompts to stimulate their imagination and make their writing practice more engaging.
Reading is an essential part of becoming a better writer. By reading widely, you expose yourself to a variety of styles, tones, and genres . This not only broadens your literary horizons but also provides a wealth of ideas for your own writing.
Encourage your students to read extensively as well. Analyzing and discussing different works can be an excellent learning exercise and can spark creative ideas .
The beauty of creative writing lies in its diversity. From poetic verses to gripping narratives, there’s a wide range of styles to explore. Encourage your students to try their hand at different forms of writing. This not only enhances their versatility but also helps them discover their unique voice as a writer.
To help them get started, you can introduce a variety of creative writing activities for kids . These tasks can be tailored to suit different age groups and proficiency levels. Remember, the goal is to foster a love for writing, so keep the activities fun and engaging .
Enhancing creative writing skills is a continuous journey. It requires persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. As a teacher, your role is to guide your students on this journey, providing them with the tools and encouragement they need to flourish as writers – and most of all – enjoy the process!
For more insights on creative writing, be sure to explore our articles on what is creative writing and creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .
Creative Primer is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.
My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!
Here’s my favorite journal for 2024:
Gratitude Journal Prompts Mindfulness Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Anxiety Reflective Journal Prompts Healing Journal Prompts Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Journal Prompts Mental Health Journal Prompts ASMR Journal Prompts Manifestation Journal Prompts Self-Care Journal Prompts Morning Journal Prompts Evening Journal Prompts Self-Improvement Journal Prompts Creative Writing Journal Prompts Dream Journal Prompts Relationship Journal Prompts "What If" Journal Prompts New Year Journal Prompts Shadow Work Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Overcoming Fear Journal Prompts for Dealing with Loss Journal Prompts for Discerning and Decision Making Travel Journal Prompts Fun Journal Prompts
You may also like, how to use a planner to stay organized and get more done.
Planner review: hobonichi techno planner, leave a reply cancel reply.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Last Updated: March 13, 2024 References
This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 117,754 times.
Creative writing is one of the most enjoyable types of writing for students. Not only does it allow students to explore their imaginations, but it helps them to structure their ideas and produce writing that they can be proud of. However, creative writing is a relatively difficult type of writing to teach and offers challenges to both new and seasoned teachers alike. Fortunately, though, with some work of their own, teachers can better develop their own abilities to teach creative writing.
To teach creative writing, start by introducing your students to the core elements of storytelling, like theme, setting, and plot, while reminding them that there’s no formula for combining these elements to create a story. Additionally, explain how important it is to use tone and atmosphere, along with active verbs, to write compelling stories that come alive. When your students have chosen their topics, have them create story outlines before they begin writing. Then, read their rough drafts and provide feedback to keep them on the right path to storytelling success. For tips from our English reviewer on how to spur creativity in your students, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No
Yunzhe Yang
Mar 27, 2017
Daniel Hesse
Dec 5, 2016
wikiHow Tech Help Pro:
Develop the tech skills you need for work and life
Learn more about how to teach creativity and innovation along with, and as an important part of, traditional writing and research skills.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou
Creativity is fundamental to the teaching of writing. Although WR 153 focuses specifically on creativity and innovation, all WR courses ask students to approach their reading, viewing, writing, and research in creative ways. One important approach to creativity is “design thinking,” which emphasizes that creativity is a non-linear, iterative process. Design thinking is based on two foundational assumptions:
The principles of design thinking can be used in any WR course to teach students that creativity is a process of asking questions, using multiple strategies and approaches in answering those questions, taking risks in conceiving and executing original work, developing and refining ideas in response to feedback, and learning from productive failure. The metacognitive aspects of design thinking invite students to think about their own creative processes and identify factors that promote creativity.
Although WR 153 is structured by the steps of the design process (understand, empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, assess/reflect), all WR courses can benefit from incorporating elements of design thinking and an emphasis on creativity and innovation. Approaching writing instruction in this way can:
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative approach to creativity that involves between three and seven steps. Although it is based on theories of design practice that go back to the early twentieth century, it has most recently been popularized by the design firm IDEO and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, commonly known as the d.school. The process involves understanding the issues involved in a design project, empathizing with the audience for an end product, defining the scope of the project, generating ideas for and creating prototypes of the product, testing and assessing those ideas and prototypes, and revisiting the steps of the design process until a final product is created.
The complete set of seven steps can be applied to the writing process in a WR course:
Understand: Students develop a foundation for their work by exploring issues and approaches relevant to the course topic, as well as previous work in the field.
Empathize: Students practice empathy by demonstrating their awareness and understanding of the audience for whom they write or create.
Define: Based on their observations and insights, students articulate a problem or question that will motivate their work over the course of the semester.
Ideate: Students generate new ideas and possible solutions by challenging assumptions and engaging in a variety of creative activities.
Prototype: Students start to create solutions and implement their ideas into written, digital or other forms in order to capture ideas, but also redefine choices.
Test: Students share drafts with others in order to gain feedback and insight into improving final versions.
Assess/Reflect: Students reflect on and evaluate their peers’ and their own processes and final outcomes.
The steps of the design thinking process are not meant to be followed in a rigid way. They should be flexible and customizable to the particular project: students may need to define, ideate, and prototype multiple times and in various modes/genres before they are ready to create a final draft. The skills students gain in going though these steps should be transferrable to other projects and courses.
Learn more about design thinking:
The first step of the design process asks students to understand not only the course material, but also the resources necessary for their particular project. Since this usually involves additional reading/viewing, the “understand” step is part of the research and information literacy component of WR15X. Assignments that focus on this step may include conducting library or online research, categorizing research material using BEAM/BEAT, and creating annotated bibliographies.
Before they begin the process of generating ideas, it is often useful for students to define, at least in a preliminary way, what question or problem their paper/project is addressing. Assignments that help students define their projects may include questionnaires that ask students to state what they intend to work on and why, as well as more formal paper/project proposals.
In the IDEO design process, the goal of ideation is to generate a multitude of ideas without rejecting those that may seem impractical or even silly. Ideas can be rejected later, after a sufficient number of ideas have been generated. The most common ideation assignment involves various forms of brainstorming, often in teams. Ideas should be written down in some way, such as on sticky notes or index cards. To encourage divergent thinking in the brainstorming process, consider posting some fundamental principles in the classroom, such as these from IDEO:
In the IDEO design process, prototypes are models that can be easily revised and even discarded if necessary. Prototypes for writing courses might include outlines, storyboards, slide decks, oral or video presentations, and preliminary drafts. Prototypes should be tested and assessed in some way that allows for reconsideration and revision before students turn in their final products.
Learn more about brainstorming and prototyping:
The final steps of the design process, testing and assessing/reflecting, are not meant to be the final steps in completing a student’s paper/project. After testing and assessing a prototype, students will likely need to reconsider and revise their papers/projects, which will take them back to earlier steps—they may need to conduct further research, generate additional ideas, or refine their prototypes. The design process is meant to be iterative, with students returning to steps in the process as needed until they have completed a final draft.
Just as designers test their prototypes, students should test drafts of their papers/projects by sharing them with others. Assignments that focus on this step usually involve workshopping with one or more peers, but testing may also include making an oral or video presentation to the class, meeting with the professor or a writing tutor, or sharing the student’s work with any other reader/viewer capable of providing feedback. Students may also test their papers/projects using techniques such as reverse outlining to assess the strength and clarity of their arguments.
The final step in the design process, assessing the student’s work, may lead back to any earlier step as students come to understand what they still need to work on to complete their papers/projects. This step may also involve the broader metacognitive task of reflecting on the student’s creative process. Assignments that focus on this step may include a variety of reflective exercises, including a final reflection for the course.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” —Samuel Beckett
Because WR 153 courses can include such a wide range of papers and project, contract grading is recommended. Other WR courses that incorporate creativity and innovation may also wish to use contract grading, either for specific assignments or the course as a whole. More information on contract grading can be found here .
An important component of creativity and innovation is productive failure. We learn to create new things or develop new skills by failing and trying again until we succeed. Productive failure is failure that leads to new knowledge, insight, or innovation. Courses that focus on creativity can encourage productive failure by requiring prototypes that will be reconsidered and revised extensively, asking students to share examples of failure as valuable learning experiences, and assigning reflective work on how students have grown through failure over the course of the semester.
Learn more about productive failure:
Both readings below argue for the importance of productive failure. The Burger article contains specific examples of how to validate and reward productive failure in the classroom.
The quickest and easiest way to understand design thinking is to start with videos that explain the concept, where it originated, and how it can be used to address a variety of problems.
If you would like to deepen your understanding of design thinking, there are a number of websites that address the concept in greater detail.
IDEO is a design and consulting firm that popularized the concept of design thinking. According to IDEO’s website, “Thinking like a designer can transform the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategy. This approach, which is known as design thinking, brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. It also allows people who aren’t trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges.” The IDEO website has a number of useful resources on design thinking:
IDEO U, the educational arm of IDEO, has a separate website that contain more information on design thinking as well as additional resources.
The Interactive Design Foundation provides useful information on design thinking on its website. According to “What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?” by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang, “Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. At the same time, Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It is a way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-on methods.” This article describes the basic concept of design thinking and five basic steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test.
Books on design thinking are generally aimed toward a popular audience. They draw on anecdotal evidence rather than research to support their claims, but they can be valuable resources for understanding how design thinking is applied in a variety of settings, including both corporations and the educational sector. To provide a sense of how design thinking developed over time, these books are listed chronologically:
Resources on design thinking in writing pedagogy:
If you would like to focus specifically on how the design thinking process relates to writing pedagogy, there are number of academic articles that address design thinking in the writing classroom as well as the larger issue of creativity as it relates to composition. To provide a sense of how the scholarship on creativity and design thinking in writing pedagogy developed over time, these articles are listed chronologically:
General resources on creativity:
If you are interested in resources that focus on the larger issue of creativity, one place to start is with videos that define what creativity is and how it can be cultivated, including in an academic setting.
There are a number of books that focus more generally on creativity. Some of these books are theoretical, while some focus practically on how we can become more creative in work and life. The books by Tom and David Kelly, and by Sarah Stein Greenberg, approach creativity from the design thinking paradigm used at the Stanford d.school.
The following books are listed separately because they reflect creative practices in specific fields, such as creative writing, the visual arts, and dance. They contain ideas and exercises that are transferrable to writing classes and may be helpful in designing WR courses.
Tip 2: explicitly teach sentence stems, tip 3: build a planning routine, tip 4: go big or go home.
A blank page can be a fearful thing. As I sit typing this (cocooned in the corner of a bustling coffee shop), it seems a fearful thing to me, too. One by one, words tentatively appear, and yet the whiteness of the page dominates and suffocates the lettered blackness.
It can be an especially fearful thing for our students. Surrounded by the silence of an examination hall, pens scratching cold paper, they sit and stare at the mountainous alps of their booklet. The summit stretches out a great distance away, with so little time to plot and navigate their way.
This is often most keenly felt in creative writing. Being creative on demand is no easy task. The blankness of the paper is only compounded by the apparent blankness of ideas. And still, the clock ticks. In this article, I’ll share four top tips for helping students get better at creative writing, ensuring they always have something ready to fill the whiteness of the page.
One of the biggest conceptual shifts I’ve made in my teaching of creative writing is to focus on crossing out . When we—or our students— cross something out in their writing, what does it imply? It invariably implies a moment of thought and consideration. Is this the best word the gesture suggests, or should I use a different one?
Encouraging students to adopt a crossing-out mentality can be hugely powerful. As we write, I’ll often remind students to look for any words they could cross out, modelling this in my own writing. As I write, I cross out, always being sure to narrate why I’ve crossed something out and what is replacing it .
Of course, in and of itself, crossing out does not guarantee progress. It is a proxy, but a helpful one. Crossing out becomes a concrete and easily understood analogy for the kind of deliberate, sustained crafting that so often characterises the best writing. We don’t just want students to fill up their blank pages; we want them to fill them up with excellent writing .
In order to cross out, students need something to cross out in the first place. This is where repeatable and recyclable sentence stems come into their own. They provide students with snippets of excellent writing they can drag and drop into their response, adapting as necessary.
Students often complain—rightly so—that creative writing can be bereft of content to revise. Sentence stems give them something tangible to rehearse. Teach them in advance, show students how to manipulate them, and get students to experiment on their own.
If the sentence occupies the micro, then students also need a sharp and cohesive macro structure in order to succeed. This is where planning becomes essential.
To help students with this, I explicitly teach and model a particular planning routine that can be adapted and adopted at the start of an examination. This helps students make sure they’re asking the best questions as well as get them into the zone.
This routine always looks the same, sketched out on a single side of A4, and goes like this:
At this point, and with some basics covered, students can sketch out an overall structure for their response. At the most basic level possible, I like: First, Next, Next, And Then . What happens first, and then next, and then next, and then how does it end?
Finally, I ask students to consider a big idea they would like to convey within their writing.
With all of this mapped out, students can now begin to write.
Let’s pause for a moment on this idea of a ‘big idea’. It is easy to imagine what this means when teaching a literature text, and we probably spend a lot of time considering it with our classes.
What is Shakespeare trying to accomplish in Macbeth, we might explore? Interwoven with our discussion of the play, we consider Shakespeare’s depiction of power and the way it corrupts, as well as his depiction of kingship or femininity. These are some of the play’s big ideas.
A consideration of the ‘big’ is just as important for a student’s own writing as it is for the literature they study. What is it that they wish to show or explore in their writing? What do they want to do? Helping students to appreciate they can have something to say within their own writing can be truly empowering and liberating.
In my own modelling, I like to return to the concept of time . This unlocks so many interesting directions: transience, time passing, memory, recapturing youth. But it also provides a wealth of imagery for students to leverage. Wrinkled hands, a faded wedding ring, a scratched and crumpled photograph, an item of clothing lovingly stored away at the back of a wardrobe, gathering dust.
This block is currently empty. Please add some content.
A blank page can be a fearful thing, it’s true. But one filled with scribbled writing, well, that can be joyful.
These four strategies will hopefully help your students make sure they turn their blank pages into a piece of writing they can be truly proud of.
Andrew Atherton is an English teacher at a school in Berkshire. He runs the popular blog site Codexterous , which includes a wealth of posts outlining strategies for teaching English Literature and English Language as well as lots of resources.
Unsure about taking an EPQ in Sixth Form or College? This article, written by an EPQ veteran, offers a detailed look at the Extended Project Qualification, from its structure to the valuable skills it hones. Discover why you should do an EPQ, including reduced university entry requirements and the development of crucial transferable skills.
If you're a parent of a Sixth Form or College student, you've probably come across the term EPQ. But what is an EPQ, and why should your child consider undertaking it? This article serves as your comprehensive guide to the EPQ, helping you support your child if they decide to take on this educational challenge.
Discover how to make your teacher CPD truly impactful with expert insights from Evidence Lead in Education, Jade Pearce. With only 1% of CPD changing teacher practice, learn 10 actionable strategies to ensure your professional development programs enhance both teacher performance and pupil outcomes.
Discover how to build a positive classroom culture with insights from a Senior Leader in Teaching and Learning. Learn effective strategies for fostering inclusivity, respect, and positivity. From establishing shared goals to promoting a mistake-friendly environment, create a mini community that thrives on mutual support and growth.
Unlock the power of the humble index card in your English classroom with these innovative teaching techniques. From linking quotations to scaffolding essay structures, discover how index cards can enhance critical thinking and organisation. Elevate your teaching methods and inspire student creativity!
Sign up to our monthly newsletter to be kept in the loop about new resources, blogs and more.
High School English and TPT Seller Resources
Creative Writing was forced onto my schedule; I didn’t ask for it. But it ended up becoming my favorite class period of the day. While academic English courses can feel high-stakes and always short on time, Creative Writing can be a refreshingly relaxed elective class. In many districts with loose curriculums, Creative Writing is what you make of it. In this post, I outline six steps to show you how to teach creative writing to high school students.
Before we get into the how , let’s first address the why . Why bother teaching Creative Writing in the first place? Students’ basic skills are lower than ever; is now really the time to encourage them to break the rules?
If you want to get really deep into why you should teach Creative Writing, I have a whole post about it here.
But think about why you love reading. Is it because you were made to annotate or close read a bunch of classic novels? Probably not. You probably fell in love with reading while you were reading something that was fun. And because it was fun, you read more, and your skills as a reader grew.
The same principle applies to writing. If we can make it fun for our students, perhaps we can foster a love for it. And passion is what leads, eventually, to mastery.
Giving our students the opportunity to fall in love with writing is a gift that might help them grow in their academic writing later.
Your school or district may have a mandated syllabus or curriculum. Mine did not.
Whether you’re given student goals or have to create them, you must have an overall vision for what your Creative Writing class will accomplish.
Is this a laid-back, engaging course designed to help students discover the fun in writing? Or is it a supplement to rigorous academics for college-bound high school students?
If you know your school’s student population well, I encourage you to think about their needs. Some students just need to write more–more of anything, but lots more. Some students are high achieving and ready to write their first novels! If possible, design your course around the needs and interests of the general student population in your school or district.
Regardless of how rigorous your Creative Writing course will be, deciding on these goals first will help you in backwards planning.
Before we can start planning our lessons, we have to decide what skills or knowledge our students will need. And to know what they need, we have to decide on their summative assessments.
Will your final assessment be a short story? A collection of poetry? Are you required to offer a final exam?
Once you know what students will need to do, you can make a list of the skill they’ll need. This list will become a list of lessons you’ll need to teach.
My Fairy Tale Retelling Project is a great Creative Writing assessment. For this project, students had to first choose a fairy tale. Then, they rewrote the story from the perspective of the villain.
This project works really well because students have structure. They can pick any fairy tale they want, but they can’t write about just anything.
Secondly, students already know the story, so they don’t have to worry about a beginning, middle, and end. The open-endedness of writing a story completely from scratch has paralyzed my students before. Structure allows students lots of creative freedom without the excuse of “I don’t know what to write.”
If you’d like your Creative Writing class to help beginner writers have fun and just get some practice with fiction writing, a Fairy Tale Retelling Project would probably be perfect for your class.
Another project I’ve done with my students is an Author Study . In this project, students choose one author to study in-depth. Then, they attempt to replicate that author’s style in an original work.
If you’d like your class to also include lots of exposure to other writers or classic literature, then this might be a great assessment for your class.
Learn more about doing an author study in this step-by-step post.
I also gave my students a final exam focused on literary terms.
This Literary Terms Test allowed me to test students on the academic knowledge they gained throughout class instead of their writing ability. This test also helped me fulfill my district’s requirement of having a final exam at the end of each course.
Once you’ve decided on your class’s major projects and assessments, you can begin designing the rest of your class.
Now that you know what your students will need to do at the end of this class, you can list out everything you need to teach them in order for them to be successful.
For example, if you opt for an author study as a final project, you know what you will need to cover. You will need to teach students some literary terms so that they can describe an author’s style. You’ll need to show them how to analyze a poem.
During the course of your class, you’ll also want to expose students to a variety of authors and mentor texts. Students will need to practice basic writing techniques in order to replicate those of their chosen authors.
If you need some inspiration for what kinds of lessons to teach, check out this post on essential Creative Writing lessons.
Once you’ve decided on the end goals for your Creative Writing class, you can use them to help create day-to-day plans.
What will your class look like? Will it be full of lots of quiet and independent work time? Will it be full of frenetic energy with students working in collaborative groups? Are students writing in notebooks or on laptops?
Of course, a successful class will most likely include a mixture of all of the above. But it’s up to you to decide on your ratio.
Again, I encourage you to think about your school’s population. If you’re on ninety-minute blocks, is it realistic for students to be quietly writing that whole time? If you have high-achieving students, might they benefit from working independently at home and then getting and giving peer feedback during class time?
Use your goals to help decide on a general class structure.
You’ll need a consistent way to begin each class.
When I initially began teaching Creative Writing, I just wanted to provide my students with more time to write. We began every class period with free writing. I gave students a couple of prompts to choose from each day, and then we’d write for about ten minutes.
( Those journal prompts are right here . Every day includes two prompts plus a third option of freewriting.)
Students were given the option to share part of their writing if they wanted to. Every couple of weeks I’d flip through their notebooks to make sure they were keeping up, but I only read the entries they starred for me in advance.
Later, I wanted to add some rigor to my Creative Writing class and leverage more mentor texts. I created a Poem of the Week activity for each week of the course.
This gave students the opportunity to study professional writing before using it as a mentor text for a new, original piece.
(You can read more about using these Poem of the Week activities here.)
As my goals for the class and my students change, so did the way we began class.
How can you begin your class in a way that supports the end goals or teaches the desired standards? How often will peers work together?
Now you can actually start planning lessons and projects!
But as you do so, focus on creating engaging ones–especially if your class is meant to be a fun elective.
Need more tips? Check out this post full of Creative Writing teaching tips!
Have you ever tried putting a puzzle together without knowing what the image was going to look like? It would be pretty difficult! Similarly, students need lots of examples of strong writing to aspire to.
Without clear models or mentor texts , students will happily turn in unread drafts. They’ll choose the first word that comes to their mind instead of searching for a better one.
But if you surround students with great writing, highlight strong technique when discussing the writing of others, and challenge them to notice the details in their own writing, they’ll naturally become better at self-editing.
I don’t believe that you can provide students with too many mentor texts or examples of strong writing. As you teach Creative Writing, keep or take pictures of strong writing samples from students to use as examples later.
Nearly all of my lessons and projects include an example along with instruction.
You can even use your own writing as an example. When I had students free write to creative writing prompts, I always wrote with them. Sometimes I would then put my notebook under the document camera and model reading my own work.
I would cross out words and replace them or underline phrases I thought were strong enough to keep. Model for students not just great writing, but the process of strengthening writing.
And then give them plenty of time to edit theirs. This is when having students engage in peer feedback is a game-changer.
Without great writing to aspire to, however, students easily become lazy and turn in work that is “good enough” in their eyes. Don’t let them get lazy in their writing. Keep throwing greater and greater work in front of them and challenge them to push themselves.
(This is another reason I love using Poem of the Week warm-ups –they expose students to a new writer every week!)
Creative writing causes a lot of students anxiety. There’s no “right” answer, so how will they know if they creatively wrote “correctly?”
Help them out by setting clear expectations. Offering a rubric for every project is great for this. If you can, give them specifics to include. “At least 500 words” or “three or more similes” are nice, concrete guidelines that students can follow.
Offering students choice always boosts engagement. It lets students take charge of their learning and pursue something that interests them.
For example, when I teach odes , students are given the opportunity to write about something they love.
With an author study , students can study a writer whose style and work they admire.
While showing students excellent prose or perfect poetry should help inspire students, your writers will still need some hard parameters to follow.
Academic writing is often easier for students than creative writing. Usually, academic writing follows a structure or certain formula. The rubric dictates exactly how many quotes need to be included or how long an essay needs to be. MLA or APA formats tell students how to punctuate quotes and citations.
These rules don’t apply to creative writing. And while that’s exactly what makes creative writing awesome, it’s often overwhelming.
So do your students a favor and give them some clear expectations (without, of course, entirely dictating what they need to write about).
The project also includes a rubric, so young writers know what should be included in their stories.
Don’t give your students so much creative freedom that it paralyzes them! Your writers are still students; give them the same level of structure and organization that you would in any other class.
Sign up and get five FREE Creative Writing journal prompts to use with your students!
Opt in to receive news and updates.
Keep an eye on your inbox for your FREE journal prompts!
So how do you give students frameworks, requirements, and uphold high expectations without stifling their creativity?
Give students choices. You can write about A, B, or C, as long as you meet requirements 1, 2, and 3.
Offering choices works with small one-day assignments or lessons as well as bigger, longer-term projects.
The previously mentioned Fairy Tale Retelling Project is a great example of offering a narrow selection of choices that uphold expectations without dictating what students write.
Another one of my favorite examples of offering students choices is my “Show. Don’t Tell” Mini-lesson . This lesson touches on everything students need to successfully learn creative writing.
First I teach them the concept of showing vs. telling in writing through direct instruction. I show them lots of examples of expanding a “telling sentence” into a “showing paragraph.”
Then I model for students how I would write a paragraph that shows crucial information, rather than telling it.
Lastly, I have students pick a strip of paper from a hat or a bag. Each strip of paper contains a “telling sentence” that they must then write as a “showing paragraph.” Students are limited by the sentences I provide, but they still have complete freedom over how they achieve that detailed paragraph.
If you wanted to give students even more freedom, you could let them pick their sentences or trade with a peer rather than blindly choosing.
Any time you can give students a choice, you give them permission to use their creativity and allow them to take some of the initiative in their own learning.
We can tell students something a hundred times, but they won’t listen until a peer says the same thing. Us educators know the value of positive peer interaction, so don’t limit it in a creative writing class!
There are a ton of ways to implement peer interaction in a creative writing class. I often do this on the first day of class with a writing game. You’ve probably heard of it: everyone writes a sentence on a piece of paper, then everyone passes the paper and adds a sentence, and so on.
I highly encourage you to use peer feedback throughout the class. I usually start having students share their work from day one with my free “I Am” Poem Lesson so that they can start getting used to having their work read by others immediately.
Make getting feedback so routine in your room that students don’t even question it.
It’s really tempting to let students get away without sharing their work. We don’t want to make shy or anxious students uncomfortable. I mean, what better way to completely ruin creative writing for a student than to make them feel embarrassed all the time, right?
But keep trying to encourage shy students to share. Even if that means you share it anonymously or read it aloud for them.
I recommend including some kind of peer feedback with every writing assignment . Yes, even short practice assignments. This will work as a kind of “immersion therapy” for receiving feedback on more involved work.
After some time, you might find that your students even begin to share their work without your prompting!
I like to organize the desks in my Creative Writing class so that students are in little groups. I’ve found that at least half of my classes will begin talking and sharing with one another in their little groups while working on projects.
They’ll ask each other questions or to remind them of a word. They’ll read sentences aloud and ask if they sound right. Personally, I would much rather hear this kind of chatter in my class than have a dead silent room of boring writers!
However you decide to allow students to work together, be sure to provide the opportunity. Reading and getting feedback from peers could possibly teach students more about writing than any of your instruction (sorry!).
One of the truly great things about teaching creative writing to high school students is that there often isn’t a rigid curriculum. Of course, this is also sometimes one of the worst things about teaching creative writing to high school students!
You have total freedom over the assignments you give, the standards you teach, and how you organize and structure your classroom. After a few years of teaching Creative Writing, however, I’ve found that sticking to these six steps is a great way to have a successful semester.
If you’re excited about teaching your Creative Writing class, but are running low on prep time, check out my complete 9-week Creative Writing course ! Included are two different types of warm-ups, poetry analysis activities from well-known authors, mini-lesson, projects, and more!
Explore strategies and tools that students can use to write creatively across the curriculum.
The internet has been the most significant amplification of the written word since the Gutenberg printing press. It has introduced us to websites, blogs, social media posts, email, and so much more. In many ways, people write more today than ever before, and modern writers have an unmatched opportunity to share their thoughts with an extensive audience—essentially anyone with a computer and internet connection.
This writing revolution has opened up almost endless opportunities for our students to express themselves through the written word. Of course, this doesn’t mean they need to be limited to text alone. Writing can be shared in many formats and is often mashed up with other forms of media, like images, video, and audio recordings.
It’s tempting to think that academic writing is the responsibility of language arts teachers, but writing is an essential skill for our students all across the curriculum. Writing in subject areas other than language arts provides students with an authentic context for their writing, and it forces them to think more deeply about the subject matter being studied.
Writing is one of the most cognitively complex tasks that we can ask our students to perform. It can and should be done in every subject area. Writing boosts critical thinking and requires the mental organization of new learning. In turn, it increases retention while deepening the understanding of that new learning. Writing can also be leveraged to have students dive deeper into the metacognitive aspect of the learning process. This type of writing can help students better understand their thought processes while identifying how they learn best.
No matter the context or subject area, writing can help develop critical communication skills, and when shared with authentic audiences beyond the teacher, it can increase motivation and relevance for the student. In many ways, writing across the curriculum is a win–win dynamic. Students gain a deeper understanding of their content and learning process while they simultaneously develop the writing skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.
In this article, we’ll explore seven different digital formats that can be integrated across all subject areas. Within each of those formats, we’ll share writing tools and strategies that you can use to get students writing in your classroom.
There will probably be times when you determine the writing format for your students, and there will also be times when it’s better for your students to choose their own format. Whenever it makes academic sense, consider allowing your students to choose the format. This will increase their interest and motivation in the writing project. This often keeps them more engaged and results in a better final product. While we will not list every writing platform available to you in the classroom, the following list will highlight seven top choices to get you started.
In this familiar format, students use a word processing program, like Microsoft Word or Google Docs, to write something. Here, the message and writing take center stage, and the visual format is secondary. Once the core writing has been completed, this text can be repurposed and reformatted in many ways.
Writing Tools:
Integration Ideas:
Blogs are personal essays published online. Typically, bloggers will set up a website where they continue to add posts on a regular basis. Many blogging sites allow people to “follow” a blog. This allows followers to get notified whenever a new post is published. Blogs have become a popular way for writers to share their ideas with a wide audience at minimal to no cost. Blogs also allow readers to respond to posted ideas, making it more of a dialogue than a stand-alone piece of writing.
Blogging Tools:
Websites have become so common that we might be tempted to take them for granted. However, allowing students to create their own sites can be extremely empowering, and it offers many opportunities for creativity. Written messages can be combined with images, video, audio, interactive maps, and more. One significant supplementary benefit of students creating their own websites is that the process demystifies the concept of a website, often making students more informed and critical consumers because they know how a website is set up.
Website Creation Tools:
Comic strips are fun to read, but they can also serve as powerful learning artifacts when students create them to communicate a message or demonstrate their learning. Comics also allow students to be creative and tap into their artistic and visual skills. This can be very motivating for some students. To help guide students in the process, there are several online tools that provide frames, characters, settings, and more. Students can also use a slideshow or word processing tool to create their own comic strip from scratch.
Comic Strip Tools:
Students often take a great deal of pride in their writing when they see it published in book form. It provides an increased sense of accomplishment and affirms the worth of their words. Fortunately, it’s easier (and cheaper) than ever before for students to publish their work as a book. Several websites allow students to create digital books for free, while some charge only if you want to have them printed. Digital books provide the added advantage of being able to add multimedia alongside the written text. Again, the authentic product at the end of the process can increase student motivation in the project.
Book Creation Tools:
Students can integrate newswriting into many of these formats. Specifically, this would fit well with the creation of a website. It could even be a class news site, with each student adding their own article. However, you could also take a more traditional approach and have students create a print newspaper or magazine. This defined format helps give them focus and purpose. It’s also fun to see the final result printed out and displayed in the classroom. If you are teaching remotely, the finished pages can be posted digitally to your learning management system.
Newswriting Creation Tools:
Most learning management systems have discussion tools built into their platforms. These can be great ways to get students writing collaboratively. It’s one thing to write for the teacher, but when a student knows that classmates will also be reading the posts, it changes the dynamic and motivation. In addition, it gives students a chance to think beyond their original post and reflect on feedback from their peers. Of course, you will want to define discussion protocols, model effective posts, and have students practice these skills. This process can ensure that the discussion experience is a positive and respectful one for all involved. Explore additional ideas for fostering substantive and respectful online discussions in a previous AOA article .
Discussion Tools:
This course is part of the following collections:.
Did you find this resource useful?
Your rating helps us continue providing useful content in relevant subject areas.
Select from the list below to add to one of your Journeys, or create a new one.
You haven't created a Journey yet.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter and be the first to receive access to best practice teaching strategies, grab-and-go lessons, and downloadable templates for grades K-12.
Strategies, Ideas, and Recommendations from the faculty Development Literature
General Strategies
Teaching Writing When You Are Not an English Teacher
Crews, F.C. Random House Handbook. (6th ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992.
A classic comprehensive textbook for college students. Well written and well worth reading.
Lanham, R.A. Revising Prose . (3rd ed.) New York: Scribner's, 1991. Techniques for eliminating
bureaucratese and restoring energy to tired prose.
Tollefson, S. K. Grammar Grams and Grammar Grams II . New York: HarperCollins, 1989,
1992. Two short, witty guides that answer common questions about grammar, style, and usage. Both are fun to read.
Heath, 1987. McCloskey, D. N. The Writing of Economics . New York: Macmillan, 1987.
Assigning In-Class Writing Activities
Written critiques done as homework are likely to be more thoughtful, but critiques may also be done during the class period.
The Strategies, Ideas and Recommendations Here Come Primarily From:
Gross Davis, B. Tools for Teaching . San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1993.
And These Additional Sources…
Boris, E. Z. "Classroom Minutes: A Valuable Teaching Device." Improving College and
University Teaching, 1983,31(2), 70-73.
Elbow, P. "Using Writing to Teach Something Else." Unpublished paper, 1987.
Hawisher, G. E., and Selfe, C. L. (eds.). Critical Perspectives on Computers and
Composition Instruction. New York: Teachers College Press, 1989.
Holdstein, D. H., and Selfe, C. L. (eds.). Computers and Writing: Theory, Research,
Practice. New York: Modern Language Association, 1990.
Lowman, J. Mastering the Techniques of Teaching . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984.
Petersen, B. T. "Additional Resources in the Practice of Writing Across the Disciplines."
In C. W. Griffin (ed.), Teaching Writing in All Disciplines . New Directions in Teaching and Learning, no. 12. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1982.
Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education.
Bright Idea Network , 1989. (For information contact David Graf, Iowa State University, Ames.)
Pytlik, B. P. "Teaching Teachers of Writing: Workshops on Writing as a Collaborative
Process." College Teaching , 1989, 37(1), 12-14.
Tollefson, S. K. Encouraging Student Writing . Berkeley: Office of Educational
Development, University of California, 1988.
Walvoord, B. F. Helping Students Write Well: A Guide for Teachers in All Disciplines.
(2nd ed.) New York: Modern Language Association, 1986.
Watkins, B. T. "More and More Professors in Many Academic Disciplines Routinely
Require Students to Do Extensive Writing." Chronicle of Higher Education, 1990, 36(44), pp. A13-14, A16.
We use cookies on this site. By continuing to browse without changing your browser settings to block or delete cookies you agree to the UW-Whitewater Privacy Notice .
A project that incorporates both standard and creative elements of storytelling can help young learners strengthen their literacy skills.
What can creative writing look, feel, and sound like in a first grade classroom? How can creative writing become a joyful and meaningful learning experience, and how can we educators facilitate the creative process and allow young writers to use their imagination when writing?
Graphic organizers, mind maps, and storyboards are certainly great tools for narrative building and planning, but they do not necessarily scaffold the creative process that story writing requires. In reality, they might even restrict students’ creativity while they “box” ideas in predetermined templates. This year, in my class, going play-based and hands-on has turned out to be a tremendous success.
For this particular unit, my first grade students were examining literature and storytelling. After they had enjoyed several read-alouds, explored story elements, and studied the story mountain (beginning, rising action, conflict, resolution, and ending) as a team, it was time for them to write their very own stories.
They kicked off by creating their main character and decided on the character’s appearance, personality, likes, and dislikes. They also had the choice to play the main character role in the story. In both cases, while still brainstorming, it was time for action: They drew and decorated their characters with markers and pencils, cut them out, and used a Popsicle stick to make a puppet.
They became even more motivated to continue as they saw their characters come to life. My students spontaneously started interacting with each other and their puppets—creating stories and being imaginative—they went right into storytelling mode. This created the perfect opportunity for me to step back and observe my students’ initiative, creativity, and social and communication skills, not to mention their sense of accomplishment and joy.
After they had engaged with their characters and interacted with others, it was time for the young writers to further develop their stories and think of a scenario leading to the rising action and resolution. This was the point when loose parts played a crucial role in the storytelling process. Counters, pipe cleaners, bits of paper, pebbles, dice, and buttons became houses, trees, magic wands, you name it. These bits and bobs from around the classroom became a valuable, zero-cost resource.
While students actively arranged and rearranged their chosen loose parts, they wondered about what would happen next in their stories. Unexpectedly, some students chose to collaborate and co-created stories by joining their imagination and characters in one story. In this step of the creative process, the use of loose parts was truly empowering: Before jotting anything down in their notebooks, my students physically, mentally, and verbally constructed their narratives and shared them with their partners.
With the mental representation of their narratives ready, it was all a matter of scribing their ideas. For that, we followed our usual class routines and resources such as word banks, sentence starters, and buddy support. All my students were engaged and confident, and when struggling with ideas, they resorted to loose parts again. As my first grade is a multicultural classroom, some of my students needed language support . However, with all of them hooked on their stories, supporting those who needed help with vocabulary, sentence construction, and spelling was simplified.
I conferred with students individually and in small groups to understand their thinking and offered feedback on paragraphing and some word choice. Instead of using notebooks for their first drafts, they chose to use mini-boards, which motivated them even more and supported them to make quick adjustments to their narratives. Finally, after receiving feedback, they moved on to writing their final drafts and designing their covers in order to turn their stories into books. Each student took their book home to share it with their family after reading it with the class.
What good is a book if it isn’t read and enjoyed? Buddy reading was the last step of the process but certainly not the least exciting. My students read aloud to each other, commenting on their favorite bits of the story and appreciating the illustrations. The whole project, from getting their characters ready to publishing and reading their books, took around five hours divided into five days.
When reflecting on the writing process, my students said that what they appreciated the most was the making of their puppets and illustrating their stories, highlighting the importance of integrating arts and writing. When asked about what was challenging, they replied that it was creating all the parts of the story mountain. However, they all said that using loose parts was a helpful strategy that they would use again—which they spontaneously have done in subsequent writing engagements. Lastly, when asked how they felt, some of the words they used were “proud,” “good,” and “joyful!”
A recent UNESCO report on the importance of happiness in learning refers to neuroscience research that proves our affective and cognitive domains are interconnected and interdependent. Therefore, emotions do affect learning! Joy is not a trade-off for academic achievement. Creating positive learning experiences makes learning stick.
Very often, students fear and avoid writing as a consequence of previous negative writing experiences. Combining art and a play-based approach to creative writing in first grade can set students on a path to success by building on their confidence, creativity, imagination, and sense of accomplishment. I have witnessed that the integration of art and writing has helped my students discover how writing can be a joyful and memorable experience where they can all be amazing storytellers and writers.
In this blog post, Dr. Gary Troia explores the world of effective writing instruction, linking structured literacy practices with the art of teaching writing effectively to provide valuable insights for educators. Throughout this post, readers will gain a deep understanding of the essential elements of effective writing instruction and how to seamlessly incorporate them into the structured literacy classroom.
Table of Contents
Characteristics of effective writing curriculum, references and further reading, introduction to structured literacy, understanding structured literacy and its role in reading and writing education.
In structured literacy classrooms in which principles associated with the science of reading are employed, teachers use comprehensive, systematic, and explicit instruction to address the fundamental building blocks of successful reading—phonological awareness, phonics patterns, reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension (which is addressed primarily through the development of topic and discourse knowledge). Of course, reading is only one aspect of literacy that requires teachers’ expertise and focus; writing development and instruction also benefit from a structured literacy approach. However, many teachers may be unfamiliar with teaching writing using this approach, in part because most teachers have little preparation to teach writing and because there has been a dearth of high-quality writing curricula and instructional materials available for teachers to use.
? Download Free Lesson Plans: Bridge to Writing is a comprehensive writing curriculum for K-5 classrooms that develops strong writers through research-based instruction, making writing instruction easy for teachers and engaging for students.
The Writing Rope by Joan Sedita (2022) offers a convenient way of remembering the critical building blocks of writing in a structured literacy classroom. These are: (1) transcription skills, namely spelling, handwriting, and keyboarding; (2) text structures, including types of writing genres and their main structural elements (e.g., narratives have a setting, a plot with a climax, and character reactions), varied discourse patterns within genres (e.g., compare-contrast versus cause-effect, flashbacks, and flashforwards, haiku versus sonnet), paragraph organization, and vocabulary used to signal linkages and transitions between ideas; (3) syntax, which includes awareness and use of appropriate grammatical structures to most effectively convey meaning; sentence elaboration and combining; and punctuation used to signal syntactic elements; (4) writing craft, namely precise and varied word choice, literary devices (e.g., allusion, symbolism, onomatopoeia), and awareness of task, audience, and purpose; and (5) critical thinking, which includes gathering information through reading source materials and/or performing their own investigations, generating and organizing ideas (i.e., planning), drafting text by hand or through digital means in manageable segments, and revising and editing a text for communicative effectiveness.
All these building blocks in the structured writing classroom must be thoughtfully coordinated to form a comprehensive writing program for students, which is necessary across grades and across disciplines taught in schools to help all students become competent writers. An exemplary writing program also will typically have the following characteristics (see Troia, 2013 for more information):
• Meaningful writing experiences and authentic writing tasks that promote personal and collective expression, reflection, inquiry, discovery, and social change whenever possible to motivate students.
• A sense of community in which risks are encouraged, children and teachers are both viewed as and engage as writers, personal ownership is expected, and collaboration is a cornerstone so that students are willing to experiment with their writing.
• Predictable routines that involve both explicit instruction (i.e., modeling with teacher think-aloud, guided collaborative practice with feedback, and independent practice opportunities with feedback) and sustained student practice; in kindergarten, at least 30 minutes daily is recommended, while beyond kindergarten at least one hour daily is recommended, with half the time allocated to explicit instruction (see Graham et al., 2012).
• A common language for shared expectations and feedback regarding writing quality, which might include the use of traits (e.g., organization, ideas, sentence fluency, word choice, voice, conventions, and presentation).
• Procedural supports such as anchor charts, student-teacher and peer conferences, graphic organizers, checklists for revision/editing, “booster” lessons to help students attain mastery, and computer tools for removing transcription barriers when necessary.
• Integration of writing instruction with reading instruction and content-area instruction (e.g., use of touchstone or mentor texts to guide genre study used for all literacy activities, use of common themes across the curriculum, maintaining learning notebooks in math and science classes as source material for writing, teaching decoding and spelling of the same phonics patterns, teaching letter formation while introducing letter-sound correspondences).
• Intentional adjustments to emphasis on teaching the writing process, form, and meaning to meet learners’ needs.
• Differentiated instruction for struggling learners, multilingual learners, and advanced learners.
• Resident writers and guest authors who share their expertise, struggles, and successes so that children and teachers have positive role models and develop a broader sense of writing craft.
• Opportunities for teachers to upgrade and expand their own conceptions of writing, the writing process, and how children learn to write, primarily through professional development activities but also through being active members of a writing community (e.g., the National Writing Project).
? Blog Post : Read “11 Science of Reading Resources Every Educator Should Know About” blog post here! Our literacy specialists curated a list of 11+ NEW resources for educators who wish to further their knowledge about the Science of Reading.
To assist students with navigating all the complex aspects of writing, teachers should consider the role of self-regulation in writing, as successful writers are highly aware of themselves as writers, of factors that influence their writing performance, and of how to use diverse strategies to manage these factors effectively. Self-regulation in writing includes at least three coordinated components: (1) goal setting, (2)self-talk, and (3) self-evaluation. Incorporating self-regulation components in writing instruction has been shown to positively affect both strong and weak writers’ composing abilities (e.g., Graham, Harris, & Mason, 2005; Graham & Perin, 2007).
Setting goals enhances attention, motivation, and effort and facilitates strategic behaviors (e.g., planning before drafting) through the valuation of goal attainment. In other words, if a goal is sufficiently important, a student will do all that is necessary to attain it. Research has demonstrated that goal setting improves writing skills (e.g., De La Paz, 2007; Page-Voth & Graham, 1999). For goals to have the most beneficial impact on writing behavior and performance and to encourage the student to marshal sufficient effort, they should be challenging (i.e., just beyond the student’s current level of writing skill), proximal (i.e., attainable within a short period of time), concrete, and self-selected or collaboratively established (because real or perceived control boosts achievement motivation). Goals can focus on a writing process (e.g., “I will use my graphic organizer to help me write”; “I will have my writing partner check my paper for mistakes before I put it in my portfolio”) or an aspect of the product (e.g., “I will be sure to have at least three main ideas and, for each idea, two supporting details in my informative paper”; I will include at least five action helpers, descriptive words, or transition words to improve my word choice”).
? FREE eBook: 5 Steps to Improving Literacy Instruction in Your Classrooms – Despite research showing that most children have the capacity to read, we still see literacy scores in decline. This free eBook explores the body of research on how children learn to read and provides 5 easy first steps coaches and administrators can take to improve literacy instruction in their schools and district.
Self-talk (instructions, questions, affirmations, or exhortations directed to oneself) helps orient attention to relevant information, organize thoughts, plan actions, and execute behaviors. In addition, self-talk helps one cope with anxiety, frustration, self-doubt, and impulsivity, which tend to plague struggling writers and even those who are more accomplished writers. Self-talk has been widely investigated for several decades by researchers in many areas of psychology—sports, counseling, psychotherapy, and education—with promising results (e.g., Dobson, 2010; Manning & Payne, 1996). With respect to teaching young writers to use self-talk, it is most effective when (1) the content is tailored to the demands of the task and the individual’s needs; (2) it is rehearsed aloud to automaticity and then used as a form of “inner speech” to control thoughts, feelings, and actions; and (3) it is monitored for fidelity of use by the teacher. Examples of self-talk include, “Have I used my revising checklist to check my work?,” “This is hard, but I can do it if I try my best,” “I am good at coming up with ideas, so I will turn in a good paper,” and “Keep concentrating so you do not get distracted!”
Self-evaluation consists of self-monitoring and self-recording behavior and can be used to assess attention, strategy use, and task performance. Frequently, self-evaluation is accomplished through the graphic representation of a target behavior’s occurrence with a goal (thus, these two aspects of self-regulation are functionally interdependent). For instance, students might quantify their use of story structure elements in fictional narratives produced over time on a chart with the maximum score at the top (the goal). Likewise, students can track how many words they have written per time interval, with the goal of increasing their productivity by 25% over baseline. Self-evaluation has been found to positively affect behavior and academic performance (e.g., Lloyd, Bateman, Landrum, & Hallahan, 1989; Maag et al., 1993). Self-evaluation helps students establish worthwhile goals because the concrete data collected during this process provide feedback on their status relative to an external benchmark or a personal goal.
Several other practices based on empirical research and informed professional practice can help teachers foster writing development (see Graham & Perin, 2007). The examination of touchstone or mentor texts for attributes that students can mimic in their own writing (e.g., a strong lead for an informative article, the use of dialogue to advance the plot in a story, applying onomatopoeia to create vivid sensory details, the use of punctuation and capitalization to mark and build cadence in a poem) helps them internalize a mental model for the written product and identify rhetorical goals. It thus gives students a focus for their planning and revising efforts. The use of mentor texts is enhanced when strong models of particular aspects of writing are contrasted with weak examples. A related instructional practice involves activities to develop genre and topic knowledge. Again, such knowledge can help students acquire internal frames of reference or performance benchmarks for planning and making meaningful revisions to their writing. In many cases, knowledge about a genre is appropriated through immersion in texts that exemplify the canonical genre traits (e.g., story structure) and discussion of (1) how the genre reflects a unique way of communicating ideas within specific contexts (its purposes and functions) and (2) how the genre is embodied in the structure of the text (its form). Explicit and systematic instruction in genre structure, coupled with authentic purposes for reading and writing in that genre, positively impacts the quality of students’ writing within a genre (e.g., Purcell-Gates, Duke, & Martineau, 2007).
? Shop Heggerty Decodable Books: Introducing our comprehensive collection of decodable books, featuring a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts designed to improve student’s reading skills and fluency. Explore our diverse library and unlock the joy of reading for every learner.
Finally, peer and teacher conferencing, whether one-on-one or in small groups, is frequently used in structured writing classrooms to engineer better student papers. However, conferencing between students and teachers often has the “flavor” of typical instructional discourse (teacher-controlled and centered on assignment requirements and teacher expectations) rather than egalitarian conversations regarding writing craft and composition content, especially when the teacher is more knowledgeable about the writing topic. Moreover, peer respondents often provide vague and unhelpful comments and suggestions to authors unless they are explicitly taught to give meaningful feedback. Thus, the positive impact of conference feedback on the quality of students’ papers is likely because many students benefit from attention to even the most global aspects of composition, such as text structure and form, and notably improve their texts with even limited revision. To maximize the effectiveness of writing conferences, a teacher should aim to do the following (see Martin & Certo, 2008):
• Establish a conversational stance to understand students’ goals and ideas before discussing specific textual issues.
• Provide frequent and varied opportunities for conferencing about pieces of writing.
• Encourage flash drafting, a technique in which smaller segments of text (e.g., the climax of a story) are drafted, examined (through conferencing), and revised to help the student feel less invested in a completed draft of the whole paper.
• Collaboratively establish concrete goals for planning, drafting, and/or revision.
• Give weaker writers more conference time that is also of high quality.
• Along with a student’s text, use checklists, questionnaires, and graphic aids as touchpoints during conferences to help link concrete tools with strategic behaviors.
In conclusion, effective writing instruction is a vital component of literacy education, and when coupled with structured literacy practices, it can genuinely empower educators and students alike. I hope this blog post has shed light on the critical elements of effective writing instruction and how they can be harnessed within structured literacy classrooms. For those eager to explore this topic further, I invite you to learn more about Bridge to Writing at heggerty.org/bridgetowriting, where you can access valuable resources and tools to enhance your teaching journey. Together, we can help students become proficient and confident writers.
? Ready to dive into more learning? Take a peek at some of our popular structured literacy resources:
De La Paz, S. (2007). Managing cognitive demands for writing: Comparing the effects of instructional components in strategy instruction. Reading and Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 23, 249-266.
Dobson, K S. (Ed.). (2010). Handbook of cognitive-behavioral therapies (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
Graham, S., Bollinger, A., Booth Olson, C., D’Aoust, C., MacArthur, C., McCutchen, D., & Olinghouse,
N. (2012). Teaching elementary school students to be effective writers: A practice guide (NCEE 2012-
4058). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications_reviews.aspx#pubsearch.
Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Mason, L. (2005). Improving the writing performance, knowledge, and self-efficacy of struggling young writers: The effects of self-regulated strategy development. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 207-241.
Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools—A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York . Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
Lloyd, J. W., Bateman, D. F., Landrum, T. J., & Hallahan, D. P. (1989). Self-recording of attention versus productivity. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 22, 315-323.
Maag, J. W., Reid, R., & DiGangi, S. A (1993). Differential effects of self-monitoring attention, accuracy, and productivity. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 26, 329-344.
Manning, B. H., & Payne, B. D. (1996). Self-talk for teachers and students: Metacognitive strategies
for personal and classroom use . Allyn & Bacon.
Martin, N. M., & Certo, J. L. (2008, February). Truth or tale? The efficacy of teacher-student writing conferences . Paper presented at the Third Writing Research across Borders Conference, Santa Barbara, CA.
Page-Voth, V., & Graham, S. (1999). Effects of goal setting and strategy use on the writing performance and self-efficacy of students with writing and learning problems. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 230-240.
Purcell-Gates, V., Duke, N. K., & Martineau, J. A (2007). Learning to read and write genre-specific texts: Roles of authentic experience and explicit teaching. Reading Research Quarterly, 42, 8-45.
Sedita, J. (2022). The writing rope: A framework for explicit writing instruction in all subjects . Brookes Publishing.
Troia, G. A. (2013). Effective writing instruction in the 21st century. In B. M. Taylor & N. K. Duke (Eds.), Handbook of effective literacy instruction: Research-based practice K-8 (pp. 298-345). Guilford Press.
Gary A. Troia, PhD, CCC-SLP, is Associate Professor of Special Education at Michigan State University. Prior to receiving his doctorate from the University of Maryland in 2000, he worked 10 years in the public schools as a special educator and speech- language pathologist, and 6 years as a university clinical supervisor. Dr. Troia is co- editor of the journal Topics in Language Disorders and serves on the editorial boards of several top special education journals. With colleagues Froma Roth and Colleen Worthington, he developed a phonological awareness intervention program for young at-risk children called Promoting Awareness of Speech Sounds (PASS), published by Attainment Company. With fellow researchers Lori Skibbe and Ryan Bowles and funding through the Institute of Education Sciences, he has developed an online phonological awareness assessment for young children with complex communication needs called ATLAS-PA, one component of the Access to Literacy Assessment System. Dr. Troia has authored over 70 research papers, book chapters, and white papers and has given numerous presentations about his work in the areas of phonological processing and awareness, writing assessment and instruction, and teacher professional development in literacy. He has been awarded over $6.5 million in intramural and extramural grants and contracts.
Teaching creative writing to kids can be one of the most rewarding parts of teaching the English curriculum. But with so many statutory requirements to hit in a portfolio of writing, it can be difficult to capture truly creative writing as well as instil enthusiasm for the art.
Some of your class will really enjoy creative writing from scratch. For others, this will be a daunting experience. We have gathered together a collection of simple ideas for teaching creative writing to help your pupils smash writing tasks.
1. Use a workshop-style environment
Separate your class into groups or tables, each group will then be able to choose what they work on. Some may look to write fiction pieces and use ideas around storytelling. Another group could focus on word games, spelling and puzzle-solving. There could even just be a group for reading stories and learning the craft!
All children are able to work in groups, but each pupil will have one-to-one time with you too. As long as assignments and tasks are rotated, children will find their favourite part and be more engaged as a result. Working this way can also lead to competitions and collaborative creative writing work.
The adage is ‘practise what you preach’. When it comes to creative writing, this means you should be showing the class what the process is.
Doing live creative writing sessions for your class can give them perspective on how to build a story effectively. More importantly, it gives them chance to see how it’s OK to make mistakes, how to take criticism and that they shouldn’t be afraid to create whatever they feel they want to. You could even get your more able (and confident!) pupils to live write on the board for the class to gather inspiration from; pupil modelling can be a really fantastic assessment for learning activity.
Some visual cues might be the key to unlocking greater creativity in your pupils. Instead of writing out a story, why not begin with a storyboard? It doesn’t need to be a work of art – simple stick people will do the job.
Once you’ve drawn out the basis of your story, you can then start to write down more detail to really flesh out their story.
If there is one place anyone can go to experience good storytelling, it’s in books. Reading brings a whole host of benefits to children form an educational standpoint – many of which apply to creative writing.
To increase vocabulary, improve creativity and enflame imaginations (plus a whole lot more), we should always be looking for more reading opportunities for pupils in class. Beyond the classroom, encourage them to do as much reading as possible at home too.
If you’re struggling for ideas, why not take inspiration from one of the countless legendary stories already out there. Give a classic story a twist and ask the class to elaborate on it:
It’s a tenant of good storytelling across many different mediums. The idea of show, don’t tell means the writer should avoid explaining every aspect of what a character is feeling or thinking and instead focus on different ways of revealing that information in the story.
For example, give your class some basic information like “the boy was sad”, and ask to write a sentence that would display that information more creatively. It could become, “the boy’s heart sank, his head bowed and he sniffled as the tears began to fall.”
This way, the reader is able to unravel the emotions involved in the story themselves, rather than being told.
YouTube is a treasure trove of learning resources and other helpful content that can boost a pupil’s creative writing capability. With a quick search, you’ll find plenty of interviews with famed writers sharing their experiences in the job.
Use these to dig a little deeper into the mind of a writer. What is there process for coming up with ideas? What are the challenges they face? This type of content can provide key takeaways that pupils can bring into their next creative writing task.
A simple but effective method for getting into the routine of character building involves writing down what makes them tick. Take a famous character from a book or a famous children’s TV show. Split a piece of paper into a grid, and label them with things like “what makes them happy”, “what makes them angry” “How would they react in a certain situation?”
Then as a class fill out the grid. You could use them method when a pupil comes up with a new character for their story, helping them to get in the correct mindsight for creating characters.
There will be a lot of children in your class who thrive when given the freedom to write. Always remember to set aside time for your pupils to have an open-ended opportunity to write, allowing them to express their favourite topics. If it’s too open for some children, then proposing a particular topic for this time can help too.
Story-starters or prompts are great for getting the creative juices flowing. It helps pupils to avoid the dreaded ‘writer’s block’. We’ve got a whole load of story starters for KS1 and KS2 creative writers, but here are just a few to get the juices flowing:
Generate ideas and get a story rolling with a tried and tested method: the story generator. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it:
The home environment will be a more comfortable or possibly, a more inspiring place for children to write their stories. Encouraging parents to get onside with this can sometimes be a battle, but one worth fighting. Sharing their stories and creations across different audiences is a valuable experience for children, whether that be in class, at home or safely online. The perfect flipped classroom experience!
Often, teachers hesitate when it comes to teaching writing because they aren’t confident in their own writing skills. Although writing is a key pillar of literacy , the artistry involved and the vast styles and approaches can make it a tad daunting to teach. However, writing is not just an essential literacy skill that is foundational to personal and professional success—at its core, it is an amazing form of self-expression and creativity. As with most fundamental skills, it is vital to encourage students to write early and often. They should not let skills, or lack of them, thwart their attempts at storytelling and communication. As writers build their toolboxes of literary devices, they can begin to craft and hone their own style and voice.
By taking a scaffolded approach, teachers can begin with writing mechanics and conventions such as spelling, punctuation and capitalization, and sentence construction structure. As kids literally grab hold of the fine motor skills of gripping a pencil, they can practice their handwriting. Then, layer by layer, they can begin to focus on meaning by broadening their vocabulary, playing with word choice, adding detail, and learning how best to organize their ideas with clarity. The core of teaching writing is introducing students to the writing cycle and helping them realize the artistry of revisiting drafts of ideas.
Flocabulary video lessons for Reading and Writing leverage hip-hop, engaging visuals, and compelling storytelling to enhance students’ writing skills and vocabulary acquisition, making the content area more relevant and memorable. Every video lesson is paired with various activities and assessments: Vocab Cards, Vocab Game, Break It Down*, Read & Respond, and Lyric Lab. Students can specifically practice their skills with Read & Respond passages, use the Quiz to check their understanding and create rhymes using Lyric Lab .
Additionally, Flocabulary offers a creative way to infuse the fundamentals of writing instruction into your lesson planning by creating Flocabulary Mix lessons *. First, select and preview a literacy skill from those listed by grade level. Then, select a video text . The skill video provides a spoken direct set of instructions that is paired with the hip-hop video text. Your students will view both, and afterward, they can dive deeper into the newly introduced vocabulary through assessments and analysis activities designed to help them develop and practice comprehension strategies.
For instance, Richmond Public Schools’ (RPS) implementation of Flocabulary significantly enhanced vocabulary comprehension and literacy skills across all core subjects. Fourth-grade teachers at RPS reported a 75% total improvement in reading scores, including a 60% increase in growth and a 30% rise in proficiency. The use of Flocabulary not only made learning more enjoyable for students but also translated into substantial gains in their Standards of Learning (SOL) state test scores, proving that when students are motivated and excited about their education, their academic performance soars.
*Break It Down and Flocabulary Mix is only available to users with a Flocabulary Plus subscription.
New to Flocabulary? Teachers can sign up for a trial to access our lesson videos and assessment activities. Administrators can get in touch with us to learn more about unlocking the full power of Flocabulary through Flocabulary Plus.
Author Stephen King claims in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft , “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” Expose students to all genres of literature, all types of authors, and instructional writing examples. As they begin to identify their favorites, pepper them with questions as to why. In English language arts classes, you can also challenge them to write in a style similar to a chosen author—imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (as they develop their own greatness, that is).
Find a plethora of K-12 video lessons in our Language Arts section, including stories, literature, and informational texts. These video lessons are perfect for covering classic stories to provide students extra context for their reading comprehension or to help them learn more reading strategies they can apply daily.
Explore these videos to support reading in your classroom:
Almost all stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Students need to practice telling stories, whether in writing or verbally, to grasp the idea of sequencing events and the basics of story elements. Retelling stories provides explicit instruction for honing summarization skills (which is not an easy skill for any age!). For an added challenge, give students bookends to work within, such as a character or time limit—you can use social media posts as an example with Twitter/X’s 280-character limit, TikTok’s 90-second limit, or IG Story’s 60-second limit.
Underscore comprehension strategies using skill videos for Flocabulary Mixes. Here are some examples of lessons to use across grade levels:
*Skill videos and Flocabulary Mix are only available to users with a Flocabulary Plus subscription .
It sounds simple enough, but help your students be aware of words to boost vocabulary acquisition . Highlight when others make a conscious word choice. Encourage them to play with words. As babies begin to acquire vocabulary, they build a lexicon for their primary language. This lexical development continues as learners build a sense of meanings and form and how to use words in relationship with one another. As a teacher, I encouraged my students to avoid bland “four-letter words” such as SAID or GOOD. You can encourage students to keep personal dictionaries, where they make note of new words or those that intrigue them. A thesaurus can be a budding writer’s best ally in written work!
Explore our 5 essential strategies to teach vocabulary to understand the vital role of vocabulary acquisition as a valuable tool to enhance students’ language depth and writing abilities. Using strategies like multiple exposures and structured models such as the Frayer model, explore the importance of using and applying words creatively—a skill essential for effective writing.
While creative writing can help capture the soul and talent of young authors, they also can begin to sharpen their technical writing skills for expository and persuasive writing. Students can learn effective writing strategies for informational pieces such as essays, newsworthy articles, op-eds, advertisements, debates, and research reports. Such writing strategies teach students that there are different types of writing for different purposes: descriptive, narrative, expository, and persuasive.
Here are some lessons and writing activities you can use for elementary, middle, and high school:
As students amass strategies and analyze best practices in writing, they can begin to develop their own writer’s toolbox. These toolboxes can catalog story elements such as plot, setting, characters, point of view, and conflict. Students can add definitions and examples of literary and poetic devices such as irony , alliteration, metaphors , hyperbole, and oxymoron … just to name a few. Such techniques will embolden them to use symbolism and figurative language to differentiate their prose and their writing from others. Students will delight in the sophistication they can bring to their writing by not only understanding but also employing such devices.
Showcase examples for their toolboxes by using these lessons:
Early in elementary school, many teachers introduce the concept of the writing cycle, which typically varies from five to seven stages. However, all versions of the writing cycle depict the idea that the step-by-step process of writing is continuous and that high-quality writing benefits from being revisited repeatedly. Pre-writing begins with seed ideas that take shape with graphic organizers or outlines. Students write multiple drafts, getting their ideas down on paper. Revising is when they continue to add or subtract pieces to refine their work. And then editing is when the more mechanical aspects of writing are revisited and polished by the author or peer reviewers. Often, the most challenging part of the writing cycle is knowing when you’re done and ready to share and celebrate via publication.
During the writing cycle, encourage students to go back and revise their writing for clarity—which often means revisiting grammar. Flocabulary has tons of video lessons on grammar, including the following:
Help students realize that writing is quite personal and often is based on an author’s experiences and biases (recognized or not). Challenge them to not only identify the point of view but also try seeing the story from another person’s perspective. Jon Scieszka’s The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs is a wonderful way to illustrate this for young readers and writers. Similarly, Gregory Maguire has found success in novels—and on stage—with his unique perspectives in books such as Wicked .
Teach about point of view using the following video lessons:
*Skill videos and Nearpod Originals are only available to users with a Flocabulary Plus subscription .
Playing with words comes down to personal word choice as well as word structure. Challenge your students to take a simple phrase such as “The sky is blue” and mold it into something more by toying with word selection and placement. Remind students to have fun with writing—sometimes, that may mean abandoning conventions such as spelling and punctuation in a first draft. Let them “word vomit” and then go back and revise the piece with conventions that make it more readable by others. Don’t let convention get in the way of creativity.
Here are some lessons you can use in your classroom to teach about word choice, structure, and figurative language:
Many teachers encourage their students to “show, don’t tell” in their writing. Students can lean on their five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch—to bring their writing alive with sensory details. I often ask kids to use their “mind’s eye” to share details that would, in turn, awaken their reader’s mind’s eye. We know how important an active imagination is, and we should encourage kids to sharpen theirs and not dull it with age.
“Young human beings need exercises in imagination as they need exercise in all the basic skills of life, bodily and mental: for growth, for health, for competence, for joy,” author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote. “This need continues as long as the mind is alive.” KQED
Encourage students of all ages to use descriptive and figurative language using these lessons:
There are so many dynamics to learning how to write, but technology can ease some of the common obstacles. If a child struggles with penmanship, keep working on those fine motor skills but give him a keyboard to learn how to type early. Don’t let a pencil grip get in the way of words and ideas flowing. Similarly, assistive and adaptive technologies can turn voice recording into text to encourage the art of storytelling. Aids like spelling and grammar checker software can provide tips and tricks that students can begin to internalize over time.
If you grapple with how to teach writing skills, start by seeking out Flocab-based practices for writing instruction. Flocabulary has a clear scope and sequence by grade level to begin building foundational writing and research skills. Teaching writing can be a rewarding endeavor, as students will relish the agency and independence of finding their own voice and having a channel for true self-expression. With a focus on 21st-century learning skills, creativity, communication, critical thinking, and collaboration all come when students put pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard.
Darri Stephens is a dedicated LX (learning experience) designer, passionate about creating quality content and programs for kids, families, and educators. With MAs in Education from both Harvard and Stanford, and work experience at best-in-class ed tech organizations including Wonder Workshop, Nickelodeon, and Common Sense Education, she is steeped in the design thinking process and committed to agile and iterative project management, which has resulted in multi-award-winning programs and products.
Inside: Teaching writing DOESN’T have to be complicated! With these simple strategies, you can improve students’ writing without having to work so hard.
I turned around to an outstretched notebook in a kid’s hands.
“I don’t know what to do next,” said the student.
I leaned closer to decipher the 2nd-grade handwriting. Then with my most positive I’ll-guide-you-on-the-right-path tone, I gave the student an idea to run with.
I straightened up, ready to move about the class, peering over shoulders, offering feedback as needed.
My bubble was abruptly burst.
Standing behind me was a whole line of kids that didn’t know what to do next!
Have you been there, too? What you need are writing strategies for students that break down a complicated process into pieces they can tackle.
What follows are some of the best methods for teaching writing that I discovered over the years:
If you wanted to learn how to decorate your mantle, you might look for great examples on Pinterest and then try to make yours look like that.
Similarly, kids can look at the work of published authors to see how a pro writes.
Mentor texts are published pieces that serve as a good example of the type of writing you’re helping your students to produce.
If you’re teaching how-to writing, find books about making crafts, cooking, or other DIY topics. If you’re teaching report writing, look at nonfiction books.
Cooking shows are popular because it’s easy to watch how a good cook puts together a recipe and then do the same yourself. Writing demonstrations are similar.
One method for teaching writing is writing demonstrations. Students watch as a proficient writer writes, and thinks aloud, similar to an audience watching a chef on a cooking show.
Write in front of your students and think aloud as you’re doing it. Thinking aloud is a research-based teaching strategy . You are the proficient writer in the room and you want your students to begin modeling their thinking processes after yours.
Some writing skills you might demonstrate are:
Staring at a blank page can be so intimidating!
Help kids get started with a list of possible sentence starters. Here’s an example list of sentence starters that work well for opinion writing .
Join my weekly newsletter and as a bonus, you’ll get the sentence starter page pictured above. Just click here to download and subscribe .
One method for teaching writing is using color coding between the plan and the draft.
(you can find the pictured graphic organizer HERE )
Use color-coding to make writing organization obvious and to connect a student’s plan to their draft.
This technique helps students make sure nothing is left out and that everything is in the right order
One of the things we know about teaching vocabulary is that it’s not enough to talk about a word once. It needs to be seen, heard, and used several times before it is mastered.
Writing is the perfect place to incorporate some vocabulary instruction.
Choose two or three words that might be useful to students for the topic they are writing about. Teach these words, give example sentences, and share sentences where students were able to work them in.
You can either teach the words before students write their rough draft or teach them before students revise. You may want students to keep a record of these words in a notebook.
There’s no point in making kids guess what they’re aiming for with their writing.
Research shows that when students have criteria against which to judge their writing, they begin to internalize that criteria and use it when they write new pieces.
Try teaching critique lessons where you share a few short pieces of writing with different strengths and weaknesses and evaluate them with students using a rubric.
Talk about what made a piece successful and what could be better about it. Invite students to use the successful techniques in their own writing. Click on the picture to get a free copy of a personal narrative rubric that I like to use.
Many students find working with a partner to be very motivating.
It’s important to carefully structure peer writing conferencing because it can get out of hand easily.
Set a specific goal such as helping each other check for capital letters at the beginning of every sentence, rereading to make sure each sentence makes sense, or looking for words that could be traded out for something more interesting.
Another way to structure peer conferencing is to use the “Love and a Wish” system. Students read each other’s writing. Then they share one thing they loved about it and one thing they wished. For example, maybe they loved how their partner described the taste of their birthday cake and they wished there was more about the games that were played at the party.
Taking a piece of writing from the planning process all the way to a final draft is a lot of work. Find a way to celebrate that work to keep students motivated.
A chance to share their work is motivating to students. You can build in sharing while you’re roving the classroom. At the mid-point or the end of the lesson, have a few students share how they revised a sentence to add an interesting word or the great hook that they chose.
You can give students time to share their work with a neighbor. This way everyone gets to share in a short amount of time.
Allow students to share writing in those 5-minute blocks of time you find every now and then when you finished something else early.
A favorite writing incentive in my classroom was the “publishing party.” After a 5 week writing unit, each student chose their best piece and we all sat in a circle and listened to each other’s work.
At the end, we toasted to our hard work with a small cup of apple juice. Parents would share with me that this simple celebration really motivated their child to work hard in writing so they would have something great to read to the class.
If you’re looking for resources to help you teach writing, check out the classroom-tested products HERE :
Follow my literacy board on Pinterest for more ideas!
Hannah Braun is a former teacher with 8 years of experience in the classroom and a master's degree in early childhood education. She designs engaging, organized classroom resources for 1st-3rd grade teachers.
Just found your site and teacherspayteachers products. Love it all! Laughed out loud at your posters and comments on students. Thought I was the only one who noticed (was confused/irritated/baffled) at some of the things students think up to do with school equipment and behaviors. Nice to know we can laugh about it all! Thank you.
Comments are closed.
Breadcrumbs Section. Click here to navigate to respective pages.
Theories and Strategies for Teaching Creative Writing Online
DOI link for Theories and Strategies for Teaching Creative Writing Online
As the online world of creative writing teaching, learning, and collaborating grows in popularity and necessity, this book explores the challenges and unique benefits of teaching creative writing online.
This collection highlights expert voices who have taught creative writing effectively in the online environment, to broaden the conversation regarding online education in the discipline, and to provide clarity for English and writing departments interested in expanding their offerings to include online creative writing courses but doing so in a way that serves students and the discipline appropriately.
Interesting as it is useful, Theories and Strategies for Teaching Creative Writing Online offers a contribution to creative writing scholarship and begins a vibrant discussion specifically regarding effectiveness of online education in the discipline.
Chapter 1 | 9 pages, don’t short circuit the muse, chapter 2 | 7 pages, teaching creative writing online without tears, chapter 3 | 14 pages, when the way you read is who you are, chapter 4 | 10 pages, making the write impression, chapter 5 | 16 pages, navigating trauma in the online creative writing classroom, chapter 6 | 14 pages, software and hardware tools for teaching creative writing and self-editing online, chapter 7 | 17 pages, zoom in and zoom out, chapter 8 | 13 pages, digital pedagogy in the online creative writing classroom, chapter 9 | 18 pages, designing peer review, chapter 10 | 10 pages, taking the poetry exercise online, chapter 11 | 10 pages, a sense of openness, chapter 12 | 10 pages, motivate, accommodate, and emulate, chapter 13 | 15 pages, using flash fiction as a pedagogical tool in teaching creative writing online.
Connect with us
Registered in England & Wales No. 3099067 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG © 2024 Informa UK Limited
1st Edition
As the online world of creative writing teaching, learning, and collaborating grows in popularity and necessity, this book explores the challenges and unique benefits of teaching creative writing online. This collection highlights expert voices who have taught creative writing effectively in the online environment, to broaden the conversation regarding online education in the discipline, and to provide clarity for English and writing departments interested in expanding their offerings to include online creative writing courses but doing so in a way that serves students and the discipline appropriately. Interesting as it is useful, Theories and Strategies for Teaching Creative Writing Online offers a contribution to creative writing scholarship and begins a vibrant discussion specifically regarding effectiveness of online education in the discipline.
Tamara Girardi is Associate Professor of English at HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College in their Virtual Learning unit, where she teaches exclusively online. Her primary research interests are creative writing studies, young adult literature, and online education. Dr. Girardi is also an editor for the Digital, Multimodal, and Multimedia section of the Journal of Creative Writing Studies . She writes children’s literature. Abigail G. Scheg currently serves as a Styling Team Lead for Stitch Fix. She has taught online and face to face at multiple institutions as well as serving as an administrator in academic and student service roles.
VitalSource is a leading provider of eBooks.
This eBook is already in your shopping cart. If you would like to replace it with a different purchasing option please remove the current eBook option from your cart.
Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts
This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.
Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.
The Online Writing Lab (the Purdue OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.
The On-Campus and Online versions of Purdue OWL assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue OWL serves the Purdue West Lafayette and Indianapolis campuses and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.
Facebook twitter.
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
We've outlined a seven-step method that will scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process from idea generation through to final edits. 7. Create inspiring and original prompts. Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired: personal memories ("Write about a person who taught you an important ...
One, it is a great opportunity for the teacher to model the structures and functions of different types of writing while also weaving in lessons on spelling, punctuation, and grammar. It is a ...
In this blog post, we'll delve into the art of teaching creative writing and explore strategies to inspire and empower budding writers. Understanding the Fundamentals: Before diving into the creative process, it's essential to establish a solid foundation of the fundamentals of writing. This includes grammar, sentence structure, punctuation ...
Teaching Creative Writing Tip #6: Use Hands-On Activities. If you're teaching a class full of students who are excited to write constantly, you can probably get away writing all class period. Many of us, however, are teaching a very different class. Your students may have just chosen an elective randomly.
The Harvard Writing Project publishes resource guides for faculty and teaching fellows that help them integrate writing into their courses more effectively — for example, by providing ideas about effective assignment design and strategies for responding to student writing.. A list of current HWP publications for faculty and teaching fellows is provided below.
For more insights and tips on teaching creative writing, continue exploring our articles on creative writing. Tips to Enhance Creative Writing Skills. The process of teaching creative writing is as much about honing one's own skills as it is about imparting knowledge to others. Here are some key strategies that can help in enhancing your ...
3. Avoid teaching a story "formula.". One of the most important things to remember when teaching creative writing is to dispense with the idea that stories should follow certain arcs or formulas. While formulaic writing can aid students who need direction, it can also bind students and limit their imaginations.
the more you have.". —Maya Angelou. Creativity is fundamental to the teaching of writing. Although WR 153 focuses specifically on creativity and innovation, all WR courses ask students to approach their reading, viewing, writing, and research in creative ways. One important approach to creativity is "design thinking," which emphasizes ...
Tip 1: Crossing out. Tip 2: Explicitly teach sentence stems. Tip 3: Build a planning routine. Tip 4: Go big or go home. The end. A blank page can be a fearful thing. As I sit typing this (cocooned in the corner of a bustling coffee shop), it seems a fearful thing to me, too. One by one, words tentatively appear, and yet the whiteness of the ...
Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #6: Use Clear and Structured Expectations. While showing students excellent prose or perfect poetry should help inspire students, your writers will still need some hard parameters to follow. Academic writing is often easier for students than creative writing.
Teaching Creative Writing. Creative writing plays an important role in a child's literacy development. This article makes suggestions for the instruction and evaluation of children's stories. Most children enter school with a natural interest in writing, an inherent need to express themselves in words (Graves, 1983).
It can and should be done in every subject area. Writing boosts critical thinking and requires the mental organization of new learning. In turn, it increases retention while deepening the understanding of that new learning. Writing can also be leveraged to have students dive deeper into the metacognitive aspect of the learning process.
6 Ways to Teach Writing reatively Teach your students the fun aspects of writing. Students of all ages write short stories and papers, from younger elementary-school writers through college-age students.
Teaching writing is not only the job of the English department alone. Writing is an essential tool for learning a discipline and helping students improve their writing skills is a responsibility for all faculty. ... The Strategies, Ideas and Recommendations Here Come Primarily From: Gross Davis, B. Tools for Teaching. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass ...
Combining art and a play-based approach to creative writing in first grade can set students on a path to success by building on their confidence, creativity, imagination, and sense of accomplishment. I have witnessed that the integration of art and writing has helped my students discover how writing can be a joyful and memorable experience ...
Self-regulation in writing includes at least three coordinated components: (1) goal setting, (2)self-talk, and (3) self-evaluation. Incorporating self-regulation components in writing instruction has been shown to positively affect both strong and weak writers' composing abilities (e.g., Graham, Harris, & Mason, 2005; Graham & Perin, 2007).
Give your pupils freedom. Use story-starters and prompts. Elaborate with a story generator. Get the children to take creative writing home. 1. Use a workshop-style environment. Separate your class into groups or tables, each group will then be able to choose what they work on.
These are really helpful for triggering ideas in struggling writers. Often times a student will say, "I don't know what to write about," and a sentence starter can help guide them with their writing. 4. Writing Warm-up. Writing warm-ups are great to help students get their creative juices flowing.
7. Differ your point of view. Help students realize that writing is quite personal and often is based on an author's experiences and biases (recognized or not). Challenge them to not only identify the point of view but also try seeing the story from another person's perspective.
creating a plan for writing. orally rehearsing sentences and then writing them down. stretching out sounds in words for spelling. rereading and editing writing. looking for places to add more interesting vocabulary. making a final copy that incorporates editing and revisions.
As the online world of creative writing teaching, learning, and collaborating grows in popularity and necessity, this book explores the challenges and unique benefits of teaching creative writing online. This collection highlights expert voices who have taught creative writing effectively in the online environment, to broaden the conversation ...
Creative writing is a fictional and artistic form of writing that goes outside the norms of professional or technical literature. In creative writing, there is a focus is on being creative and playing with ideas, Creativity and imagination takes priority over conveying facts and information. Creative writing also has an emphasis on the tone of ...
Games and puzzles that encourage critical and creative thinking strategies include logic puzzles, brain teasers, strategic board games, word puzzles, and problem-solving activities. These games require students to analyze information, make connections, think critically, and develop innovative solutions. By engaging in these activities, students ...
Description. As the online world of creative writing teaching, learning, and collaborating grows in popularity and necessity, this book explores the challenges and unique benefits of teaching creative writing online. This collection highlights expert voices who have taught creative writing effectively in the online environment, to broaden the ...
The Online Writing Lab (the Purdue OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects.
These include recommendations for teaching writing to younger students (aged 5-11) and older students (aged 6-18). ... spelling, grammar and sentence construction) need to be taught; (4) students become better writers when strategies for planning, revising and editing are taught; (5) teaching creativity, critical thinking and imagery can ...
Introducing The Creative Writing Institute. Hear about what we have been doing regarding our textbooks! #thecreativewritinginstitute #textbooks