There are many techniques available to help students get started with a
piece of writing. Getting started can be hard for all levels of writers.
Freewriting is one great technique to build fluency. That was
explored in an earlier lesson plan: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/adulted/lessons/lesson18.html
This unit offers some other techniques. These techniques may be especially
helpful with students who prefer a style of learning or teaching that could
be described as visual, spatial, or graphic. Sometimes those styles or overlooked
in favor of approaches that are very linguistic or linear. The approaches
here will attend to a broader range of learning styles as they add variety.
- Writing: Writing Process, Pre-Writing, Autobiography, Exposition,
Personal Narrative, Argumentation, Comparison and Contrast, Description.
Students will be able to:
- Write more fluently (writing more with greater ease)
- Generate writing topics
- Select topics that will yield strong pieces of writing
- Connect personal experience, knowledge, and examples to an assigned
- Produce better organized pieces of writing
National Reporting System of Adult Education standards are applicable here.
These are the standards required by the 1998 Workforce Investment Act. See
Pencils, colored pencils, pens, markers, crayons, unlined paper, magazines
and newspapers with pictures inside, glue or paste, and paper. Big paper
or poster board can make the pre-writing exercises more eye-catching,
more of a project, and better for display.
Video and TV:
Prep for Teachers
Make sure you try each of the activities yourself before you ask students
to do them. That will give you a better understanding of the activities
and help you recognize any potential points that may be confusing or difficult.
This also gives you a sample to show the students. Its much easier
to create a diagram if you are shown an example of one.
Here are some Web sites that give background and even more ideas about you
pre-writing, diagrams, graphic organizers, and other ideas to get started
with writing. There is some repetition here. You dont have to read
them all. But check them out and see what you think.