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Writing Skill
Definition:
"Writing" is the process of using symbols (letters of
the alphabet,
punctuation and spaces) to
communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable
form.
To write clearly it is essential to understand the
basic system of a language. In English this includes
knowledge of grammar, punctuation and sentence
structure. Vocabulary is also necessary, as is
correct spelling and formatting.
The exercises have been devised to motivate the
students to use and
improve their writing skills.
Most of them are done as pair work or group work,
which facilitates communication between the
students. The exercises usually consist of two or
three parts, so that they are not
too long and
boring.
The students must do the first part well in order to
accomplish the second. Most important of all, they
require the
students to exercise imagination.
The exercises require the students to
establish
relationships between concepts, ideas, and words
outside of normal use, which forces them to review
their primary use.
This is a further semantic step. All these reasons
can be summed up in one: the
exercises are an
imaginative approach to teaching varieties of
writing.
Writing Skill:
Writing is the fourth language skill we may acquire
in
our native language. As with speaking, it is a
productive, or active
skill, as it requires us to use
our hands and our brains to produce the
written
symbols that represent our spoken language.
Along with reading,
it is one of the two artificial
language skills, as not all natural
spoken
languages have a writing system:
Stages of writing:
1-Planning.
2-Drafting.
3-Editing.
4-Revising.
5-Proofreading.
(Output productive critical skill)
Goal:
Learners use drafts to introduce, describe,
compare, contrast and conclude topics. They
write a
paragraphs, stories, letters, e-mails,
postcards, Faxes.
Strategy:
1-Pre-writing
Pre-writing tasks review and build students'
knowledge of relevant vocabulary, relevant grammar
points and, most importantly, students'
background
knowledge, since that is what really generates
thoughtful and interesting written work
In groups, learners study the title, pictures or
the
situation to discover the purpose of the writing task.
2-During writing:
1-I give prompts, chunks.
2-Learners plan and set the central idea in a draft.
3-They write the starting sentence.
4-They
develop the idea through transitional
expressions.
5-They transit to another idea.
6-They organize information.
7-They conclude the topic.
8-They feedback grammar,punctuation and spelling.
5-They Rewrite the subject.
3-Post writing extension:
3 groups present their writings.
The fourth group evaluate each work pf the other 3
groups.I monitor, guide, check and encourage.
How to Teach Play-writing to Beginners
First, introduce students to the two most important elements
of a
play: plot and characters. Discuss why these elements
are important and how they can be clearly communicated to
the audience.
Next, instruct students to brainstorm the kinds of issues
they might like to write about. Mind-mapping, free-writing,
or group discussion can all be
productive instructional
methods for coming up with creative and
engaging ideas.
Once students know what they want to write about, with
teacher support, they can start to develop the plot and
characters of
their plays.
After outlining, it can be intimidating to start the writing
process.
It can be helpful to allow students to warm up with
smaller play-writing
exercises before they begin writing their
full plays, especially if they do not have much creative
writing experience.
To prepare for
dialogue writing, encourage students to
listen to the conversations that
happen around them every
day. Perhaps students could be assigned to
write down a
handful of interesting sentences they overhear over the
course of a day or two.
Then, talk about what makes those fragments of
dialogue
interesting or exciting. Did one of the speakers use
unexpected word choice or unique syntax? Do they speak
in long, descriptive
sentences or short, surprising
fragments?
After this, students can work
up to writing a page or two of
practice dialogue between two characters
in the plays they
plan to write. Be sure to explain the conventions of dialogue
writing ahead of time to alleviate any unnecessary stress.
As students become
more comfortable with writing dialogue,
instruct them to work up to
longer chunks of text by assigning
them to write a monologue from the
perspective of their
plays’ protagonists. Neither the dialogue assignment nor
this monologue need appear in the final product of the
play.
These are just ways to practice a new style of writing. Stage
directions can be practiced in a similar way.
Ask your students to pick
two or three characters from their
plays and write a one-page scene in
which those characters
interact without speaking.
Encourage your
students to think outside of the box about
what can happen physically on stage. For a short mentor
text of a scene without dialogue.
This scene is a great example of how a writer can tell an
interesting
story without using any spoken lines. Ask your
students to identify what
makes the actions in this piece so
engaging and to discuss how the play would be different if
the actor were assigned dialogue.
Now, your students are ready to begin writing their plays. It
may be
helpful to give a brief overview of how play scripts
are formatted beforehand.
Once students have completed a first draft of their plays,
they are ready to participate in a play-writing workshop. In
the next post in this series, I will explain the benefits of a
play-writing workshop and provide guidance on teaching
using this method.
Feedback
There are other ways of teaching writing like the
following:
1-The teacher can ask learners to write a story ending
with so and so....
Ex: ( ............and this was the end of the thief.).
(.......and this was the end of the film, play, match.)
2-The teacher can ask learners to write a
composition about :
What would you do if you were a ..........................
3-In a novel lesson, the learners can change
the events into pictures and write under each picture
the main sentence about its event.
4- Students can write about their daily routine they do
every day.
5- Learners can analyze any topic or story through
using expressions of sequence like:
First....,secondly,.....,Next,.....,Later,.............,
Then,.....Finally,..................At the end, .......
6-An actual example I saw: In an English school,
I saw the British teacher
drawing the letters of the
word " Christmas ' in the form of a circle on
the
carpet on the ground.
Learners were asked to write verses from the
Holy
Book about the birth of the lord Jesus that begin with
each letter of the word Christmas. What was that?
It was writing through composing and critical thinking.
2-Writing sub-skills
The learner must:
Know
the orthography and the writing system of the
second language.
Use
appropriate word order.
Use
good standard grammar
Know
how to express a particular meaning using
different grammatical forms.
Benefit
from the use of synonyms, antonyms, and
other literary devices.
Use
cohesive devices.
Use
writing conventions.
Use
writing strategies such as writing drafts or
asking for peer correction.
Be
able to structure a text into paragraphs and
use devices such as thesis
statement.
Be
able to write purposefully and meaningfully.
Be able to produce writing at efficient rate,
especially during examinations.
know organizational and editing skills in writing.
3-Writing Activities
1-Writing a letter, a letter reply, fax or an e mail.
2-Writing a paragraph.
3-Writing a story.
4-Writing a lingo text or a mobile text"SMS".
5- Writing an essay or a report.
5-Fill in the spaces or fill in the schedule.
6-Read and do an outline as a kind of synthesis.
7-Write the similes and differences between so and
so as a kind of analysis.
8-Imagine and write the missing parts.
9-Write a feedback or a closure.
A Point of view story?
It is a
matter of choice:
So how do you choose among first person, close
third person, and distant third?
Your choice will
depend on the total effect you want your story to
have.
Some guidelines:
If you want to write the entire story in individual,
quirky language, choose first person.
If you want
your POV character to indulge in
lengthy ruminations, choose first person.
If you want
your reader to feel high identification
with your POV character, choose first
person or
close third.
If you want
to describe your character from the
outside as well as give her thoughts,
choose
either close or distant third person.
If you want
to intersperse the author’s opinions
with the character’s, choose distant third.
If you want low identification between reader and
character, perhaps because you’re going to make
a fool of your character, choose distant third.
