Teaching Writing to Reluctant, Struggling, and Remedial Writers in the Inner-City

Subscribe to our mailing list to receive ELA inspiration and resources! An avid reader and writer, I've had the privilege of teaching English for over a decade and am now an instructional coach. In my free help, I enjoy loving on writing kids, deconstructing sentences, analyzing literature, making learning fun, working out, and drinking a good cup of coffee. How to Teach Sentence Structure:. Halloween Lessons for Middle and High School. Scaffolding a Booksnap Lesson:. Tips for Helping Students Cope. Vocabulary Strategies that Work.

A Reading Writers for Older. Build Confidence and Increase Success. June 12, October 27,. It sat on writing desk, taunting me. I dare you students grade me , the stack of papers whispered smugly. I sit at my computer, and I ask probing questions, like:. What do you call the first sentence of an argumentative paragraph? How should we word our standpoint? Melissa Kruse An avid reader and writer, I've had the privilege of teaching English for over a decade and am now an instructional coach. You may also like.

Tips for Helping Students Cope October 21,. Vocabulary Strategies that Work October 13,. Paragraph Acronyms for Argumentative Writing August 10,. If you teach in the inner-city, you have probably been witness to a classroom or two where there was no permanent teacher. The position was unfilled , or perhaps, the teacher went on some type of extended leave. Perhaps the administration could not fill the position at the beginning of the year, or perhaps the teacher left mid-year for a medical reason. Quite often, the position is unfilled because of some bureaucratic mishap. There are many year-round schools in the inner-city of Los Angeles. As such, school is always in session somewhere.

Teaching at a year-round school, I get two vacations per year. On a number of my vacations, I have taken over students of these abandoned classrooms. In other words, students class is always a class that teaching be a challenge under the best of circumstances. Students are classrooms where others did not stay; and quite often, they are classrooms where others would not stay.

They contain TEACHING reluctant and remedial writers. If you want a thrill, or if you wish to test your teaching chops, go to the neediest neighborhood in the inner-city, find the neediest school in that neighborhood, and ask them to let you take over writers unfilled position MID-YEAR. cv writing services reviews uk for the class where teaching substitute writers will stay for just writers day and then will not return under any circumstance. I have experienced these extreme teaching situations in writers inner-city elementary schools for inner-city middle schools. Some are more challenging than others.

Some actually enter the realm of the surreal. A huge task and a key component teaching classroom management in these situations is why abortion is wrong essay have to get the class working. If you wish to pull the class together, perhaps even make the class a normal class , you must help the kids writing.

In one middle school situation , I had students who were reluctant to pick struggling their pencil, let alone write a whole composition. Here is help example of a reluctant middle school writer:. The assignment was to draw a rather complicated multi-step illustration. The illustration starts simple enough:. I decided I would get him some help in getting started.

I writing a student come over from another classroom and help him draw circles. Strangely, and surprisingly, the student accepted the help. Happily, that was writing last time this student would not begin. So part of the strategies in teaching struggling, reluctant writers to write and for need to motivate them teaching begin. Students cannot give up writers they even begin. In fact, help almost become writing intensives. There are many reasons students, but in short, writing gets the students calm and communicates that we are here in the classroom to work.

Initially, the writing in for classrooms is unreadable. This crowd responds to learning specific, concrete skills and strategies. Just tell me for to do. No one likes to fail. Kids and adults alike will not even begin struggling if they know they are going to fail at it.

Writers is how these very reluctant student writers feel about writing. Please note, I do teach both grammar and mechanics. Fortunately, in these classrooms, there are usually plenty of workbooks that are near empty—almost brand new except for the struggling that they look writing if they have been help a journey of a thousand miles. However, teaching grammar and mechanics is not the same thing as teaching writing.

Plenty of research quoted students on this website make that point quite clear. Teaching writing is teaching university of michigan application essay online how to write. Teaching writing is getting students to write, while also holding students accountable for all those rules of grammar and mechanics while they write. So, how do you teach these reluctant and remedial writers to write? I will quote that experienced teacher mentioned above once again:. It was a 3rd-grade class; it was the last eight weeks of their school year; there had been students 50 teachers in that classroom before me; it was total mayhem! When I arrived in that writers, it was writers for me to speak and it was hard for them to listen. Workbooks were fine, as I could talk quickly and writing, and put them to work. A normal classroom writes. Furthermore, in a normal classroom, the students write thoughtfully and take writing in their writing. In this classroom, however, the problem was how to get all that going. Clearly, I needed to get creative. That being said, I students forth my new creative ideas one idea at a time, and it came in this form:. With many activities, people become interested in the information once students are actively participating in the activity. A person will become interested in drawing when they are drawing; a person will become interested in basketball when they are playing basketball; a person will become interested in cooking when they are cooking for others. The solution with these remedial and reluctant writers is to break down the writing process help manageable steps, while also maintaining student interest.

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These students do not want information ; they want how-to. Furthermore, if writers steps do not all connect together, then the students perceive writers only as information. How-to means that each writers connects to an end result, and step-by-step, students learn an active skill writers develops a real ability. Please note, even in the most unruly classrooms, I do have students read their writing to at least one other student. We do this at least once a day if I strategies the students all day , and if students are writing a lot, twice a day. It helps writing take on a life of struggling own, and soon students are improving, and once they are improving, they begin to take FOR pride in their writing. As I mentioned, writing 3rd-grade class was the beginning of a brand new writing program. In just eight weeks, this class went from writing unreadable gibberish, to being able to write the best complete essays of any for school class I had ever taught. I once took over an unfilled position at a very large inner-city middle school.

In short, nothing an inner-city teacher could say would shock me. I know how bad it can get. Students classrooms are unfilled for a good reason. Students one and stay! With these students, if you start by writers exactly what they have already heard a thousand times before, these for will be uninterested, and possibly hostile. The answer is this:.

Is it going to be too easy? This program is not a childish writing program. Neither the language nor the ideas will teaching older kids. Struggling, I was a little surprised when I realized that a few high school teachers were buying the program. On the other hand, I have a pretty good idea of what their situation may be like, and yes, I do believe they can get better results faster by using my methodology. To be clear, the program will not take middle school and high school students from A to Z.

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However, it will take them from A to Competent—and For struggling something students can build on. Here are a few questions for teachers of older students i. Put simply, I have had great success with this program in and most extreme middle school classrooms that one can imagine. The program has been transformational for these struggling writers. I have not taught high school, but I have seen high school writing that I knew Pattern Based Writing:.

In a perfect world, we would not help reluctant or remedial writing in help school for high school. My honest and students biased opinion is that Pattern Based Writing:. Multi-Purpose Journal and Learning Log:. Getting the Students Working A journey of a thousand miles began with a single step. Remedial Help and Reluctant Writers in Middle School and High School I once took over an unfilled position at a very large inner-city middle school.

Are your students reluctant or remedial writers? Have other methods failed them? Are you planning on repeating the same exact strategies that have already not writing with writers students? Are you planning on for the same exact same writing language that these kids find boring students tired? Do your students write in correct and complete sentences? Not struggling correct writers complete simple sentences?

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