Classroom activities for developing students writing skills

Classroom activities for developing students writing skills

1. USING VIDEO

   • Begin with the learning objective and ensure that video clips can fulfil the language and structural features of the relevant text.
   • Using video clips in teaching writing is actually intended to help students to get their ideas easily.
   • Analyze a Video
     • Meet the video.
     • Observe its parts.
     • Try to make sense of it.
     • Use it as historical evidence.
     • Ask open-ended questions
     • Questions need to be timely and topical.
     • Start with questions that are easy to ask and answer.

2. ADDING DRAMA

   • the students can increase their understanding of a text and their ability to express their opinions in written form.
   • Implies actions and helps to improve memory and cognitive skills.
   • drama improves students’ writing skills and their attitudes towards writing.
   • Techniques
     • Role-Play
     • Simulation
     • Mime
     • Acting a scripted play
     • Improvisation
     • Further Possibilities like the course book

3. ACTIVITIES

   • Teachers and learners may also have specific kinds of writing they want to do or specific skills that need to be developed.

4. WRITING LETTERS

   • Allow learners to practice some of the types of writing that are useful in their daily lives.
   • Learners can complete grids based on information they gather from class or community surveys.

5. MAKING LISTS

   • Lists can help learners generate vocabulary and provide the basis for larger pieces.

6. Integrating Reading and Writing to Improve Students’ Critical Literacy

   • Reading is a way of understanding writing that comes from a different point of view
   • Writing is a way of reproducing processes of synthesis and evaluation for rhetorical purposes.
   • In order to improve students’ critical literacy, you can:
     • Provide an Appropriate Level of Challenge
     • Allow Sufficient Time to Practice
     • Evaluate Students’ Reading and Writing Practices
     • Engage in Peer-Review Exercises

7. Strategy 1: «Read-to-Learn» and «Write-to-Learn»

   • You can engage students in exercises that use writing to improve reading and exercises that use writing to help students shape their ideas.
     • Ask students to write in their texts
     • Require students to write short response papers