We are going to cut straight to the question, do you have struggling writers in your classroom?
If you are honest with that answer, I am sure you can think of at least one student that you can say “yes” about.
You are not alone. Struggling writers are in every classroom.
In fact, we are finding that we are answering “yes” more and more each year. Do the students just hate writing? Do they just not try? Or is there an underlying deficiency that these students possess?
Whatever is the case, we all know that engagement is key to success. We want to give you some tips, a free resource, and a huge deal on a bundle that we just created that is going to change how you teach writing today!
Here are some tips for writer’s workshop that have worked with our struggling students.
1. Connect with your students
Students will not work for you unless they feel a connection. You must establish that early on in writer’s workshop. We do this by showing them that emotion drives all writing. Whether it be a happy or sad moment. The memories that they have to write about are centered around emotion. All of us have emotion, so it makes it easier to focus.
2. Model your own writing.
Students need to see the writing process modeled in order to learn. It is OK to make mistakes in front of them. This shows that your writing is not perfect either! Students also get to see your thought process and how you go about getting your writing started. They will feel more connected if they see you struggle too.
3. Give them time to share their writing and ideas daily.
Make sure to establish partners so they can not only share their writing, but can get feedback as well. This will help them grow! Being able to talk about writing is just as important as having time to write. Make sure that you assingn partners that will work well together and are at about the same level of writing.
4. Celebrate their achievements.
One of the best things you can do is to help boost a struggling writer’s self-confidence. This can be as easy as whispering “great job” when walking around. It can also be where you have the struggling writer share a small snippet of his/her writing in front of the class. Showing that you are noticing improvements in their writing is huge.
If you are looking for a creative packet of writing ideas for students to use, we have our Great Writers Race activity for free. This is a great resource to use to get students writing on a daily basis in a fun way. There are 40 writing choices for students to choose from to help them stay engaged. It has been downloaded over 15,000 times! You can get it by clicking here.
Also, you are not going to want to miss out on our Writing Workshop Bundle that we just listed on TPT. This contains 10 different resources and over 150 pages of engaging activities to do with your students in writing class. It features:
-A Writing Workshop Escape Room
-A Grammar Detectives Activity
-Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives Flip Cards
-How to Write Complete Sentences Activity
-Sentence Structure Activities
-Paragraph Structure Activities
-Topic Sentences Activities
-and more!!
Writing should be engaging. Take advantage of our free resource and our writing workshop bundle today!
Struggling writers should be given a chance to succeed right from the start. Make sure to use our tips to help all writers experience success this school year!