Middle School writers need support and guidance as they learn and practice their craft.
As students move from elementary to middle school, writing becomes an important focus of the English classroom. As middle school students practice writing narratives, persuasive and informative essays and other types of basic writing assignments, they are learning important lessons about writing that will often stay with them throughout their lives.
Instructions
1. Maintain consistent guidelines and expectations, both for writing behavior and for assignments. These directives range from "Write quietly without speaking to neighbors" to "Describe all characters with at least three sentences." Harry Wong, author of "The First Days of School," suggests displaying a list of classroom and assignment procedures clearly. These postings act as a constant reminder of your expectations that can be quickly and completely internalized by your students.
2. Communicate regularly with parents, guardians and administrators about your students' writing. Often, middle school students are subject to mood swings as they develop through puberty. Speaking with parents, other teachers and administrators not only will allow you all to identify behavior trends in a specific student, it also will provide each of you with a support network for sharing suggestions and ideas about best educate and assist that child.
3. Teach curricular and extra-curricular lessons. For example, if you've assigned an essay for English class, include mini-lessons that focus on planning, preparation and scheduling. In most cases, these extra-curricular skills, which are so necessary for writing success, are never explicitly described or practiced in a controlled writing workshop setting. Doing so while a student is in middle school not only will allow her to make the most of her writing experience in middle grade years, but also will help him in high school and beyond.
4. Maintain diligent records of your students' work and require your students to do the same for their own work. These records include multiple copies of students' rough and final drafts, as well as students' notes and outlines. While this really is a must for all teachers, Wong believes it especially important for middle school writing teachers, as middle school students tend to resort to defensive posturing if they get a bad grade. While a high school student likely will acknowledge responsibility when he or she receives a low grade on a writing assignment, middle school students tend to search for a scapegoat for their bad marks. Often they blame the teacher for losing the assignment, grading it incorrectly or even of being biased. Diligent records will allow you to easily deflect these baseless accusations.
5. Display compassion. As noted previously, middle school students tend to struggle through their developing years. As Jerry L. Parks notes in "Teacher Under Construction," often middle school students search for positive reinforcement and support from figures of authority, be they parents, administrators, coaches or teachers. As a writing teacher, by providing this support, you can generate a close-knit relationship that will allow a student to feel comfortable during the entire writing process.
6. Focus on grammar and mechanics last. Often, writing teachers overemphasize the importance of grammatical and mechanical concerns too early in the writing process. This tends to stymie young writers' ability to generate and expand on ideas, as they become overly concerned with the technical elements of their composition.
7. Employ multiple reviews, revisions and resubmissions. A nasty habit that tends to develop early for writers and stick throughout their entire writing career is the idea that upon completing the first draft of a project, he has completed the project in its entirety. By stressing the entire writing process, particularly the later stages of the process that focus on revision, you can dissuade your middle school students from ever developing the "one-and-done" attitude.
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