Teaching writing in the middle school classroom

Participants in this course will explore how to teach their students about the traits of good writing through mini-lessons and writing workshops and how to use established criteria to evaluate writing.

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Course description

All students have the capacity to be good writers, and writers learn to write by writing. These are the basic tenets of this workshop, during which participants will learn instructional strategies to teach students in the upper elementary grades how to write narrative and informational text.

Participants will explore how to teach their students about the traits of good writing through mini-lessons and writing workshops and how to use established criteria to evaluate writing. Participants will also recognize that writing is a process and consider how to organize instruction to guide students through the stages of that process. This course will take participants through the instructional cycle, from writing prompt to revision as they create their final projects.

Course objectives

This course will enable participants to:

• understand the classroom implications of several NCTE standards pertinent for middle school writing.
• explore new ways to motivate students and teachers to write.
• familiarize themselves with two common middle school essay styles--informative and persuasive--and learn new ways of teaching them.
• examine their own writing processes.
• revisit the writing workshop, including pre-, during-, and post-writing, through the lens of motivational strategies.
• utilize technology writing resources when appropriate.
• discover evaluation techniques that will promote writing as a continual process.

Course information

Audience

This course is appropriate for writing teachers in middle school classrooms.

Time commitment

Approximately 2-5 hours per week

Duration

Six weeks

Credits

2.0 CEUs