Strategies for Reluctant Writers

Reluctant writers, aren't born. They are often casualties of our classroom instruction. How? Possible reasons include the following:

• Remembering how to hold the writing the pencil correctly, form the letters correctly, space between words, generate thought and remember how to write a sentence with correct punctuation while making sense is too challenging for some kids.
• Due to handwriting issues, we've assigned a scribe for them, so they never have the opportunity to practice the art of writing on their own. Then the risks become too great.
• Poor spelling inhibits thought expressed on paper. Red pen corrections anyone?

So what can you do to help overcome the writing barriers? Give students opportunities to feel successful, offering engaging alternatives to paper based options. Oftentimes, the paper is the disability. Instead, explore these tools to get kids excited about writing again. Using computer based tools removes the obstacles of legible letter formation and spacing, what to write about and where to begin. A few ideas to get you started:

• Characters - this tool offers the ability to generate a character, while changing hair, clothing, skin tone and facial features. Students can use this tool to then generate descriptive writing about something they created. Take a screen shot to save the created text and character.
• Wacky Web Tales - an online MadLibs. Kids add single words by category (clothing, adjective, word ending in -ing, etc) so best for grade 3 and above.
• Online Story Starters from Scholastic - Spin the levers to generate various writing prompts in various formats. I just spun this starter - "Describe a vacation with a silly kangaroo who goes to summer camp" (a second grade prompt) and can type in a notebook, letter, newspaper or postcard format. Includes a drawing tool. Great for grades K-6.
• Fractured Fairy Tales - Create your own fairy tale based upon three popular stories. from the Student Interactive Resources at readwritethink.org.
• Bio-Cube - create a three dimensional character cube describing six traits about a character they have read about or adapt it to be autobiographical.

Add any ideas that work for your students.

A Structured Writing Tool - Writing Fun

Writing presents a significant challenge for many students. The act of writing incorporates many individual components necessary for writing success. Students need to be able to hold a writing instrument, form letters legibly, space between words, spell accurately, generate ideas, organize their thinking, hold onto a sequence of words and sentences....you get the picture. There is a significant physical, motoric, visual processing, memory, and cognitive load. The breakdown for writing success can be anywhere.

For students who benefit from external structure and prompts to help them organize their thinking and approach to written expression, there is an online tool that provides this. It's called Writing Fun and the site has been developed by Jenny Eather.

Although the opening screen is visually overwhelming and complex, you must check out the text categories on the right side of the screen - Narrative, Discussion, Poetry, Procedure, Informative, Recount, Explanation, Persuasion and Description.

When you click on a category, you are taken to a new Text Organizer screen which breaks down the writing tasks into parts. At the bottom of the screen are examples; on the right side, links will connect to color coded text that connect to the examples.

Watch this quick screen cast I created using Jing, a free screen capture tool to help you better understand the possibilities.

Try it out, let your students try it out and ask them for feedback. What do they think? Does it help them improve their writing? If they think it does, encourage them to use this tool during writing assignments. Give them the choice and let them decide.