In the past I used to focus on teaching various forms of writing that I was told were important to teach (letter writing, procedural writing, recounts etc.). I never quite understood why I was supposed to spend so much time on making sure all student’s writing would essentially look and sound basically the same. The students were bored and I was bored reading their writing! You can read more about that in my review post of the book, “No More I’m Done” (I’m a big fan of this book).
Writing isn’t meaningful unless it is meaningful to the author.
If they were unable to spell the words I asked them to write the sounds that they heard and draw a mini picture below to help them remember what the idea was. Many of them have referred to their idea webs already to help generate ideas.
We never follow the booklet in order, students choose which page they want to add ideas to depending on what they are interested in at the time, what page stands out to them etc. Some days they add one idea to the booklet, other days they fill a page or two.
Other things we include in our Fabulous Writing Ideas booklets are ideas for word substitutions (e.g., what other words can you use for ‘said’). We also make lists of topics for various forms of writing that they might be interested in writing about.
You can find this Ideas Trait booklet in my store by clicking here or on the image above.
How do you help your students to generate ideas for writing?
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