Tip 1: Let the students decide.
- Allowing children to choose topics that they find interesting is a crucial first step in helping them find energy to write.
Tip 2: Use effective mentor texts.
- Mrs. Wills provides a couple of examples of good mentor books that your students will love.
Tip 3: Let the students determine when they are done.
- Mrs. Wills provides her students with writing books. Students can add or delete pages as needed, and when they are finished with one, they start another.
Tip 4: Model your own writing.
- Allow your students to watch you write. Model the writing behaviors you want to see your students incorporate in their own writing, and verbally go through your thought process.
Tip 5: Let your students draw.
- Students can tell a story with pictures as much as they can with words. Allow them to draw, so that when they are ready to add words, they already see themselves as writers.
Tip 6: Let your students figure out spelling on their own.
- When you spell for your student, you are allowing them to depend on you. We want independent writers.
- Visit the original source to read Mrs. Will’s solutions to students becoming upset (due to frustration and you not spelling for them).
Tip 7: Do not correct your students’ writings.
- Correcting your students’ writings tells them that they are not good enough. Instead, use their past writing efforts to inform future lessons.
- Instead, compliment something they are doing well or teach them something new.
Tip 8: Investigate, not interrogate.
- Help your students tell their stories by observing their work.
Tip 9: Be enthusiastic.
- Students pick up on your subtle cues, so being enthusiastic and excited about writing encourages them to be the same.
