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Practical Tips for Teaching Elementary Writing
By Francesca Barocio
A commonly shared belief among those with English and writing backgrounds is that writing cannot be taught. And so what’s the point of writing an article about teaching writing if it can’t be taught?
I am one who shares the belief that writing can’t be taught. But it can be learned.
I won’t expound on every grammatical worksheet exercise that improves a student’s command of the English language. The truth is, many students have a good command of the English language. In fact, there are many well-educated, articulate people who have mastered vocabulary and grammar, but cannot write a coherent or syntactically correct sentence.
When students at the mid-grade levels of elementary school gain a basic understanding of grammar, they have the essential tools to improve their writing skills. The development of children’s writing skills is tied directly to how much time they spend reading. These days children prefer to spend more time playing electronic games on the Internet, sending text messages, listening to MP3’s or watching DVD’s. Most children do not spend any time reading more than what’s required of them by school. And that is not enough.
This puts a teacher at a disadvantage in helping children develop their writing skills. Since there is only so much that they can do, they must use innovative instructional techniques to force students to write at the highest level they can.
The most predominant area of weakness with fourth or fifth grade writers is with the run- on sentence. The run-on sentence often has the words “and then” repeated to the point of critical mass. Ernest Hemingway often stuck by a self-imposed rule dictating that most ideas in a sentence can be expressed in seventeen words or less. (That was more than seventeen words so let’s try that again.) Ernest Hemingway thought almost all sentences could be expressed in seventeen words.
A run-on sentence leaves the reader no time to take a breath, and ideas tend to get lost in big blocks of text. When told to break up the run on sentences, students will often just end one sentence with a period and begin the next sentence with “Then”. This creates a lack of sentence variety that will tend to undermine the effectiveness of the writing. If a teacher were to require a student to prevent any sentence from exceeding seventeen words, the student would be forced to choose his or her words with much more thought and care.
This is not to say that no sentence can ever exceed seventeen words. If every sentence were the same length, it would make for some very dull writing. There should always be a variety in sentence length. An example of a sentence that exceeds seventeen words but is appropriate might be the following: Despite being the biggest person in his grade, Tom had trouble with the bullies who threatened him all day at school. That sentence is over seventeen words but it has been broken up by a comma, which gives the reader a chance to pause. Many fifty word sentences can read smoothly as long as they never have more than seventeen words without a comma. Naturally a teacher must also emphasize that a student not limit all sentences to five or six words, or else reading it aloud could possibly cause physical cringing.
Another technique to suggest to students is that they refrain from starting every sentence with the same word. It is important to get into the habit of creating sentence variety early in an academic career.
These guidelines mentioned above are simple tips that force students to start thinking about what they write. A student forced to limit his or her words in a sentence can eliminate redundancy. This doesn’t mean a child will be churning out beautifully crafted sentences within a week, but it does provide one with the tools to sharpen one’s skills.
Oftentimes, restrictions on how students can write force their minds to get creative and think in new directions. A thirty word sentence suddenly cut down to seventeen will be devoid of too many prepositional phrases, which weaken a sentence. Such restrictions make students train their minds to be more concise and dig harder for better word choices. Ninety-five percent of good writing happens in the mind; the rest is the physical act of typing or writing out the words. Writers work hard to create shorter sentences. Good writers know that brevity is the soul of wit.
One last tip to help student writers improve is for them to read their work aloud. If they stumble over their own prose, then they should be told they must revise. Even better is for someone else (even a fellow student) to read the work. What’s clear in the writer’s head isn’t always clear to the reader. This is a great way to teach students how to convey their meaning better. It teaches them how to ask themselves whether they are making their point clear. With practice, students can gain an ability to write more clearly and effectively.
Again, students’ writing ability will be the product of their own personal experiences. Spending ample time reading and writing will raise a student’s proficiency in writing. This helps develop the vocabulary and a voracious appetite for books. This works subconsciously to wire the brain’s thought process to produce words that flow smoothly and elegantly.
But one thing is important to consider: good writing does not come easily. Teachers must emphasize the importance of rewriting and rewriting. That is how a thirty word sentence gets whittled down to just seventeen. First the student writes what they want to say and then the next step is getting the words right. There are thousands of rules and stylistic guidelines to follow in writing, but for now it’s best to help a young student to stop writing the way they speak.
Not every person will want to write words that read like sheet music, but every person can write in a way that reflects their education level.
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Francesca Barocio (M.S.) thrives in seeing students getting better grades. Very early in life she began to realize her life-long dream and destiny as an educator. She has been an educator and role-model for 10 years. She assumed her initial educator and role-modeling persona by helping her moonlighting parents raise and teach her 5 younger brothers and sisters during their after school hours and weekends.
In her first year as a student at UCLA, she served as a volunteer teacher for an after school community-service program for “at-risk” elementary school students. Here, she realized that teaching and learning truly belonged to everyone, regardless of his/her position in life. Francesca Barocio was formally recognized and named as one of the “top 1% of tutors” while teaching astronomy, anthropology, and political science for 3 years in the Athletic Tutorial Department and Academic Advancement Program at UCLA. She continued her streak for 2 more years in the Athletic Tutorial Department and University Tutorial Department at Michigan State University. While attending Michigan State University and University of California, Irvine as a M.S. and Ph.D. student, respectively, she also undertook responsibilities as sole-instructor and teaching assistant.
Read more about Francesca and her tutoring service, O-C Tutors at http://www.oc-tutor.com.
