Teaching

Writing
For BSED2 English Students
ALJON C. OPERARIO, LPT
College Lecturer
 Objectives
✗ Explore the concepts related to the principles in teaching
writing, definitions, contexts, genres and processes;
✗ Identify appropriate and learner-centered pre-writing and in-
classroom writing activities, exercises and strategies and;
✗ Design a sample writing activity using learning
competencies from the English Language Arts and
Multiliteracies Curriculum.

Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macro Skills 2

What is writing?
It is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation
and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form.

Other definition

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What are genres of a written language?
1. Academic writing
Papers and general subject reports Essays, compositions

2. Job-related writing
Messages, Letters/emails Memos, Reports

3. Personal writing
Letters, emails, greeting cards, invitations , messages, notes

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Why we teach students to write?
REINFORCEMENT
This is arguably the most common reason why we teach writing i.e. typically
coursebook exercises require students to WRITE answers as single words, phrases
or sentences. The idea is that this usually reinforces grammar or provides evidence
they have understood a text.

A lot of test preparation work requires students to write by, for example taking notes
from a phone conversation and then writing a message using the information. This
form of continual exam practice is a regular reinforcement feature in many exam
preparation courses.

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Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macr
Why we teach students to write?
EXAMINATION PRACTICE
Most exams require students to give answers in writing. Some require essay-type answers.

This is mainly due to the fact that writing is a very convenient, and often accurate mode of
assessment. Writing on the page is certainly easier to assess objectively than students'
speaking.

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What we teach students to write?
REFERENCE
Students take notes throughout our lessons so that they then have
something to revise from.

STUDENT NEEDS
Many of the students we teach have specific needs when it comes to writing, and these
are usually tied to specific text-types such as academic essays, business letters, reports
etc.

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Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macro Skills
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Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macro Skills

 What are the types of a
written performance?

Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macro Skills 15

 Imitative

To produce written language, the learner must attain skills in the fundamental,
basic tasks of writing letters, words, punctuation, and very brief sentences. This
category includes the ability to spell correctly and to perceive phoneme-grapheme
correspondences in the English spelling system . It is a level at which learners are
trying to master the mechanics of writing .At this stage, form is the primary if not
exclusive focus, while context and meaning are of secondary concern.

Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macro Skills 16

Intensive (controlled)

Beyond the fundamentals of imitative writing are skills in producing appropriate

vocabulary within a context ,collocations and idioms and correct grammatical
features up to the length of a sentence. Meaning and context are of some
importance in determining correctness and appropriateness, but most
assessment tasks are more concerned with a focus on form, and are rather
strictly controlled by the test design.

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 Responsive
Here, assessment tasks require learners to perform at a limited discourse level, connecting
sentences into a paragraph and creating a logically connected sentence of two or three
paragraphs. Tasks respond to pedagogical directives, lists of criteria, outlines and other
guidelines. Genres of writing include brief narratives and descriptions, short reports, lab reports,
summaries , brief responses to reading, and interpretations of charts or graphs. Under specified
conditions, the writer begins to exercise some freedom of choice among alternative forms of
expression of ideas . The writer has mastered the fundamentals of sentence –level grammar
and is more focused on the discourse conventions that will achieve the objectives in a written
text.

Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macro Skills 18

 Extensive
Writing implies successful management of all the processes and strategies of
writing for all purposes, up to the length of an essay. Learners focus on
achieving a purpose, organizing and developing ideas logically, using details
to support or illustrate ideas, demonstrating syntactic and lexical variety, and
in many cases, engaging in the process of multiple drafts to achieve a final
product.

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 Pre-writing Strategies
Pre-writing strategies use writing to generate and clarify ideas. While many
writers have traditionally created outlines before beginning writing, there are
several other effective prewriting activities. We often call these prewriting
strategies “brainstorming techniques.” Five useful strategies are
listing, clustering, freewriting, looping, and asking the six journalists'
questions. These strategies help you with both your invention and
organization of ideas, and can aid you in developing topics for your writing.

Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macro Skills

  Jot down all the possible terms that emerge

Listing from the general topic you are working on. This
procedure works especially well if you work in a
Listing is a process of team. All team members can generate ideas,
with one member acting as scribe. Do not worry
generating a lot of about editing or throwing out what might not be
information within a short a good idea. Simply write down as many
time by generating some possibilities as you can.
broad ideas and then building  Group the items that you have listed according
to arrangements that make sense to you. Are
on those associations for things thematically related?
more detail. Listing is  Give each group a label. Now you have a
particularly useful if your narrower topic with possible points of
development.
starting topic is very broad  Write a sentence about the label you have given
and you need to narrow it the group of ideas. Now you have a topic
down. sentence or possibly a thesis statement.

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Clustering  Put the subject in the center of a page.
Clustering, also called Circle or underline it.
mind mapping or idea  As you think of other ideas, write them
mapping, is a strategy on the page surrounding the central
that allows you to idea. Link the new ideas to the central
explore the relationships circle with lines.
between ideas.  As you think of ideas that relate to the
new ideas, add to those in the same
way.

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Teaching Writing- Weeks 8-10, Teaching and Assessment of Macro
  Free write on the assignment or general topic for

Freewriting five to ten minutes non-stop. Force yourself to

continue writing even if nothing specific comes to
mind (so you could end up writing “I don’t know
Freewriting is a process of what to write about” over and over until an idea
generating a lot of pops into your head. This is okay; the important
thing is that you do not stop writing). This
information by writing non- freewriting will include many ideas; at this point,
stop for a predetermined generating ideas is what is important, not the
amount of time. It allows you grammar or the spelling.
 After you have finished freewriting, look back over
to focus on a specific topic, what you have written and highlight the most
but forces you to write so prominent and interesting ideas; then you can begin
quickly that you are unable to all over again, with a tighter focus (see looping).
edit any of your ideas. You will narrow your topic and, in the process, you
will generate several relevant points about the
topic.

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Looping  Loop your freewriting as many times as necessary,
Looping is a freewriting circling another interesting topic, idea, phrase, or
sentence each time. When you have finished four
technique that allows you to
or five rounds of looping, you will begin to have
focus your ideas continually specific information that indicates what you are
while trying to discover a thinking about a particular topic. You may even
writing topic. After you free have the basis for a tentative thesis or an improved
idea for an approach to your assignment when you
write for the first time, have finished.
identify a key thought or idea
in your writing, and begin to
free write again, with that
idea as your starting point.

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 Who?: 

The Journalists'
     Who are the participants? Who is affected? Who are the primary
actors? Who are the secondary actors?
What?: 

Questions
     What is the topic? What is the significance of the topic? What is the
basic problem? What are the issues related to that problem?
Where?:
Journalists traditionally ask six      Where does the activity take place? Where does the problem or
questions when they are writing issue have its source? At what place is the cause or effect of the
problem most visible?
assignments that are broken down When?: 
into five W's and one      When is the issue most apparent? ( in the past? present? future?)
When did the issue or problem develop? What historical forces helped
H: Who?, What?, Where?, When?,  shape the problem or issue and at what point in time will the problem
Why?, and How? You can use these or issue culminate in a crisis? When is action needed to address the
issue or problem?
questions to explore the topic you Why?: 
are writing about for an assignment.      Why did the issue or problem arise? Why is it (your topic) an issue
or problem at all? Why did the issue or problem develop in the way
A key to using the journalists' that it did?
questions is to make them flexible How?: 
     How is the issue or problem significant? How can it be addressed?
enough to account for the specific How does it affect the participants? How can the issue or problem be
details of your topic. resolved

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 Fun Writing
Activities in the
Classroom
 Group Creative Writing Exercises
Round Robin
In small groups of 3 or 4, each person starts a story and gets 3-5 minutes to write. After this
time is up, everyone rotates stories, and picks up a new story where the first writer left off. Do
this several times, until everyone in the group has had a chance to contribute to every story.
Share the final products with the group.
One Sentence Story
This exercise is the same concept as Round Robin, except that each person only writes a
sentence at a time. This can work well for larger groups and can be used for writing fiction,
poetry and plays.
Writing Correlation
Start off with each student providing a short but detailed description of a person or place.
Passing it around the room, have students take turns removing all detail, leaving only the bare
essentials of the information, and then passing it to the next student to re-add the details back
in. When the original authors receive their own descriptive paragraph, have them compare the
differences between the first and last draft.

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List Stories
Each person in the group creates a list of 15 elements that must be included in a story;
character names, certain vocabulary, specific objects, certain phrases or lines of
dialogue, locations, etc. Then each person is randomly assigned someone else's list, and
must create a story including those elements. This can be slightly altered to use for
poetry or playwriting as well.

Fill-in-the-Blanks
Sit in a group, and have every person say their full sentence. You can complete the
sentence as yourself or as a character, but the idea is to be honest and respond quickly
without overthinking. Fill in several sentences, and then each student can choose their
favorite as a starting point for their writing.

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 Individual Creative Writing Exercises
Letters to the Past
Write a letter to yourself at a specific point in your past. What do you tell that self
about how things are going for you now? What questions do you answer for your
past self? What advice do you give?

Found First Lines

Listen for interesting conversations happening in the world, and write them down.
Write down specific lyrics in songs or lines from books that resonate with you. Collect
these, and try using one of these quotes as a first line in your own writing.
Name that Emotion

Write about an emotion without ever using the name of the feeling itself, or synonyms
for it. How do you describe sadness or happiness or anger? Where does a character
feel it? What does it feel like?

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 Individual Creative Writing Exercises

Coloring a Story
Write a story inspired by shades of a single color. Let each shade be a
different character, and imagine how they interact. What does Burgundy
say to Scarlet? How is Lime related to Forest?

Interviews with Characters

Imagine your character is being interviewed. Maybe it's for a magazine,
for a job, or by the police. What kinds of questions are they asked, and
how do they answer? This method can help you better understand and
develop a character's voice and backstory.

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Individual Creative Writing Exercises

Vocabulary Story
Prompt for Learners
Now, write a story using as many of the words on the list as you can. Aim
to include 10-20 words in your story, depending on how much time you
have for this exercise. Have some fun with it and try to get the finished
story to make sense.

Picture story
Prompt for Learners
Grab the closest magazine to you and choose a random picture. Describe it in as
much detail as you can. Don’t just write what you see. Imagine you’re in the
picture. Think about what you would smell, feel or even taste.

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Individual Creative Writing Exercises

Devil’s advocate
Prompt for Learners
Is there something you feel strongly about? Let’s say, for example,
that you believe every person should learn a second language. Take
this belief, and write about it from the opposite point of view. In this
case, you would write about why everyone should not learn another
language.

It was a dark and stormy night

Prompt for Learners
Grab the closest book to you and open to the first page. What’s the first
sentence? A good first sentence sets up the story and makes you want to
keep reading. 

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References
https://www.slideshare.net/JuneMar21/teaching-of-writing
http://writing.ku.edu/prewriting-strategies
https://study.com/academy/popular/creative-writing-exercises-for-high-school.html
http://philseflsupport.com/writingreasons.html

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