Teaching Writing (English)

Research-Based Strategies to Teach Effective Writing
Effective instruction for teaching writing skills includes

1. Explicitly teaching students stages of the writing process and techniques to plan, draft, revise, and edit their writing.
2. Modeling of effective writing practices and independent student practice of the elements of the writing process. Students can often benefit from summarizing text as practice for writing clearly, concisely, and accurately.
3. Collaborative writing helps students plan, write, edit, and revise writing cooperatively. Classmates can take turns reviewing each other's writing, giving both positive feedback for reinforcement and constructive feedback for improvement.
4. Setting specific goals for writing assignments to target particular writing skills.
5. Teaching students to combine sentences to improve the grammatical complexity of their work.
6. The process writing approach is a strategy in which teachers give students opportunities for extended practice with planning, writing, and review.
7. Teaching students to consider their audience or be provided with an authentic audience, such as their classmates.
8. Inquiry strategies include setting clear goals for writing and examining concrete data, such as observing others and documenting their own responses. Inquiry strategies may also include application of learning to Prewriting strategies help students generate and organize ideas, access background knowledge, research topics, and visualize their ideas on a graphic organizer or other visual aid.
9. Using mnemonic devices, checklists, graphic organizers, outlines, and other procedural strategies can help students plan and revise their writing.
10. Teaching students to ask themselves questions and make self-statements to help formulate ideas in prewriting and editing.
11. Teaching self-regulation to help students monitor their own writing output.

Informative/Explanatory Writing

Instructional Methods to Guide Student Writing
Teachers can use mentor texts, which they can find from multiple everyday sources, and align them with the writing standards for their students' grade levels. Teachers can compose informative or explanatory texts in front of their classes to model composition for them. They can use the 'thinking out loud' technique for additional modeling. This demonstrates the process of defining and expressing ideas clearly in writing and supporting those ideas with details like explanations, descriptions, definitions, examples, anecdotes, and processes. Teachers should employ scaffolding with students in which they begin with explicit instruction, proceed to modeling, and then provide activities for practice. These activities can include guided writing exercises, shared writing experiences, cooperative practice (collaborating with classmates), feedback that refers to the learning objectives that the teachers have established, or peer conferences.

Necessary Skills for Informative Writing
For students to write in an informative context, they must be able to locate and select pertinent information from primary and secondary sources. They must also combine their own experiences and existing knowledge with this new information they find.
They must not only select facts, details, and examples relevant to their topics but also learn to incorporate this information into their writing. At the same time, students need to develop their skills in various writing techniques, such as comparing and contrasting, making transitions between topics or points, and citing scenarios and anecdotes related to their topics. In teaching informative writing, teachers must 'read like writers' to use mentor texts to consider author craft and technique. They can find mentor texts in blogs, websites, newspapers, novels, plays, picture books, and many more. Teachers should know the grade-level writing standards for informative writing to select classroom-specific, appropriate mentor texts.

Guidelines for Grades K-5
Teachers can pose questions related to the content area subjects they are teaching for students to answer, and they can invite and make use of interesting elementary-grade student questions like, 'Why did immigrants come to America?' 'Why does my face turn red in cold weather?' or 'Why does my dog drool?' In lower elementary grades, students may choose or be assigned topics, give some definitions and facts about the topics, and write concluding statements. Students in upper elementary grades should be able to introduce topics, focus them, group information logically, develop topics with enough details, connect ideas, use specific academic vocabulary, and write conclusions. To develop these skills, students must have many opportunities for researching information and writing informative or explanatory text. Up to one-third of elementary student writing should be informative or explanatory text. Children must read informational texts with depth and breadth, and use writing as a learning tool, to fulfill the objective of building knowledge through reading and writing.

Expectations and Recommendations for Grades 6-12
Standards for high school students include using informative or explanatory text to communicate and investigate complex concepts, information, and ideas. They should be able to effectively choose, analyze, and organize content and write accurately and clearly. Informative or explanatory text is recommended to comprise approximately 40 percent of high school students' writing across curriculum content subjects. Teachers can present brief mentor texts that use informative writing in creative, engaging ways to students as demonstrations. Using mentor texts as templates, teachers can model composing similar texts about other topics. Teachers then have students apply this format to write about topics the students select, giving them support or scaffolding. Thereafter, teachers can have students write short texts on various topics that necessitate using prior knowledge and doing research.
'Thinking aloud' to model the cognitive writing process is also important.
Teachers should assign frequent short research instead of traditional longer library-research term papers. Authentic writing tasks include conducting and reporting survey/interview research, producing newspaper front pages, and composing web pages.

Questions to Determine Content and Format
When student writers have chosen a viewpoint or idea about which to write, teachers can help them select what content to include and identify which writing format is most appropriate for their subject. They should have students ask themselves what their readers need to know to enable them to agree with the viewpoint in the writing, or to believe what the writer is saying.
Students can imagine another person hearing them say what they will write about, and responding, 'Oh, yeah? Prove that!' Teachers should have students ask themselves what kinds of evidence they need to prove their positions and ideas to skeptical readers. They should have students consider what points might cause the reader to disagree. Students should consider what knowledge their reading audience shares in common with them. They should also consider what information they need to share with their readers. Teachers can have students adapt various writing formats, organizing techniques, and writing styles to different purposes and audiences to practice choosing writing modes and language.

Considerations to Teach Students About Occasions, Purposes, and Audiences
Teachers can explain to students that organizing their ideas, providing evidence to support the points they make in their writing, and correcting their grammar and mechanics are not simply for following writing rules or correctness for its own sake, but rather for ensuring that specific reader audiences understand what they intend to communicate. For example, upper-elementary-grade students writing for lower-elementary-grade students should write in print rather than script, use simpler vocabulary, and avoid writing in long, complex, compound, or complex-compound sentences. The purpose for writing guides word choice, such as encouraging readers to question opposing viewpoints or stimulate empathy or sympathy. It also influences narrative, descriptive, expository, or persuasive or argumentative format. For instance, business letters require different form and language than parent thank-you notes. When writing to affect the reader's opinion, words that evoke certain emotions, descriptions that appeal to beliefs, and supporting information can all help to persuade.

Style and Voice Instruction
When instructing students to develop their writing skills, it is important to help them develop style and their own voice. Style and voice make writing unique to the author and allow writers be creative. Style and voice can be carefully incorporated when writing academically or formally, but should not compromise the authority, accuracy, or formality of the composition.
Voice and style can include elements such as tone, mood, or even literary devices and figurative language. To help students develop their voice, it is helpful to have them refer to what they know. Students can look to writings they enjoy and consider the author's style and voice. Students who can recognize style and voice in others' work are more equipped to detect their own style or voice.
Students can also identify what makes their speaking voice or patterns unique and determine whether these elements are transferrable to their writing. Having groups or pairs of students look at samples of each other's writing to look for style and voice can be effective, also. This collaborative approach helps students practice detecting style and voice while learning what style and voice others see in their writing. Students should remember to keep grammar and context in mind as they develop their voice, as these elements are still important for clear and appropriate writing. Voice and style can also grow from each student's personal experiences and perspective, as they impact the way individuals understand and communicate information.

Standards for Citing Textual Evidence
Reading standards for informational texts expect sixth-graders to cite textual evidence to support their inferences and analyses.
Seventh-graders are expected additionally to identify several specific pieces of textual evidence to defend each of their conclusions. Eighth-graders are expected to differentiate strong from weak textual evidence. Ninth- and Tenth-graders are expected to be able to cite thorough evidence as well as strong evidence from text. Eleventh- and Twelfth-graders are expected, in combination with the previous grade-level standards, to determine which things are left unclear in a text. Students must be able to connect text to their background knowledge and make inferences to understand text, judge it critically, draw conclusions about it, and make their own interpretations of it. Therefore, they must be able to organize and differentiate between main ideas and details in a text to make inferences about them. They must also be able to locate evidence in the text.

Plagiarism and Liability
When using resources created by others or creating original media for instruction, it is important to abide by ethical and legal standards.
These standards include copyright laws and standards for fair use and liability. While many of these laws and standards are enforced nationwide, states and local governments may have unique expectations and requirements for media usage. Complying with these regulations demonstrates respect for the law and the creators of the media. Fostering this respect in students and teaching them to avoid plagiarism and violation of these regulations is also valuable.

Benefits of Encouraging Student Writing
Teaching students to write effectively and study the writings of others can inspire them to use their writing skills in other areas of life. Students can use writing for a variety of purposes, such as personal growth, reflection, learning, problem solving, and expression. Writing leisurely may entail practices such as keeping a journal or writing creatively.
This allows students to reflect on their daily lives and express their thoughts and feelings freely. Writing for leisure also allows students to practice metacognition, or thinking about their own thought processes. This helps students recognize patterns in their own thoughts and clarify thoughts that they may not have fully considered or developed. Journaling can also help students keep a record of their thoughts so they can compare their past entries to the present and evaluate their own growth.

Writing for Reflection
Writing for personal use and reflection also helps students learn about themselves by leading them to understand and consider their thoughts more intentionally. This can also promote problem solving by allowing students to write their thoughts in one place and see connections or patterns that reveal solutions to problems, or more clearly reveal their problems. Writing in a journal also helps students explore their thoughts more willingly because the writing is private and done on the student's own time.