Teaching learn Writing for Children
Introduction
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through
the use of a set of signs or symbols (known as a writing system). It is
distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and
non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as
magnetic tape audio. Writing most likely began as a consequence of
political expansion in ancient cultures, which needed reliable means for
transmitting information, maintaining financial accounts, keeping
historical records, and similar activities. Around the 4th millennium
BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of
memory, [citation needed] and writing became a more dependable method of
recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. In both
Ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica writing may have evolved through
calendrics and a political necessity for recording historical and
environmental events.
Writing, more particularly, refers to two things: writing as a noun, the
thing that is written; and writing as a verb, which designates the
activity of writing. It refers to the inscription of characters on a
medium, thereby forming words, and larger units of language, known as
texts. It also refers to the creation of meaning and the information
thereby generated. In that regard, linguistics (and related sciences)
distinguishes between the written language and the spoken language. The
significance of the medium by which meaning and information is conveyed
is indicated by the distinction made in the arts and sciences. For
example, while public speaking and poetry reading are both types of
speech, the former is governed by the rules of rhetoric and the latter
by poetics.
A person who composes a message or story in the form of text is
generally known as a writer or an author. However, more specific
designations exist which are dictated by the particular nature of the
text such as that of poet, essayist, novelist, playwright, journalist,
and more.
A translator is a specialized multilingual writer who must fully
understand a message written by somebody else in one language; the
translator's job is to produce a document of faithfully equivalent
message in a completely different language. A person who transcribes or
produces text to deliver a message authored by another person is known
as a scribe, typist or typesetter. A person who produces text with
emphasis on the aesthetics of glyphs is known as a calligrapher or
graphic designer.
Writing is also a distinctly human activity. Such writing has been
speculatively designated as coincidental. At this point in time, the
only confirmed writing in existence is of human origin
I. How to Teach Creative Writing to Children
Creative writing involves more than putting words together to form
sentences. A good writer carefully selects words, plans the storyline,
develops strong characters and revises and edits his or her work. Teach
creative writing with the use of the Six Traits, peer conferences,
prompts, mini-lessons and graphic organizers.
a) Start with the Six Traits of Writing: Ideas, Organization, Voice,
Word Choice, Sentence Fluency and Conventions. These six traits provide a
way to assess students' writing. When students understand the traits,
they know what is expected of their writing. Using and teaching the
traits gives you a way to provide specific feedback about each student's
skills and needs. Begin each class with an engaging prompt. These
prompts could be used for short stories, journaling or oral stories.
Vary the types of prompts. You could use famous quotes, paintings,
photographs, comic strips, passages from novels, poems, story starters
or anything else students might relate to.
b) Teach students how to hold peer conferences with each other. During
these evaluations, students read each other's writing and give feedback.
Model or script an effective, valuable conference for the class to see.
Vary how the partners or groups are organized; choose a friend,
teacher's choice, student to the left, etc. Give students a sheet of
questions to ask each other and turn in for a grade or credit. Questions
could include: What is your favorite part of this story? Is there
anything that is confusing to you, if so what?
c) Demonstrate how to do a story or character graphic organizer.
Students use these to plan out their ideas, characters, plot, main idea
and direction of the story before writing. These graphic organizers take
brainstorming a step further. They begin to take their ideas and
develop them.
d) Show students how valuable the writing process is by giving multiple
opportunities to edit and revise their work. He becomes a better critic
of his own writing and progressively incorporates those critical
insights into his own drafting and revising processes when writing
outside of the classroom."
e) Teach mini-lessons at the beginning of each lesson. Focus the lessons
on a small topic like using adjectives to replace the word "good."
Teach other mini-lessons about strong verbs, fragments and run-on
sentences, figurative language and good leads and conclusions.
II. The Material when teaching Writing for children
Teaching creative writing to children is fun and rewarding. Kids
naturally love to hear stories read to them. As parents many times our
children fall to sleep while being read to. Teachers can build a
stimulating creative writing program in the classroom by giving the
children a desire to write. Here are 5 steps to start a creative writing
program.
a) Small beginnings. Start out by finding common topics to the children
in the room. Parents, grandparents and pets are usually good examples.
Have the students write 5 sentences about the topic. These can fictional
and in story form.
b) Dictation. You can get a tape recorder and one by one let the
students dictate a story to you. You might find it easier to do without a
tape recorder if you can write or type fast enough. On another day you
or the child can read the story out loud to the class. This helps the
students start to make a connection with hearing stories and making them
up.
c) Word processor. Kids take to computers very quickly and most of your
students are probably already familiar with them. If possible have them
start typing their stories on a computer as soon as possible. Using a
word processor is much easier than writing by hand and so the writing
will be easier. At first do not be too concerned with grammar,
punctuation and spelling. After awhile you can gradually start showing
the students how to make capital letters and use some of the grammar and
spelling tools offered in most word processors.
d) Idea box. Bring a small box to class and tell the students that this
box is only for ideas for stories. Let them know that others in the
class will also have access to their story ideas so they may also want
their own "idea boxes."
e) Characters. Help the children come up with interesting characters in
their writing. Show them stories from authors who are strong on
character development. Make the main character likable. An author I like
is Louis L'Amour. All of his main characters have high moral values and
make honest choices. Of course they get the girl and are expert at
everything they do.
Teaching creative writing to children can seem overwhelming at first but
when taken in small steps it is not as challenging. Start with basic
stories and then work the kids through ideas then into character
development. There is other more advanced steps like plot development,
editing and publishing but this will get these suggestions will help
them get started.
III. The Problems of teaching Writing for children
Sometimes the reason children dislike writing isn’t about penmanship.
And the problem for teachers is most kids at an early age just don’t
like to write. How excited can you be when you know your entire class is
going to dislike the assignment? There are a variety of reasons kids
don’t write well. Perhaps we should clarify that statement because
writing well and writing legibly are different things. Writing well is.
.. Well . . . not easy. Writing legibly – that’s just takes time and
patience.
Written language is a highly complex form of communication. It is both
skill and a means of self expression. It integrates visual, motor and
conceptual abilities and is a major means through which student’s
demonstrate their knowledge of advanced academic subjects. The writing
skill includes competence in writing, spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization, and studying, making sound –letter correspondences
knowing the alphabet and distinguishing one letter from another. In
schools, the writing skill usually begins in kindergarten or first
grade. Written expression reflects a person’s level of comprehension,
concept development, and abstraction. It is how we organize our ideas to
convey a point. Written expression requires skills in three major areas
such as handwriting, misspelling, grammatical inaccuracies, and r
organization can make it difficult for a reader to understand the
meaning of a written piece. Thus, and effective writers are skilled
enough in these three major areas of written expression to communicate
with minimal misunderstanding.
Among the three major areas of written expression, hand writing is a
tool skill to improve the writing ablity. Most of the learning disabled
children may have problem with their handwriting. Problem with
handwriting are known as ‘dysgraphia’, which refers to partial ability
(or inability) to remember how to make certain alphabet or arithmetic
symbols (Cicci, 1983) Handwriting problems include misformation of
letters, poor spacing both vertically and horizontally, and extremely
slow writing .everyone occasionally produces some illegible letters, but
some children do so frequently enough that understanding what they have
written is difficult. In such cases, handwriting would be considered a
problem. Also, most children write quite slowly when they are first
learning to print or write is cursive. Slow handwriting should be
considered a problem, since a child’s writing speed interferes with his
/her work.
Although children make many different mistakes in handwriting, most of
their mistakes are made on a very few letters. Anderson, (1968) observed
that the letters on which errors are most common are a,e.r and t.
Children with disabilities may form these letters or connecting strokes
in correctly, and as a result the letters look like other letters. For
example, if a cursive‘d’ is misformed in one way, it looks like cl. All
of these problems may interfere with other aspects of writing
performance.
The learning disabled students are deficient in writing skills. Moran
(1981) found that learning disabled and low achieving children in
primary schools are performed similarly on formal features of writing;
however, the low achievers made fewer spelling errors. Smith (1981)
notes that learning disabled children need direct, concentrated
instruction to become proficient in written communication. Hence,
writing problems of the children have to be considered by the teachers
as well as parents, since the writing problem‘s affect their Learning
process and academic achievements.
IV. The exercises of teaching Writing or children
Students may be stalled by other language arts skills, such as
vocabulary, penmanship, spelling, or grammar. Sometimes holding a pencil
is difficult or actually hurts. These types of skills often get
confused with learning to write fiction, non-fiction reports, and
creative writing. All the other lessons are important to learn as well,
but perhaps at a different time. Kids may learn to like storytelling,
character development, and inventing plots with a little encouragement.
Here are 5 easy games to teach non-writers to think like writers. Try them with potential writers and get the ideas flowing.
Play a Story-Go-Round Game to Learn Language Plot Skills
Play this little game with two or more players.
1. Improve Teaching Skills Earn a Degree or Masters in Education Leadership at Macquarie
One player starts a story with one sentence. The next adds another
sentence. The story keeps building until everyone is laughing
hysterically or the story comes to an end.
For example:
(1st Person) "Once upon a time a lion was walking along and saw a banana."
(2nd Person) "A monkey was about to leap to grab it, but the lion decided he wanted it more."
Read on:
* Writer Synonyms for the Word Said
* Homeschooling with Thematic Units
* Holiday Writing & Drama for Kids
(3rd Person) "All at once, they both jumped and conked heads" and so on.
What happens next? Anything!
2. Improvisation and Skits for Theater Arts Fun to Teach Dialog, Plot, and Characters
Putting on impromptu skits encourages creative thinking in a fun way.
This is a common theater arts game. Pick two characters and an item or
situation (for instance, a clown, a grumpy man, and a bucket). The kids
make up the (imaginary) setting and the dialog and act out a scene. More
characters may be added for more students.
3. Read an Unfamiliar Book Aloud to teach Storytelling Skills
Stop at some point and see what the student(s) think might happen next. Encourage thinking up logical and crazy ideas, alike.
4. Make Cool Journals or Blank Books to Encourage Writing
Offer lots of types of paper, stickers, glue, or whatever there is at
hand. Having a special book made all on their own may encourage a child
to write, draw, or use their imagination in their creative way.
5. Play a Character Inventing Game To Learn Character Skills
This will work with any number of students.
The first person gives the person a trait ("He's a boy.") and each
student or turn adds another description ("He has purple hair.") ("He
rarely talks to anyone.")... Keep going for a while until a character
develops. For extra fun, have each child draw what he or she thinks the
character looks like.
For more ideas, see Synonyms for the Word "Said", Teach Writing without Handwriting and Getting Kids Writing Published.
There are many ways to use writing ideas with no writing to help jog
story ideas, invent characters for stories, and make up settings where
wonderful imaginary things can happen. One just needs to set down the
pencil for a few moments and let the mind go free.
Newspaper Story - A great way to get your kids writing is to make use of your daily newspaper.
• Find a newspaper article or magazine article that may be of interest
to your children. Get them to write more about the characters of the
article. What happened to them? What did they do afterwards?
• Or try the same thing just using headlines cut from the newspaper.
Cut out some headlines and stick them at the top of blank (or lined)
sheets of paper. Keep an eye out for really funny headlines that you
think the kids will like.
Ask the children to write a story to go with the headline. And don’t forget that all good newspapers need pictures too!
• Cut photographs of people from magazines and ask the children to pick two or three of them.
• Write about who the people are, what their lives are like, and how
they might know each other. It would also be fun to place the pictures
of people in a geographic location and ask the children to write about
what they are doing there.
• A variation on this theme would be to go out to a park or cafe and do
some people watching. Pick some people and make quick notes about them -
how did they look, what were they wearing. Then write a story about
them when you get home.
• Comic Books - these are fun to write (remember to let them read lots
of comics as research!). There are several online programs for making
comic books.
Conclusion
Through my teaching and my informal research, I discovered that the
children were more interested and enthusiastic about participating in
writing activities that involved dramatizing or writings that would go
home.
Throughout my student teaching, I tried to support the children’s
individual efforts to learn. I provided them answers to their questions
about print, while providing them with paper and writing materials.
Offering a print-rich environment filled with books and different kinds
of writing were a goal of mine throughout the focus on the children.
Since parent involvement is an important approach to language and
literacy, I also tried to promote parent support of literacy within the
home during the parent teacher conferences. I explained that using
reading and writing materials at home, in addition to school, will
encourage their children to write at home. Having both environments show
33 the children the value of reading and writing and will reinforces
literacy development. When we provide appropriate writing resources and
tools for writing, children will progress in their understanding and
excitement about literacy learning.
I hope to be able to use what I have learned from this experience and my
review of the research in my own classroom one day. I hope to be able
to share, with other teachers and those in the educational field, the
importance of bringing writing into the classroom at a young age. I hope
others will discover how young children can successfully accomplish
this task.
Start a writing club to join together students who already enjoy
writing. Don't limit it to "good" writers; open it up to anyone who
wants to join. Let students choose their topics on some assignments.
Some students may be discouraged or frustrated if they are always told
what to write.
Bibliography
Anderrson, D.W. (1968).Teaching Handwriting.Wasington, DC: National Education Association.
Cicci, R (1983).disorders of written Language. In H.r.Myklebust(Ed),
progress in learning disabilities (Vol.5, Pp.207-232), Newyork:
Grune&Stratton.
Durkin, D. (1966). Children who read early. New York: Teachers College Press
Freppon, P. (1995). Low-income children’s literacy interpretation in a
skills-based and whole Language classroom. Journal of Reading Behavior,
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