Writing
Writing Effectively and Like a Global Citizen
One of the biggest challenges faced by teachers in writing instruction is keeping students engaged. This stems from the issue of getting students to see writing as more than just something to do for school, and how significant of an impact it can have on the world around them. I myself am guilty of feeling this way as well throughout my elementary years. Writing was one of the areas that I disliked the most throughout a majority of my schooling and always resulted in me begrudgingly sitting down to write whatever piece of text was required for my class. It wasn't until university, when I was given the opportunity to write pamphlets for the school's local conservation authority, that I was able to see the ways in which my writing was connected to the world outside my class. I saw that when written effectively, I could influence, create, destroy, individual and societal concepts and views. Upon discovering this I thought of all the opportunities I could have had in elementary and high school to use my writing skills for something significant if I had been made aware of and given the opportunity to by my teachers.
Thankfully, it has become much easier for teachers to show this to students through the use of technology and the increasing connectivity of our world.
Building Writing Skills
One of the easiest ways to disengage students from writing is not setting them up with the proper steps and methods to write easily and effectively. A student consistently being told they aren't writing "effectively" will become disengaged very quickly. A common formula used throughout my time in school was "The Writing Process", a "standard" procedure used to develop essays and other texts. I have embedded below a video that gives an overview of how each step of this process can be introduced to students, in particular, appreciate the emphasis it places on students putting the proper planning time into the pre-writing and revision stages. This was something often looked over during my classes in favour of writing for the end product with few objective writing mistakes. This led to my texts being "correct" while poorly structured and communicated, and little guidance as to how this specific aspect could be improved.
Write On! With Jamie. (May 2, 2013). How to Teach Writing: The Writing Process [Online Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPUh9mfSqWU
Organization in my opinion is one of the most important factors of writing, and a perfect lesson format I found that could address this is a RAFT assignment. A RAFT assignment allows students to think about their writing in the perspective of the Role of the writer, Audience, Format of text, and Topic. This assignment could be applied to a wide range of topics, the most popular from my experience in school was as a letter from the perspective of a person in a historical event or time period. This provides a chance for students to learn not only about strategies to structure their writing, but the context in which their writings were used in the past by influential or historical figures. These perspectives can be used to teach students how writing has influenced major events over history, with the goal of helping students realize this trend can still continue with themselves. Below is an image of a sample RAFT outline and some different examples that can be used by students, the combinations are endless!
Making a Difference Today
When students see how writing DID affect the world, there's a much better chance they can appreciate how writing can still be used today by them to change the world for the better. With the connected nature of our world today, it's easier than ever for students to look at examples of petitions, speeches etc. that managed to create real change in legislation around the world. This accompanies the wide variety of forms that the same writing can take with characteristics of different social media sites vs. blogs vs. news stories etc.
When most people think about writing to make a difference, they often think about the highly popular method of "writing an MP". This is one of the first ways students are often introduced to writing, I myself remember the task of writing to my at the time, local MP about an issue of my choosing, but the messages were never sent to the MP. Here, I have found a brief outline of how such an assignment could be brought up to the students. Although this plan talks a lot about the civics behind what an MP is and what they do, the lesson can be modified to accommodate more information related to the writing process, and how best to write for an audience of an MP etc. To get students more engaged and have them practice reflecting, students can present their letters to each other and as a class, collaborate on which ones they believe are most effective and why. Exemplar letters can actually be mailed to the MP with hopefully a response back to show students that it is possible for them to use writing to raise their concerns in a meaningful way.
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