So I'm teaching part time (not in the states) and they've asked me to create a curriculum focusing on writing. Out of the 4 TOEFL/TOEIC skills, the students are very week in writing. Anyone here have ideas on how to make writing not boring? I'm trying to remember what we did in my creative writing classes in high school, but that's like 10 years ago.
Focus on parts of speech. Then from there go on to building sentences. You could even do one of those round robin stories where each person writes one sentence and adds to the story.
Have them collaborate on a never ending story. Each person writes a few sentences or a paragraph to add on to the story bit by bit by bit.
Also, in one of my creative writing classes, our prof had us create a story bit by bit. It started out as strictly a conversation b/w two people in which one person had the control - just dialogue, nothing else. Then little by little we added to the story, adding an element each time (like change of scenery, new character, flashback, etc).
Make it an interactive story. This would span at least a couple of lessons. 1. Have a couple students as the actors 2. Just go down the rows and get a sentence of what the students are supposed to do. 3. Write/type this down so that the students can see you doing it. If they give you incorrect grammar, correct it and give them your thought process as you are correcting it. (eg. [They are doing a hunting scene] One student says - "They shoted the deers."] You: Oh they shotted the deers? Well, Instead of shotted, to make it a past tense, then you can just say "shot" because that is already the irregular past tense of shoot. And also, you don't have to pluralize deer, because the plural of deer is already deer.) 4. Group the kids into 3's, and have them write at least a half page script for the other two people in their group. This makes it interactive, they get an example right at the beginning, it involves their friends and it give them something to strive for in making a good "play" for their friends.
It's hard without knowing the class. If they are interested in art. Let them draw a setting, and then write a paper that describes the setting, and then a narrative that happens in that setting. If not something that gets them writing about something they're interested in. It has to be their interest.
Can we just wait until the teachers currently having sex with their students can weigh in on the topic? Thanks.
http://msmcgrinder.wikispaces.com/file/view/Writers_Notebook_Bingo_Complete_Set.pdf One way to improve student writing is to have them write for fun and give them a variety of writing activities. The link above is one example of a sort of writer's bingo that they can do over the course of a month.
Make sure to also make them read a lot. The importance of books can't be stressed enough in education. As a child i was never exclusively taught "how to write" but i became a good writer just by reading a lot of books. Do they still have ar tests around? That was a big thing when i was small and we had competitions to see who would accumulate the most points.
