How To Teach Writing: 6 Methods
For Generating Writing Ideas
One of the most important things to
remember when teaching writing is that writing is a process.
Very few native speakers will ever start writing at the top of the first page and
continue straight through until they finish at bottom of the last one. The
entire process has five steps, but the first step in the writing process is
coming up with your thoughts and ideas, also known as pre-writing.
Pre-writing helps students gather ideas and give them a bank of possibilities
for their writing. This way, as students write they do not have to make
decisions simultaneously about content and language. Help your students get
a head start before they write with any of these six methods for pre-writing.
The bank of ideas they will generate will be an invaluable resource as they
write.
How
To Generate Writing Ideas :
- Brainstorming
Brainstorming
is an activity with which most people are familiar. The object in brainstorming
is to compile as large a list as possible of potential examples for a given
topic. This is a great activity to do in small groups or with the entire class.
Brainstorming a list of ice cream flavors is an easy one to start with when
introducing the concept. Naturally, one idea will spark another, so it is
helpful to have students working together when brainstorming. Give your
students permission to be as creative as they like. Anything goes with
brainstorming. Challenge your students to come up with as many examples as they
possibly can for whatever topic you give them.
- Free writing
Free
writing is an individual activity for getting thoughts from your head on to
paper. Explain the concept of stream of consciousness to your students
and tell them that free writing is simply putting on paper every thought that
is going through their heads. Like with brainstorming, anything goes. The goal
of this activity is to never let your pen or pencil stop writing. Help
students understand that though they will begin with a particular topic in
mind, it is okay to veer off on tangents as they write. Spelling and grammar
are not important for this activity; it is ideas that we are trying to grasp.
Give your students a set length of time for this activity. If they are young you may want to limit it to two or three minutes; older students
can probably write for five to ten minutes. Then when students have completed
the activity, have them go back and read what they have written digging through
the mire for the gems hidden within.
- Journalistic Questions
Journalistic
questions approach a topic in a more structured manner. Start by reviewing the question words: who, what,
where, when, why and how. Then, for your given
topic, ask questions starting with each of these words. For example, if your
topic was study habits, you might ask, “Who has good study habits? Who benefits
from good study habits? What are the good habits? Where do people with good
study habits study? Where to they keep their books? Where do they organize
notes and homework? When do they study? When do they complete assignments? ...”
There are an infinite number of questions you can ask about any given subject.
This activity can be done either individually or in groups with success. Have
students write answers to each question. When finished prewriting, have them go
back and read what they have written and organize their thoughts in preparation
for writing.
- Cluster Mapping
Cluster
mapping, also called idea webbing, is a great way to show relationships
between ideas. Cluster mapping is also part idea
generation and part organization, so students will know exactly how to group
their ideas once they are ready to write. To begin, write your topic in the
center of the page and put a circle around it. Then you can move in one of
two directions. With younger children, have them think of questions about the
topic. For example, if the topic is spiders, they may ask, “What do spiders
eat? Where to spiders live? What do spiders look like?” Each question should
be written in a bubble connected to the central topic. Tell students to
spread these bubbles out over the page as they will be adding to each. Then,
have students answer the questions connecting still smaller bubbles to the
bubbles containing the questions. If their question was “What do spiders do?”
then they might make connecting bubbles saying they capture flies, they spin
webs, they scare nursery rhyme characters, etc. With students who have more
knowledge about their central topic, their bubbles connected to the central
idea should include subtopics and/or details about the subtopics. A student may
start with spiders as the central theme, make a connecting bubble with the
subtopic of diet, then connect bubbles to that subtopic with different types of
insects on which spiders feed. Generally speaking, each of the subtopics
would be one paragraph in a composed piece of writing with examples and support
for the idea surrounding it.
- Flow Charting
Flow
charting is similar to cluster mapping in that it shows relationships between
ideas. However, flow charting is most
effective when examining cause and effect relationships. With the central
theme drug abuse in the center of your page, to the left students would make
list of causes for drug abuse with arrows pointing at the central idea. What
causes drug abuse? Peer pressure, medical need, parental example and boredom
are all potential causes of drug abuse. Each would therefore be in its own box
in the diagram with an arrow pointing from it to the central idea of drug
abuse. Then examine the effects of drug abuse and place those in separate boxes
to the right of the central idea each with an arrow going from the central idea
to it. Homelessness, loss of jobs, failure in school, isolation, further abuse
and addiction may all be results of drug abuse. When writing, students can then
focus on either half of the diagram (causes of drug abuse or effects of drug
abuse) or follow the cause and effect pathway from cause to effect and cause to
effect. Depending on the topic, students may create a chain of cause and effect
relationships and choose to write about the series.
- Double/Triple Entry
Double
or Triple Entry is another focused brainstorming activity. This is especially useful when comparing and contrasting
two or three topics or when exploring two or three areas of one topic.
With this prewriting method, have students make two (or three) columns on their
paper. Each column should have a topic which focuses the idea generation. For
example, if you were going to compare love and hate, you might label your
columns similarities and differences and list your ideas in the appropriate
sections. If your students are writing about their ethnic heritage in
comparison to another, you could have them label one column with each culture.
When finished, students should have a good idea of the points on which they can
compare or contrast their topics.
Whether you choose to use all these
methods with your students or only one or two, prewriting gives your
students the tools and foundation for successful writing. Prewriting
alleviates students’ anxiety freeing their minds to focus on words after
generating ideas instead of completing both steps simultaneously. Prewriting
will give your students confidence and direction as they write not to
mention improve the quality of their ideas and organization in their writing. Why
not try it with your students before assigning your next writing topic?
Reference :
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