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In this lesson, we’ll discuss tools you’ll need to help your students master Verbal Proficiency, Writing Style, & Research Skills.
Language provides the foundation for our thinking, communicating, and learning. By improving students’ word-comprehension skills, we enable them to understand ideas; comprehend, appreciate, and enjoy their reading; express themselves clearly; and demonstrate their learning.
In literature, we want students to learn how to use words accurately and precisely. We want them to understand the definitions of the words they use and to clearly articulate what they’re saying or writing. We want students to know words and their meanings in both the denotative and the connotative sense.
We know that students have verbal proficiency when they:
One of your students is having a difficult time understanding the connotative meaning of a word that she’s found in an essay. How do you help her with this challenge?
To ensure that your writing assignments challenge your students, start by making sure that the assignments are well written, clear, and understandable. This means that your prompts, or questions, are appropriate. To make sure your prompts are doing their job, see if they do the following:
If your prompts fulfill these criteria, you can be reasonably certain that your essays will challenge your students. You also need to consider the levels of student writers when composing your writing prompts. In the beginning of the semester, it might be important to give more writing direction to your students. If you write a vague or general prompt for beginning writers, you will most likely be handed a vague or general essay.
When using rhetorical modes, such as description, narration, exemplification, comparison/contrast, analogy, or cause-and-effect essays, make sure that your students have room to be creative within these modes. There is sometimes a tendency to have students stuff their ideas into the empty forms, instead of having ideas emerge in a more creative and organic fashion. Also, make sure that your students realize that writers can use more than one rhetorical mode in the same paper.
Outlining the expectations you have for your students’ writing will help ensure that your essay topics are challenging and clear. Encourage:
Another important point to emphasize to your students is that based on audience or degree of abstraction, the writing of the paper will be more or less difficult. For instance, there’s a great deal of difference in difficulty between writing a letter or email to a friend and writing a formal essay for class.
For students who are writing a paper for a more formal audience, emphasize the importance of incorporating the following points into their project:
To encourage the writing process, have your students brainstorm paper topics. By mulling over ideas aloud or by writing points on the board as a group, students can discover new perspectives and obtain a clearer understanding of a range of subjects. After they’ve decided on what they want to pursue in their papers, have them organize their ideas in a structured outline.
Here’s a brainstorming activity that you can use in class.
Choose a topic, idea, or question you want the class to consider. This question can be a specific detail from a text, or a broad theme or concept. Tell the students that they have seven to ten minutes to write continuously on the subject. Instruct the students to write such phrases as “What else do I need to think about?” or “I’m not sure what I’m saying but . . . ” whenever they get stuck. This will keep them writing. Tell your students not to worry about spelling, grammar, or punctuation. They should concentrate on generating as much material as possible.
If you want to foster a love—or at least an appreciation—of writing in your students, keep your assignments interesting. Vary your writing assignments so students are challenged to write letters, memos, emails, stories, comparison/contrast essays, research essays, and more. At the same time, ensure that your assignments include different levels of conceptual and logical difficulties. This includes asking your students to write about subjects they are quite familiar with, as well as subjects that will require background research. Through writing assignments that help students learn new skills, such as reporting information or analyzing information, they will improve their analytical, research, and writing skills, while keeping an interest in class.
Keep in mind that there isn’t a single template for good writing. If a student isn’t skilled at writing one type of essay or assignment, it doesn’t mean that he will fare poorly in all writing assignments. Students excel in different forms of writing, but not necessarily in all styles. Thus, different types of writing skills must be developed through teaching different types of writing. Different types of writing that should be included in your assignments include, but are not limited to the following:
Students can create portfolios over the course of a semester or the school year that include these different writing assignments. You can specify the types and numbers of assignments that should be included in the portfolio, and students should then choose their best work. The portfolios can be graded, assessed, or used as tools to discuss students’ progress, depending on your preference.
When evaluating your students’ writing assignments, make sure to clearly explain where their writing needs improvement. Suggest how they can clarify and develop ideas, content, organization, transitions, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, eloquence, and style in their writing assignments.
Learning to write, and learning to write well, involves a lot more than learning new words. While it’s true that teaching your students vocabulary is an excellent way to improve their writing, vocabulary alone will not make them good writers. In fact, reading is probably the most effective way to learn style. Through wide reading, thorough class discussion, and comprehensive writing practice, students’ writing style can be much improved.
Learning how to write effectively and with style can be achieved through studying some of the common devices of style and arrangement. By learning, practicing, varying, and perfecting these devices, your students can improve their style. By encouraging students to experiment with different styles, they can learn how to express themselves better. At the same time, they’ll learn to understand the interconnected nature of form and meaning, as well as how diction, grammar, and literary techniques work in other people’s—and their own—writing.
When your students understand style in writing, they’ll be able to understand and express the following concepts:
Here are a few activities that will help your students understand style.
Activity #1
Choose a scene from one of the books you’ve been reading in class. Have your students rewrite the scene in a particular style. The style could include one of the following:
Have students share their versions when completed, and discuss how each story embodies (or fails to embody) the style in which it was written. Make lists of qualities that define each style. Have students offer suggestions on how to improve the pieces.
Activity #2
Since grammar choices affect writing style, an effective method for helping students develop their own style is to use sentence combining. Sentence combining helps students develop their own writing style by exploring variety, parallelism, length, and other syntactic devices. By asking students to compare their sentences with sentences from other writers, they’ll discover what style is and how it can be achieved.
Activity #3
Make up your own examples of some common mistakes students make. These may include choppy, short sentences, or run-on sentences. Combine each type of sentence into a worksheet or overhead, and have students combine or separate sentences to make them more varied and interesting. Students can combine the sentences orally or through written activities. Have students experiment with sentence structure, punctuation, meaning, and usage.
It is important that your students be proficient at using keyboard skills. These skills can be reinforced and improved through drill practice and reinforcement of correct techniques. Throughout the semester, students should improve speed and accuracy in their keyboarding ability through drills and timed writings.
Students should use the following keyboarding techniques.
Students should also be adept at using word-processing programs, which they’ll need to create, format, and edit personal and business documents. Assign students appropriate practice lessons wherein they use word-processing software to edit reports, letters, memos, emails, labels, and envelopes from unarranged, edited, and script copy.
Students will demonstrate their skill at using word-processing software by
Students should also demonstrate correct letter, email, fax, and envelope formatting and be able to identify acceptable uses of each. Students should also demonstrate good composition and editing skills. This includes reading copy for content and meaning; using correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and number expression; recognizing and using proofreader’s marks; and identifying and correcting errors. Students should also be able to key from dictation and compose emails, letters, and fax cover sheets.
In this lesson, we looked at ways that students can improve their language skills by using language precisely and in ways that show they are able to clearly articulate their ideas. Teachers who facilitate this process by providing students with challenging and diverse writing assignments that vary according to purpose and audience do a great service to their students. We also discussed assignments and exercises designed to help students develop eloquence and style. Finally, we covered the kind of information and practice students need to build keyboarding and word-processing skills.