"When students are actively reading and applying multiple reading strategies as they read, they are able to understand the text at a deeper level."
Get Off to a Great Start in Writing Class in 2024! Here are 6 Efficient Ways to Improve Student Writing
View the improvement of students’ writing as your responsibility.
Teaching writing is not only the job of the English department alone. Writing is an essential tool for learning a discipline and helping students improve their writing skills is a responsibility for all faculty.Let students know that you value good writing.
Stress the importance of clear, thoughtful writing. Faculty who tell students that good writing will be rewarded and poor writing will be penalized receive better essays than instructors who don't make such demands. In the syllabus, on the first day, and throughout the term, remind students that they must make their best effort in expressing themselves on paper. Back up your statements with comments on early assignments that show you really mean it, and your students will respond.Regularly assign brief writing exercises in your classes.
To vary the pace of a lecture course, ask students to write a few minutes during class. Some mixture of in-class writing, outside writing assignments, and exams with open-ended questions will give students the practice they need to improve their skills.Provide guidance throughout the writing process.
After you have made the assignment, discuss the value of outlines and notes, explain how to select and narrow a topic, and critique the first draft, define plagiarism as well.Don't feel as though you have to read and grade every piece of your students' writing.
Ask students to analyze each other's work during class, or ask them to critique their work in small groups. Students will learn that they are writing in order to think more clearly, not obtain a grade. Keep in mind, you can collect students' papers and skim their work.Find other faculty members who are trying to use writing more effectively in their courses.
Pool ideas about ways in which writing can help students learn more about the subject matter. See if there is sufficient interest in your discipline to warrant drawing up guidelines. Students welcome handouts that give them specific instructions on how to write papers for a particular course or in a particular subject area.
More Great Ideas to Use This Year
Prodigy English
Power student imagination! Students can create a custom-built world through reading and language practice. Every correct answer gives them more energy to gather supplies and build up their village.
Reading/Writing Goals
Create a class goal. Have students create individual goals. What is the "buy-in" for students to achieve their goals? Come up with an idea, have it on chart paper up on the wall, and constantly remind students what they are working towards.
Auction
Give students a certain amount of "points." They then can receive questions on the board or verbally. Students make bids on the right answer. When they get it right they double their points and when it is incorrect they lose their bid. Works with any multiple-choice questions.
The SQ3R Reading Technique
This reading technique involves five different steps, each one with the goal to get you closer to full comprehension of the text.
Survey: First survey the piece to get a quick idea of the content and structure of the reading. By doing this, you are preparing your mind.
Question: Prepare questions for yourself to go over as you read the material. One trick on how to create questions is to turn paragraph titles into questions. For example, a title such as “Women in the Civil War,” could turn into the question: “Who were the women in the civil war, what did they do, and when?”
Read: Read with your questions in mind. In this step, you can combine other reading techniques that may work for you such as scanning or active reading.
Recite: Now it is time to go back and answer those questions you created. Make sure what you read makes sense, and that you understand how it answers your questions.
Review: Make mental notes or say aloud what you have learned. Try doing so without looking at your notes or the text to check what you have or have not retained.
