Writing and loving it

Some kids love to write others fight it with everything they can. What makes this difference? Some of the desire to, or lack of desire, to write comes from the feedback children receive on their writing. Topic also has a lot to do with wanting to write.

When I was teaching, I had students (this is high school)that never wrote more than a few sentences at one time. What happened to kids being given 15 minutes to write and they fill a page? One of the messages they conveyed to me is that, as the teacher, I was going to say it was all wrong anyways! STOP! What?

As an educator, we all want children to grow into young adults with competitive writing skills, those that will help them move forward in life among so many other bright and talented people from all over the world. That can happen but you can’t expect it to happen before they feel comfortable writing more than a few sentences. One of my main rules was this: Do Not Erase Anything! Only Add To It! This rule helped my students see that no matter what they wrote we could find some use for it in the finished project. Not only did this encourage students to write, they also loved to see how “adding on” makes it look like they are writing tons of material.

The other problem I faced was topic of writing. There was a semester where students were asked to complete a report for their Health/Life Skills class, on any relevant sickness or medical issue in current news. Of course most of them picked Marijuana and legalization, what it does to you, how there aren’t many long term studies, etc. The kids picked this topic because at the time it was the one topic, here in the US, that was big. But what about the kids who didn’t really have an opinion? I would tell them, if you get to pick the topic, pick something that you want to learn more about. Given this perspective, I used to also let students choose their own topics for most of the 1st quarter of a school year, just to get them to write about things they like. Give it a try….Write about something you are passionate about and the words flow like water!

Not everyone is going to love writing. I have even heard before that there are authors who don’t particularly like to write, but do so because they like to be a storyteller!

For the real young kids, have them pick out their favorite book, and they can copy the pages onto their own paper and maybe even make their own illustrations. Remember to let them know that all rights still go to the author since they are copying someone else’s work. It is never to early to teach copy write laws and plagiarism!

Finally, give kids a variety of options for writing. Writing can be letters to a best friend, a short story for a younger sibling or cousin, or a how-to book about their favorite cookies. https://www.writersbureau.com/writing/Types-of-writing-for-children.htm
https://www.udemy.com/blog/different-types-of-writing/
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-writing-develops