With the inclusion of essays on high-stakes tests such as the SAT® and ACT®, as well as many state standards tests and high-school exit exams, the need to improve writing fluency has recently surfaced as a desired goal. Which approaches to writing fluency work best?
1. Teach students to read a variety of writing prompts. Expose students to different content area and writing domain prompts. For example, using social science, literature, and science content with informational, expository, analytical, and persuasive domains. Teach students to read the writing prompt twice-the first time for understanding and the second time to circle the subject and highlight key words.
2. Give students ample practice in turning writing prompts into effective essay topic sentences. "Thesis Turn-Arounds" can be a productive "opener" to any lesson in any subject area. For example, if the prompt reads "Analyze the causes of the Civil War," students could begin their theses with "Many causes contributed to the Civil War."
3. Give students practice in developing quick pre-writes to organize a multi-paragraph writing response. Teach a variety of graphic organizers and review how each is appropriate to different writing prompts.
4. Give students practice in writing introductory paragraphs after pre-writing. Give students practice in writing just one timed body paragraph to address one aspect of the essay after pre-writing.
5. Provide immediate individual feedback to students with brief writers conferences.
6. Use the overhead projector to use critique real student samples. Write along with students and have them critique your writing samples.
7. Teach how to pace various allotted essay times. For example, the SAT® essay is only 25 minutes. Most state tests allot 60 minutes. Brainstorm and allocate times before a full essay writing fluency for the following: analysis of the writing prompt, pre-write, draft, revisions, editing.
8. If a brief reading passage is part of the background for the writing task, teach students to annotate the passage with margin notes as they read.
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