Writing Assignments
"Teachers often say that kids hate writing. But maybe what they hate is the kind of writing we make them do. You gotta admit, answering the questions at the end of the chapter isn't going to be the highlight of any teenager's weekend.
But when kids are done slogging through our assignments, look at what they are doing on their own!
They are doing more authoring than any young people in the history of the world. They are texting their friends on cell phones, writing and receiving instant messages, maintaining robust email correspondences, blogging, creating websites, updating their Facebook pages, publishing their poems or stories online, composing songs and lyrics with software like GarageBand, making and sharing video clips, hanging out in chat rooms, or joining threaded discussions.
Far from being writing adverse, today's students are the most writing-ready kids we have ever seen."
Harvey Daniels
Content-Area Writing: Every Teacher's Guide
Given student readiness to write, parents and teachers need:
- to provide engaging opportunities for creativity
- to offer mini-lessons explaining new strategies
- to develop innovative assignments
With the goal of creating rewarding writing experiences, the ideas contained within this section are offered as a starting place. Enjoy browsing the assignments and mini-lessons, implementing ones that enrich your classroom. These are not presented as curriculum specifically, but could be used to supplement your current writing curriculum or in developing your own approach to teaching writing.
