Wrtie to Excite

Write to Excite

Write here, and write now.

When it comes to engaging students in writing to meet standards there are some fundamentals that have proven to work, and work well for South Portland High School English teacher Leah Siviski, who is also the Writing Group Coordinator for the Southern Maine Writing Project. The Southern Maine Writing Project is a group of diverse educators who are passionate about building knowledge and transforming classroom practices across the curriculum to improve writing and learning for all students. As a member of the Writing Project, the Maine Educator asked Siviski to share writing strategies and her ideas on how to better excite students in everything from pre-writing to editing.

How do you get your students excited about formal writing?

Well, I don’t know if I can ever get students truly excited about writing a formal essay, but I can give them the tools to be prepared and confi dent. Helping them structure an essay with graphic organizers, giving them examples of well-written essays, having specifi c due dates for each part of the essay (intro, body paragraphs, conclusion), and coaching them on how to revise their work are all strategies that I have used to help students feel more confi dent with their academic writing.

With so many standards both students and educators are expected to meet, do you have any advice to keep writing fun while still meeting the standards?

Ask students to write every day, even just for 5-10 minutes. Have some silly prompts, like incorporating three random words into a story (already-chewed bubblegum, an angry mob, and a misplaced engagement ring). Do group writing tasks (like writing a story in which each student contributes a line). Play word games. I personally learned to love language and writing through playing word games like Scrabble, Boggle, Balderdash, Taboo. Taking 10 minutes out of class to show students how much fun word play is can make them view English class (and reading and writing) in a more positive light.

Can you talk about pre-writing strategies to help students gather their thoughts and be prepared to formulate a good essay.

Often, the most diffi cult part of an essay for students is the fi rst sentence. Sometimes, I’ll provide a prompt to students for their daily journal entry that somehow touches upon the essay topic. They’re so used to writing everyday that they don’t fl inch at having to do this. Then, when we start the essay, I’ll say, “Go back to your journal. Look! You already have the makings of an introduction. Type up what you have and work from there.”

Do you have any editing tips for students and for teachers when they’re both working and grading?

Focus, focus, focus. Marking every tiny grammar error or structural inconsistency will be discouraging for the student and tedious for the teacher. With each writing assignment, focus on just a handful of grammar rules and structure or organization targets. That will make students’ self- or peer-editing and teachers’ grading feel much more manageable.

Anything else about writing you want to share that is both fun and fundamental?

Write with your students and share your writing with your students. You may not be able to do this every day, but if you model what focused writing looks like, what a fi rst draft looks like, etc., that will help students feel more comfortable completing, editing, and sharing their own writing.