The secret to get students writing again!
9:50 AM
Okay so there's not really this big huge equation that I'm going to give you to solve mystery of why children think writing is boring and a waste of their time.
I'm not going to lie; I didn't enjoy writing when I was given a subject/topic on something I had no interest in. As I was trying to find a resource to develop my own thoughts I came across Lisa's blog that you can find here if you want to see more of her work. The link to her specific blog post I read can be found here.
It's very easy to understand why children take no interest in writing these days. Lisa sums it up in one perfect little sentence: "A lot of student writing is of little interest to anyone beyond the teacher."
 |
| Retrieved from Giphy |
Lisa thought of a new innovative way to mix technology and the writing strand to get her students begging to learn.
She set up email accounts for all the children and had them pick a name out of the hat and write an email telling the other something they admire or had learned from them. Not only did she create a positive learning environment where everyone felt safe to express their feelings, she was teaching them a life skill that would be important for years to come: writing emails to professors, family members and bosses. She taught them early that if structured correctly, and email can help get your point across like she taught her 5th graders who wrote a letter to the school district leaders about the upgrades they wished to see in their school. Students were engaged, going home teaching parents how to set up an email so they they could keep in touch throughout the day. The students were loving this concept so much, there was not one issue because the students did not want this amazing privilege to be taken away.
 |
| Retrieved from Flickr |
How can we change the writing game?
If we can take anything away from her amazing post it would be that classrooms need to be student centred.
1) Situations/Scenarios need to be real
2) They need to affect the lives of children in a positive way
3) They are writing to a real audience
4) "The desire to write comes from the student, not the teacher."
The Curriculum isn't going to change overnight
The Curriculum isn't going to change overnight
What if we were to add components of writing that relate to the 21st century? Would we see an improvement with our students? More or less engagement?
These are just some of the suggestions Lisa has to offer:
- Email writing
- Facebook updates and comments
- Tweeting and replying
- Commenting on blogs
- Writing to teach others how to do something and knowing how to reach those who care
I also found a great article called Supporting Struggling Writers that further develops Lisa's ideas.
We need to start letting students make the decision of why they need to write instead of deciding what kind of writing we think is important for them.
0 comments