DWashington

Craft Lessons (pages 92-104)

In  this section, the authors discuss various strategies to help make our student's writing "connect with their lives." The authors explain the best teacher of writing is"writing." One way my students could improve their writing is by reading pieces by writers who have experienced situations similar to their environment and activities. It is important that our students not only write in a "general" way, but also that they use strategies to help them "dig beneath the surface," thus bringing their writing "alive." Some of these strategies include teaching students how to "show it, not tell it," use of setting, flashbacks into a character's past, irony, and "writing through a mask"( "I am a gray dolphin" or "I am an acrobat"). Teaching my students to build up to a moment of suspense and tension can also be a valuable strategy in "grabbing" a reader's attention. Sometimes the thought of writing a story or paragraph can be overwhelming to my resource students. If they keep these basic strategies and questions in mind, it will give them a good starting point, and help them learn to develop an interesting, informative piece of writing. They might even learn to "like" to write!