Writing Reflection

Writing is a crucial part of the Ontario curriculum. More importantly, writing is an important part of everyday life. Whether we realize it or not, we do some form of writing everyday. Today, writing comes commonly in a sent email or text, a tweet or a Facebook post. Social media, in many ways, has changed writing in that society thrives on small blurbs or a 180 character tweet that gives us a snapshot on a topic. The art of being concise and to the point has never been more prevalent. Beyond just brief, writers have had to learn to hook an audience using less words then ever before. If you only have a person's attention for the first few lines, how will you get them engaged?

©Ferreira, D. 2012. Twitter Icon.
[online image]

The good news is social media and platforms like Twitter can be great resources for writers and for teaching writers. It can link you to resources or videos that can help forward a writers ability. The video above is a quick and easy video to help students learn a few tips on organizing your writing plans. As a teacher, using these resources is important because they are what my students may be most comfortable with! I put my ideas to the test when I went on Twitter and searched the hashtag #ntchat which stands for new teacher chat. This hashtag is for new teachers looking to find resources or ideas for their classrooms. From there I found a link to an awesome blog called The Edvocate where I read a blog post called 10 Tools To Help Your Students Write Better Essays. It is written by a guest poster and gives 10 great ways to help your students become better writers and get excited about writing.

An important focus in the Ontario curriculum for language is students being able to gather, organize and present information. In the blog post, the writer provides excellent resources that teachers can pass on to their students as they complete a writing assignment. One example is the website writing.com where writers can go when they need advice. Students could find this resource extremely valuable as they tackle a writing assignment and perhaps are struggling. Another tip is to use good sample writing (an exemplar) in order to get students excited about writing and demonstrate to them what good samples of writing can look like. 

Let's take, for example, an essay assignment. I remember being a student and feeling dread when this

©Grammar Girl. 2015. Essay [online image]

word came up in Language class. It did not excite me and I would have been far happier doing creative writing. All writing is important but we must ensure students have the skills and understanding to write everything from a tweet, to a creative story and yes, even write a formal essay! But writing an essay does not have to be scary! In fact, you can be creative and have fun with writing an essay. As mentioned in the blog post I read, you could show your students different college entry essays where students have to be formal and professional to prove a point while incorporating their personality. In this case, the message is, "let me in to your university/college because I'm really great and here's why!". Students can find inspiration in a good exemplar so it's an important tool for teachers to use. 

The biggest thing I took away from this resource was getting students engaged in their writing. The idea of writing an essay doesn’t get them excited. Encouraging them to enter a writing contest, giving them awesome resources and showing them excellent examples are just a few ways to get my students engaged. The curriculum also states that students should be encouraged to be creative. They need to see what a creative piece of writing can look like and this could be a great way of inspiring them. My goal, as a teacher, will be to show my students that their potential in writing is endless and hopefully I can inspire them to be creative and produce their own well written pieces of work. If I can do that then I have been successful.