Improving Student Writing Skills - cse crafts

Improving Student Writing Skills
Be sure to ask peers/parents to underline misspelled
words, as you will then be able to ask the author to use
these words in creating Authentic Spelling lists (if you
choose to use this technique). One useful trick is to ask
students to use green pencils when revising and red pencils
when editing. If your students realize that by finding
misspellings, they are giving themselves Authentic
Spelling work, they may choose to overlook their mistakes—you
may need to give students a quota, asking
them to underline at least five to ten words. Even if a
word is spelled correctly, simply being unsure is enough
to warrant its inclusion on an Authentic Spelling list.
Once students have completed their own proofreading,
ask them to either trade papers with a classmate or to
use an adult editing partner. The peer/adult editor will
mark the draft in the same way as did the author. At the
end of proofreading, students should have a draft with
the exact words and organization that will be in their
published copy. It should be covered in red pencil with
notes and generally look like it’s been through the washing
machine, which in a way it has. Scrubbed clean of
errors and sparkling with style, your students’ writing is
ready for publishing.
Publishing
Like attention to conventions, the neatness and presentation
of a piece of writing will help ensure that readers
take it seriously. The next great American novel will
languish on the shelf if it isn’t presented in a way that
makes readers peek at the dust jacket. A business proposal
detailing the next revolution in nanotechnology
won’t be taken seriously if scrawled in pencil on the
back of a napkin. Granted, presentation has nothing to
do with content, but in the writing process, and to allow
students to use writing for their own purposes later in
life, they will need to learn how to present their work
appropriately.
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