Wednesday, June 26, 2013

5 tips to help students write for career success

Here is how most of my writing starts.
The unspoken truth about teaching writing in schools is that few people doing so are published writers themselves. What's worse, the message that students get is that in school they don't focus on writing for real. Let's be honest, how often do you read a book in the real world and think, "Oh! I want to write a book report!" How often do we take two texts to analyze and write a paper that we hand into someone. How often do we research something, then write up a research paper for no one?  
Why aren't schools helping students write for real? Why aren't those who teach writing, publishing their work and helping their students to write for real audiences? 
In her article, How to teach kids to write effectivelyAuthor Penelope Trunk, tells us that however you're teaching your kid to write, it's the wrong way. She advises that lessons in passion-finding skills are way more important than any writing curriculum you've dreamed up.
Below are five tips she suggests for helping kids write in ways to support them in being successful in careers. 
1. Write short. Very short. 
2. Write the way your audience reads. 
3. Write via iPhone. 
4. Make videos with everything you write that's long. 
5. Make ideas visual, not only text. 
Trunk says that traditional ELA classes are just another example of outdated curriculum created by people who are looking backward to protect a dead status quo. To read more about each idea, check out the full article here.
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