Writing strategies

Good writers don’t produce a perfect work on their first try. Explain to your students that it is important for them to learn and practise the steps involved in writing. You may help your students learn about the writing process by writing a story, a letter, an essay, a journal entry or an article for a newspaper.

Before writing

Brainstorm

Your students may not know where to start writing. Help them brainstorm.

• What do you want to write about?
• What do you already know about the topic?
• What would you like the essay to say? In what order?

After they decide, have them write down a few points about the topic. Discuss how the essay could be written from these ideas.

Organize the ideas

Have your students write down all their ideas in point form. Using these ideas, create an outline, and discuss how they can use it to organize their research.

Research

Work together to determine what kind of additional information is needed. Then decide together where to find this information: in a library, through resource people or on the internet. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each source.

While writing

Create a first draft

Encourage your students to write down their ideas without worrying about spelling or grammar. Explain to them that they can correct their spelling and grammar during the editing stages. If this process creates a writing block for your students, help them to spell the word so that they can move on to the ideas of the essay.

Edit

Review the first draft together. Encourage your students to fine‐tune their writing.