I struggle with teaching writing to my high school English students. It’s so ironic because, at one point in my life, I assumed that I would actually be a writer by trade. Why is it that the skills that come easiest to us are often the hardest to teach?
Teaching writing is also difficult because it is incredibly subjective. Besides basic grammar rules, it’s hard to judge a person’s writing when it actually a form of art. However, I’ve started to realize that the vast majority of my students are understanding a piece of literature or a concept, but they just aren’t sure “where to start” when they are given a writing task. Secondly, some of my students can easily pull textual evidence for a piece, but when it comes down to explaining WHY they chose WHAT they chose – they simply “throw in the pencil.”
Over the past few semesters, I’ve tried my best to not only learn from my students about how I can meet their writing needs, but I’ve also developed some simple routines and procedures that make the entire process a little less painful (for them AND me! 🙂 ).
- COLOR CODE EVERYTHING
If you have a group of visual learners, color coding writing exercises works wonders! I’ve found that even my learners who don’t rely on visual aids to assist in their studies can seriously benefit from a color-coding process.
I like to give my students a color-coding guide so that they can see their writing “come alive.” This also gives the student something to aim for if he/she knows that they need 3 yellows, 4 greens, etc. When they glance back over their work, they can visually assess what they’re “missing” if a certain color is not there.
Here’s an example of how this process “works” for my students:
This is seriously one of the easiest tactics to implement because it requires MINIMAL prep work. I simply assign a color to each “piece” of the writing. My favorite color-coding key is to have students highlight textual evidence in YELLOW and WHY they chose that piece of textual evidence/their own commentary in GREEN. I love color-coding written responses for so many reasons: it makes students start to see their writing through an analytical lens, it helps students edit BEFORE turning in work, AND it makes grading SO much easier for me.
You can also find a free template to try this method here!
2. Use the sentence starter trick!
When grading my students’ written response items, I quickly noticed that they are often able to find textual evidence, but they usually struggle with writing about WHY they chose that piece. Many times, I would ask students, “Why did you choose that piece of a text over another?” They could actually verbally explain it to me, but they would look at me like I had 6 heads when I asked them to write their explanation. Many of my students expressed that they, “didn’t know where to start” when writing commentary. I wish I could credit the original person that I saw using this method, but sadly it’s lost in the teacher Instagram world. I simply have my students give their textual evidence then write a sentence after it which starts with, “This shows that…”. The sentence starter gives them a way to “fill in the blank” with their own commentary. They can go back and erase “This shows that…” from the sentence and it’s still a complete sentence!
I put together a whole minilesson on this technique that you can find here. I love using the “This shows that” method to quickly help my students formulate their own ideas IN WRITING about a text.
3. Scaffold Instruction
I know that scaffolding instruction is a given, but I’ve learned that sometimes I’m scaffolding the wrong concept for my students. I started scaffolding the writing process not with the writing itself, but with the material that students are writing about. For example, instead of having students write about how a theme is refined in a short story, we watch a short film together and talk about lessons in the film. Next, I walk them through a “we do” written response where they color-code the elements.
You would be surprised at how many literary elements you can discuss and analyze in short films! A few of my favorites are:
1. Theme in Identity
2. Mood in Piper
3. Symbolism in La Luna
4. Tone, Symbolism, Theme, ALL THE THINGS in Nuggets
As we watch the short film(s) together, I’ll give students a simple graphic organizer to use to follow along. Here’s an example:
After watching the film, I’ll have students discuss their findings in small groups. We’ll come back together, talk about what they found, then start working on a written response together. I’ll have them find evidence from the film, then I’ll show them how I use the “This shows that….” method to come up with commentary. We’ll eventually color-code the final product.
I like to “turn them loose” on another short film in small groups and work on a written response together. I find that scaffolding the reading material, rather than the writing, helps build student confidence before they’re given a written piece to work with. I’ve also tried this with children’s books instead of short films and it works quite nicely, too!
If you’re looking for a way to analyze short films for literary elements with already put together graphic organizers, you can try mine out here!
What are some of the ways that you help your students elaborate on their own ideas and start to formulate stand-out written pieces? I’d love to hear some of your own favorite tips and tricks for tackling this beast of a process! 🙂
