The most effective method for enhancing a students ability to write a paper is to

As teachers, we often bemoan the fact that “students can’t write anymore” and blame it on everything from texting and social media to the lack of grammar instruction and absence of vocabulary books. The truth is probably closer to the sentiment of David Labaree: “Learning to write is extraordinarily difficult, and teaching people how to write is just as hard.”

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4 Strategies for Supporting Student Writers
1. Make Writing a Daily Exercise
2. Read, Read, and Read Some More!
3. Be Succinct
4. Never Underestimate the Importance of a Thorough Editing Session
5. Develop a Clear Message
6. Sit Down and Write!
What strategies can improve our students writing?
What are the 4 strategies of academic writing?
What are the 5 strategies for writing?

Teaching writing is a process—over time and with the right guidance and support our students can grow into better writers. We may feel frustrated that their final pieces aren’t polished to perfection, but if we look closely, within those imperfect final drafts are flickers of insight and bits of mastery.

We need to celebrate these small victories, and be patient as our students gradually master the myriad of skills involved in becoming a writer.

4 Strategies for Supporting Student Writers

1. Emphasize reading: Frank Smith writes in Reading Without Nonsense, “You learn to read by reading and you learn to write by reading.” I tell my students that something magical happens when we read—the words and sentences enter our consciousness, float around, and drift out through our pen or keyboard in our own narrative voice.

When students immerse themselves in John Green, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, or J.K. Rowling, those writers’ language and its wisdom seeps into their thinking and pours out into their writing.

2. Give them permission to take risks: Donald Murray has argued, “Many teachers complain that their students can’t write sentences. I complain that many of my students write sentences. Too early. Following form, forgetting meaning.... Sentences that are like prison sentences.”

In order to free my students from the constraints of correctness, I give them permission to break some of the rules that have been drilled into them since elementary school. As we read, we notice how the stylistic choices that defy convention are often the phrases we love the most. We then make bold attempts to experiment with these techniques in our own writing. We begin sentences with conjunctions, take liberties with rhetorical questions, repetition, and figurative language... even sprinkle ellipses with reckless abandon.

One of my students crafted a beautiful passage that was inspired by both Great Expectations and Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me.” She loved Alexie’s short, emphatic sentences: “I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky,” and how Dickens wove his title throughout the novel: “So imperfect was the realisation of my great expectations....” In a letter to the late author Paul Kalanithi about his memoir When Breath Becomes Air, composed for the Library of Congress’s Letters About Literature contest, she wrote, “You were determined. You were fierce. And you were unstoppable. You fought until your final breath... until your breath became air.”

3. Make them care: I want my students to understand that their ideas can bring about change, so I work to give them choices to write about topics they feel passionate about. They ask probing questions and devote the time necessary to develop a compelling argument, meticulously craft sentences, and carefully choose their words.

And they need to know their words will be heard by an authentic audience, which is sometimes an audience of their peers reached through shared folders on Google Drive and Padlet, and at other times a wider audience reached through writing contests and publishing opportunities.

4. Feedback, feedback, and more feedback: It would be easy to circle errors in red pen, write a few comments, and return papers with a letter grade, but most teachers don’t do that—the amount of time we spend on grading student writing is staggering. And much of this feedback is not improving their writing.

So in the early stages of the writing process, I dedicate time to conference with each student to offer them personalized feedback they can immediately use. Throughout the writing process, students self-assess based on the assignment rubric as I jump in and out of Google Docs to offer additional targeted feedback. As they get closer to a final product, I offer peer editors specific “look fors” and guidelines to further polish and refine their writing. All of this feedback results in final drafts that are much stronger and grades that are higher. But more importantly, students feel supported and encouraged as they’re learning to write.

When we take the time to refine our thoughts in writing, not in the unrehearsed way they often spout too quickly out of our mouths, our words can impact the behavior, thoughts, and feelings of others. My students understand that writing is power, and they well know that we could all use a little empowering.

Many people underestimate the importance of having excellent writing skills. Read on to learn more about how you facilitate the improvement of what is arguably one of the most indispensable skills to have; written communication!

Believe it or not, writing, apart from the spoken word, is one of the world’s oldest forms of communication that still exists today. Think about it; while we may no longer invest time in sending letters to one another, our daily communication is always accompanied by some form of writing, be it in text messages, daily emails, or posts you make on your social media accounts.

In the university space, academic writing is a whole other ball game and often takes on a very different form to other types of writing out there, but the simple fact is that you cannot achieve a high level of college writing if you don’t know how to improve your basic writing skills!

Image by Carole Raddato.

One of the earliest known examples of writing dates back to 3500-3000 BCE, to the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia. This form of writing is known now as “Cuneiform”, which involved the engraving of various pictorial figures into stone as a means by which to communicate with others, record numbers, among other functions.

Even if your chosen career path doesn’t necessarily involve writing as a form of income, being able to communicate effectively is incredibly important to ensure success in today’s competitive international job market. Think about email-writing; it hardly looks professional if you send an email to your boss or colleague that isn’t well thought-out and contains many errors.
Here are 6 simple tips to improve your writing skills!

1. Make Writing a Daily Exercise

Practice really does make perfect! If you compare writing to a skill like cooking, or even playing a sport, you cannot expect to improve if you don’t practice – it’s like expecting to become a pro football player after one practice with your team.

Try to set yourself daily writing exercises – they need not be long-winded and time-consuming, even just committing yourself to writing a paragraph a day is enough! You can even partner up with someone else who also wants to improve their writing skills and read each other’s paragraphs to see where changes need to be made.

2. Read, Read, and Read Some More!

We learn best by example, and gaining writing skills is no exception to this rule. When we read, we learn how other people write to convey their messages in the best way possible, and we start to adapt our writing styles to those that we resonate most with.

Incorporate daily reading into your writing exercises; maybe even make your practice paragraph a review or summary of what you read that day, taking different elements of the author’s writing style to develop your own voice.

3. Be Succinct

Try not to use any complicated, long words in your writing. They often confuse the reader and make them disinterested in what you have to say. Keep your sentences short. Never over-use filler words like “very”, “really”, “just”, etc.

They tend to make sentences long and unnecessarily take up your reader’s cognitive space.

4. Never Underestimate the Importance of a Thorough Editing Session

Editing is a part of the writing process that is completely underrated and that is frequently overlooked. Errors in your writing are likely to take attention away from the message you are trying to convey and decrease your reader’s trust in your viability as a writer.

The human brain often overlooks certain small errors during the proofreading process, so using an online editing tool, like Grammarly, comes highly recommended.

5. Develop a Clear Message

There is nothing more frustrating than a piece of writing that doesn’t get straight to the point. Think about what you want to say, what message you want your reader to take away with them, and make sure that that you make this message clear from the very beginning.

It is also important to think about your audience; what do they want to hear, and how would they like it to be conveyed? Do you need to take on a formal, or a more informal tone? Would using humour help develop your message, or should you get straight to the point in a more businesslike fashion?

These are important considerations that need to be taken into account before you even begin the writing process.

6. Sit Down and Write!

Sometimes the most difficult step in the writing process is the act of actually sitting down and getting the writing done. By this point, you should have a clear plan of what you want to say, and a general idea of how you want to say it.

It may seem daunting, but remember that the hard work is now done! All you need to do is convince yourself that you are capable (which you are), sit down in front of your n0tebook or computer, and execute your communication!

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