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What Is Online Processing?
Online processing refers to a method of transaction where companies can use an interface, usually through the Internet, to take product orders and handle payments from customers. Online processing is very popular because it can increase the efficiency of a company’s sales operations and allow users to communicate with the online interface for their own needs.
Online processing can be very costly, however. If the system crashes, for instance, the downtime can cost companies their sales operation and greatly affect business.
Online processing is actually one of three processes that businesses can use, the other two being batch processing and real-time processing. Batch processing is when a certain number of jobs or tasks are processed by a computer program all at once instead of being handled individually. Batch processing is commonly used for producing utility bills, payroll statements and credit card processes.
Real-time processing is very similar to online processing, but it differentiates in that it uses sensors rather than human input in order to obtain and process its data. This type of processing is commonly used with control systems and can be very useful in that it operates without delays. This type of processing can be found on aircraft warning systems, guided missiles, burglar alarms and flood warning systems.
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The Writing Process
The Writing Process Explained
Understanding the writing process provides a student with a clear step-by-step procedure that they can follow. It means they can replicate the process no matter what type of nonfiction text they are being asked to produce.
In this article, we’ll take a look at a simple and powerful 5-part structure that will guide them from the prewriting stage right through to submitting their polished work.
While explaining each stage of the process in detail, we’ll suggest some activities you can use with your students to help them successfully complete each stage of the process.
THE STAGES OF THE WRITING PROCESS
The 5-step process is made up of the following stages:
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STAGE ONE: THE WRITING PROCESS
Get ready to write.
The prewriting stage covers anything the student does before they begin to draft their text. It includes a multitude of things such as thinking, brainstorming, discussing ideas with others, sketching outlines, gathering information through interviewing people, assessing data, and researching in the library and online.
The intention at the prewriting stage is to collect the raw material that will fuel the writing process. This involves the student doing 3 things:
- Understanding the conventions of the text type
- Gathering up facts, opinions, ideas, data, vocabulary, etc through research and discussion
- Organizing resources and planning out the writing process.
Before beginning the research and planning parts of the process, it’s important that the student takes some time to consider the demands of the text type or genre they are asked to write as this will influence how they research and plan.
PREWRITING TEACHING ACTIVITY
As with any of the stages in the writing process, students will benefit immensely from seeing the teacher modelling activities to support that stage.
In this activity, you can model your approach to the prewriting stage for students to emulate. Eventually, they will develop their own specific approach but, for now, having a clear model to follow will serve them well.
Starting with an essay title written in the center of the whiteboard, brainstorm ideas as a class and write these ideas branching from the title to create a mind map.
From there, you can help students identify areas for further research and help them to create graphic organizers to record their ideas.
Explain to the students that while idea generation is an important part of the prewriting stage, generating ideas is important throughout all the other stages of the writing process too.
STAGE TWO: THE WRITING PROCESS
Put your ideas on paper.
Drafting is when the student begins to corral the unruly fruits of the prewriting stage into orderly sentences and paragraphs.
When their writing is based on solid research and planning, this will be much easier for the student to manage. A poorly executed first stage can see pencils stuck at the starting line and persistent complaints of ‘writer’s block’ from the students.
However, do encourage your students not to get too attached to any ideas that they may have generated in Stage 1. Writing is thinking too and your students need to leave room for their creativity to express itself at all stages of the process.
The most important thing about this stage is for the student to keep moving. A text is written word-by-word, much as a bricklayer builds a wall by laying brick upon brick.
Instill in your students that they shouldn’t get too hung up on stuff like spelling and grammar in these early stages.
Likewise, they shouldn’t overthink things. The trick here is to get the ideas down fast – everything else can be polished up later.
DRAFTING TEACHING ACTIVITY
As mentioned in the previous activity, writing is a very complex process and modeling goes a long way to helping ensure our students’ success.
Sometimes our students do an excellent job in the prewriting stage with understanding the text purpose, the research, and the planning, only to fall flat when it comes to beginning to write an actual draft.
Often, students require some clear modeling by the teacher to help them transition effectively from Stage 1 to Stage 2.
One way to do this for your class is to take the sketches, notes, and ideas one of the students has produced in Stage 1, and use them to model writing a draft. This can be done as a whole class shared writing activity.
Doing this will help your students understand how to take their raw material and connect their ideas and transition between them in the form of an essay.
STAGE THREE: THE WRITING PROCESS
Polish your thinking.
In Stage 2, the emphasis for the student was on getting their ideas out quickly and onto the paper.
The focus for Stage 3 is to refine the work completed in Stage 2 with the reader now firmly at the forefront of the writer’s mind.
To revise, the student needs to cast a critical eye over their work and ask themselves questions like:
- Would a reader be able to read this text and make sense of it all?
- Have I included enough detail to help the reader clearly visualize my subject?
- Is my writing concise and as accurate as possible?
- Are my ideas supported by evidence and written in a convincing manner?
- Have I written in a way that is suitable for my intended audience?
- Is it written in an interesting way?
- Are the connections between ideas made explicit?
- Does it fulfill the criteria of the specific text type?
- Is the text organized effectively?
The questions above represent the primary areas students should focus on at this stage of the writing process.
Students shouldn’t slip over into editing/proofreading mode just yet. Let the more minor, surface-level imperfections wait until the next stage.
REVISING TEACHING ACTIVITY
When developing their understanding of the revising process, it can be extremely helpful for students to have a revision checklist to work from.
It’s also a great idea to develop the revision checklist as part of a discussion activity around what this stage of the writing process is about.
Things to look out for when revising include content, voice, general fluency, transitions, use of evidence, clarity and coherence, and word choice.
It can also be a good idea for students to partner up into pairs and go through each other’s work together. As the old saying goes, ‘two heads are better than one’ and, in the early days at least, this will help students to use each other as sounding boards when making decisions on the revision process.
STAGE FOUR: THE WRITING PROCESS
Check your writing.
Editing is not a different thing than writing, it is itself an essential part of the writing process.
During the editing stage, students should keep an eagle eye out for conventional mistakes such as double spacing between words, spelling errors, and grammar and punctuation mistakes.
While there are inbuilt spelling and grammar checkers in many of the most popular word processing programs, it is worth creating opportunities for students to practice their editing skills without the crutch of such technology on occasion.
Students should also take a last look over the conventions of the text type they are writing.
Are the relevant headings and subheadings in place? Are bold words and captions in the right place? Is there consistency across the fonts used? Have diagrams been labelled correctly?
Editing can be a demanding process. There are lots of moving parts in it, and it often helps students to break things down into smaller, more manageable chunks.
Focused edits allow the student the opportunity to have a separate read-through to edit for each of the different editing points.
For example, the first run-through might look at structural elements such as the specific structural conventions of the text type concerned. Subsequent run-throughs could look at capitalization, grammar, punctuation, the indenting of paragraphs, formatting, spelling, etc.
Sometimes students find it hard to gain the necessary perspective to edit their work well. They’re simply too close to it and it can be difficult for them to see what is on the paper rather than see what they think they have put down.
One good way to help students gain the necessary distance from their work is to have the student read their work out loud as they edit it.
Reading their work out loud forces the student to slow down the reading process and it forces them to pay more attention to what’s written on the page, rather than what’s in their head.
All this gives the student a little more valuable time to catch the mistakes and other flaws in their work.
WRITING CHECKLISTS FOR ALL TEXT TYPES
EDITING TEACHING ACTIVITY
Students must have a firm understanding of what they’re looking to correct in the editing process to edit effectively. One effective way to ensure this understanding is to have them compile an Editing Checklist for use when they’re engaged in the editing process.
The Editing Checklist can be compiled as a whole-class shared writing activity. The teacher can scribe the students’ suggestions for inclusion on the checklist onto the whiteboard. This can then be typed up and printed off by all the students.
A fun and productive use of the checklist is for the students to use it in ‘editing pairs’.
Each student is assigned an editing partner during the editing stage of a writing task. Each student goes through their partner’s, work using the checklist as a guide, and then gives feedback to the other partner. The partner, in turn, uses the feedback in the final edit of their work.
STAGE FIVE: THE WRITING PROCESS
Hand in your writing.
Now, it’s time for our students’ final part of the writing process. This is when they hand in their work to their teacher – aka you !
At this point, students should have one final reread of their work to ensure it’s as close to their intentions as possible, and then, finally, they can submit their work.
Giving the work over to an audience, whether that audience comes in the form of a teacher marking an assignment, publishing work in print or online, or making a presentation to classmates, can be daunting. It’s important that students learn to see the act of submitting their work as a positive thing.
Though this is the final stage of the writing process, students should be helped to see it for all it is. It is another step in the journey towards becoming a highly-skilled writer. It’s a further opportunity for the student to get valuable feedback on where their skills are currently at and a signpost to help them to improve their work in the future.
When the feedback comes, whether that’s in the form of teacher comments, grades, review, etc it should be absorbed by the student as a positive part of this improvement process.
Submitting Activity
This activity is as much for the teacher as it is for the student.
Sometimes, our students think of feedback as a passive thing. The teacher makes some comments either in writing or orally and the student listens and carries on largely as before. It’s crucial we help our students to recognize feedback as an opportunity for growth.
Feedback should be seen as a dialogue that helps our students to take control of their own learning.
For this to be the case, students need to engage with the feedback they’ve been given, to take constructive criticisms on board, and to use these as a springboard to take action.
One way to help students to do this lies in the way we format our feedback to our students. A useful format in this vein is the simple 2 Stars and a Wish . This format involves giving feedback that notes two specific areas of the work that the student did well and one that needs improvement. This area for improvement will provide a clear focus for the student to improve in the future. This principle of constructive criticism should inform all feedback.
It’s also helpful to encourage students to process detailed feedback by noting specific areas to focus on. This will give them some concrete targets to improve their writing in the future.
VIDEO TUTORIAL ON THE WRITING PROCESS
And there we have it. A straightforward and replicable process for our students to follow to complete almost any writing task.
But, of course, the real writing process is the ongoing one whereby our students improve their writing skills sentence-by-sentence and word-by-word over a whole lifetime.
OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO THE WRITING PROCESS
7 Evergreen Writing Activities for Elementary Students
Text Types and Different Styles of Writing: The Complete Guide
Top 5 Essay Writing Tips
7 ways to write great Characters and Settings | Story Elements
6 Simple Writing Lessons Students will love
The content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh. A former principal of an international school and English university lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane’s latest Book, The Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing , can be found here. Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.
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5 Seriously Fun Ways to Teach the Writing Process
The writing process —that is, the steps of pre-writing, drafting, revising, rewriting, and publishing—can be intimidating for students with limited literary experience. It’s an onslaught of new information, and on top of that, students may find it boring.
According to Read, Write, Think , however, that doesn’t diminish its importance: “Studies show that students who learn the writing process score better on state writing tests than those who receive only specific instruction in the skills assessed on the test. This type of authentic writing produces lifelong learners and allows students to apply their writing skills to all subjects.”
How would you teach the writing process to reluctant learners? Would you believe you can do so almost entirely with fun writing games?
Here are five fun ways to teach the writing process to even the most stubborn students.
#1: Play-Doh Creations
The colorful, squishy goop known as play-doh can be a powerful teaching tool. For this activity, geared towards pre-teens and teenagers, all you’ll need is a mini jar of play-doh and a pencil for each student in your class.
The assignment is simple: Each student needs to mold a functioning pencil holder out of the play-doh. By physical implementing the process of brainstorming, attempting, improving, finalizing, and publicly sharing their designs, you’ll also be imprinting the writing process through kinesthetic exposure.
Reading and Writing Haven has all the details if you want to attempt this activity. As a bonus, your students will all have both new writing skills and new pencil holders at the end.
#2: “Publish” Your Students
If students know their work will be shared, they’re much more motivated to polish their prose to perfection. That’s why Teach Hub advises “publishing” your students, which is one of many fun ways to teach the writing process.
There are multiple ways to “publish” student work. You could print and bind a “book” of your students’ writing. You could publish it in the school newspaper or design one just for your class. If you want to keep it simple, even hanging students’ writing on a bulletin board or in the hallway gives them reason to be proud of their work—and make it the best it can be.
#3: Become a Model
Luckily, becoming a writing model doesn’t necessitate high heels or a catwalk, though it’s still one of the most fun ways to teach the writing process. All you need is a projector and either a blank document or a rough draft.
“By modeling the process of writing you can demystify it in terms of sequence and nuance, and make it artistic and entirely personal–and less mechanical as a result,” Teach Thought says.
As you write or revise, talk through your writing process aloud so that students can follow along and take notes. Teach.com emphasizes the importance of providing multiple examples for each Trialnstrated technique, whether it’s as simple as correct punctuation or as complex as a prolonged metaphor.
Additionally, Teach Thought suggests talking through answers to questions like:
- “What are you thinking as you finish that introduction?
- “Why do you go back and fix some errors while you write, and not others?
- “How do you decide when to go to a new a paragraph?
- “How does the absence or presence of pre-writing impact the drafting?
- “How are you using your own uncertainty to affect a certain tone in your writing?
- “How do you keep an audience in mind as you write–how exactly?
- “As you sketch out your conclusion, how is the introduction and the body impacting its design–i.e., what is the relationship between your introduction, your body, and your conclusion?”
While you’re modeling, encourage students to take notes or fill in a pre-determined worksheet. This will cement the messages they’re learning firsthand into their long-term memory.
By teaching writing to students through Trialnstration instead of structural memorization, you’ll build deeper understanding than you could ever hope for otherwise.
#4: Play a Game
There’s an abundance of fun writing activities to be mined online. Literacy Ideas offers “Story Chains,” which encourages social creativity instead of solo, single-minded struggle.
To play “Story Chains,” write a prompt on the board and give each student 2 minutes to begin a story based on that prompt; then they pass their story along, allowing the next student to continue the story where they left off. The game ends when every student’s original story has traveled back to their desk, now complete with contributions from all of their classmates.
“This activity encourages students to see writing as a communicative and creative task where there needn’t be a ‘right’ answer,” Literacy Ideas says. “This encourages students to be more willing to take on creative risks in their work.”
Thoughtful Learning ’s contribution is equally zany. “ Diary of a Famous Figure ” tasks students with listing three famous people, real or fictional, that they particularly like—then writing a diary entry about a day in that person’s life, from first-person perspective.
Finally, Essay Catcher offers a visual element to writing games with “Photo Story/Memes.” Select intriguing photos from the Internet, and then encourage students to choose a photo and write a story incorporating the image. For a more gentle introduction to visual writing inspiration, download meme templates (or photos that could lend themselves to memes) and ask students to write appropriately creative captions.
#5: Use GraderAide to Make More Time for Activities
If you’re thinking, “These creative writing games sound like a great idea, but how will I find the time to grade everything?” then GraderAide is your solution.
Instead of painstakingly grading every assignment, you can simply upload them to the GraderAide software and receive recommended grades back in minutes. Grades are assigned at grade level based on focus, purpose, content, development, organization, and grammar. Best of all, you can tell GraderAide whether the assignment is informative, narrative, literary, or persuasive, allowing the program to adjust its grading accordingly.
With your schedule freed from grading, you’ll have time to implement these fun ways to teach the writing process. So what are you waiting for?
GraderAide is the most advanced scoring system for written assignments available to teachers. To learn more, visit www.graderaide.com .
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What is the writing process? The writing process is a way to promote successful writers. It provides steps for students to use when writing. Every writing program out there will stress the importance of encouraging students to use steps in a writing process. This post shares the steps I found useful and ideas that help students in my classroom become confident and successful in their writing. The ideas are ideal for any writing curriculum and are a part of a series of mini lessons for writer’s workshop designed for scaffolding through the writing process.
The writing process found on this post has six steps. (prewriting, rough draft, revising, editing, peer reflections, and final copy) Follow these steps with your students and see their writing improve! The following writing process posters are available in my store!
1. Prewriting: Brainstorming and Graphic Organizer
The first part of prewriting is brainstorming ideas. If there is not a prompt to follow, have students go back to their “Ideas” section in their interactive notebooks. Remember where we brainstormed ideas for our I, heart, hand, home, question mark in Lesson 1 ? This will get students thinking about a topic that is interesting to them. If there is a prompt to follow, tell students to think of as many ideas, plots, or ways they can use the prompt.
The second part of prewriting is using a graphic organizer. Whether it is a free writing paper or a prompt, students will need a graphic organizer that will work well for that type of writing. Click on the graphic organizers below for a free download!
2. Rough Draft
For this step, I tell my students to JUST WRITE! Don’t worry about spelling or anything else. Put your story together by writing writing writing! Get your thoughts down without distractions and deal with proper grammar or spelling later! I tell my kiddos to skip lines to have room to revise later. I love to model this step and make tons of mistakes (purposely) and my students want to correct all my mistakes. I tell them, “Let me write! I don’t want to lose my thoughts!” I also allow them to get comfortable, sit around the room, or find a place or seat that will help them enjoy writing.
3. D.A.R.E. to Revise
For the revising stage, I find it helpful to have students read their stories out loud! It is fun to have students record themselves reading their own stories and then go back and listen to it. I guarantee they will find fragments, run-ons, or words that just don’t make sense! What does DARE stand for? D stands for delete, A stands for add, R stands for rearrange, and E stands for exchange. In later mini lessons, I will go in more depth with each of the DARE to revise components. While revising, I require my students to use a different colored pen or pencil so I can see attempts to making their writing better. So many times these little cherubs think their rough draft is their best draft so I DARE them to revise!
4. C.U.P.S. to Edit
The next step is using CUPS for editing . It stands for Capitals, Usage, Punctuation, Spelling. I first review the rules for each of the CUPS so students know what to look for in their own writing. When my students are editing, I ask them to use a different colored pen or pencil. However, if they want to use multiple colors, I allow that as well. My philosophy is as long as they are editing and I can see their attempts, that is what matters! Don’t forget that National Punctuation Day is September 24th!!!
5. Peer Reflection
I like this step so students can get feedback from a peer. Supply each student with a reflection form or sticky notes and a writing checklist. Ask your students to take this step seriously and pretend they are a teacher or editor. Go over the checklist as you read the story. Remind students that they not only give advice on how to fix their peer’s paper, but also let them know the parts of the paper that ROCK! I like to use two positives and a wish. Tell two things you like about the paper and one wish to make it better. Students should not write on each other’s papers. Many students take such pride in their work and don’t want anyone else writing on it. This is where sticky notes are a blessing! After peer reflections, it is completely the writer’s decision on what they want to change OR not. This is their last chance to make their papers better!
6. Final Copy
Time to be neat! Depending on your instructions, students need to write final copies neatly. If they are handwritten, I ask them to sit a desk or table to help assure proper handwriting posture to optimize their final outcome. If it is a typed paper, it must also be neat and free from typos.
Click here for WRITING POSTERS . There are a few different versions of these posters. Notice in the picture below, I have clothespins. I have my students mark the step of writing they are on so I can quickly glance and see who may need help. I can’t take credit for this nifty idea- found it on Pinterest, but I do LOVE it!
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LAST LESSON: Writing Mini Lesson# 8- Table of Contents
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This lesson is also included in the STEP-BY-STEP WRITING ® Program with mini-lessons designed to scaffold through the writing process. Writing units included are sentence structure, paragraph writing, narrative writing, opinion writing, and informative writing. See what is included in the image below and click on it to learn more about them! You will turn your reluctant writers into ROCKSTAR WRITERS ™!
Excellent, comprehensive resource that has helped my students and me SO much! There’s NOTHING missing and it is very well planned and engaging! Thank you SO much, it has been a life-saver! -Angela Rutschke
Writing Mini Lesson #8- Table of Contents and Progress Grade for Notebooks
Christmas around the world web quest and more.
Implementing the Writing Process
About this Strategy Guide
This strategy guide explains the writing process and offers practical methods for applying it in your classroom to help students become proficient writers.
Research Basis
Strategy in practice, related resources.
The writing process—prewriting, drafting, revising and editing, rewriting, publishing—mirrors the way proficient writers write. In using the writing process, your students will be able to break writing into manageable chunks and focus on producing quality material. The final stage, publishing, ensures that students have an audience. Students can even coach each other during various stages of the process for further emphasis on audience and greater collaboration during editing. Studies show that students who learn the writing process score better on state writing tests than those who receive only specific instruction in the skills assessed on the test. This type of authentic writing produces lifelong learners and allows students to apply their writing skills to all subjects. Success in writing greatly depends on a student’s attitude, motivation, and engagement. The writing process takes these elements into account by allowing students to plan their writing and create a publishable, final draft of their work of which they can be proud. It addresses students’ need for a real audience and to take the time to draft and redraft their work. You can help your students think carefully about each stage of their writing by guiding them through the writing process repeatedly throughout the year and across various content areas.
The writing process involves teaching students to write in a variety of genres, encouraging creativity, and incorporating writing conventions. This process can be used in all areas of the curriculum and provides an excellent way to connect instruction with state writing standards. The following are ways to implement each step of the writing process:
- Prewriting—This step involves brainstorming, considering purpose and goals for writing, using graphic organizers to connect ideas, and designing a coherent structure for a writing piece. For kindergarten students, scribbling and invented spelling are legitimate stages of writing development; the role of drawing as a prewriting tool becomes progressively less important as writers develop. Have young students engage in whole-class brainstorming to decide topics on which to write. For students in grades 3-5, have them brainstorm individually or in small groups with a specific prompt, such as, “Make a list of important people in your life,” for example. Online graphic organizers might help upper elementary students to organize their ideas for specific writing genres during the prewriting stage. Examples are the Essay Map , Notetaker , or Persuasion Map .
- Drafting—Have students work independently at this stage. Confer with students individually as they write, offering praise and suggestions while observing areas with which students might be struggling and which might warrant separate conference time or minilessons.
- Revising and Editing—Show students how to revise specific aspects of their writing to make it more coherent and clear during minilessons. You can model reading your own writing and do a think aloud about how you could add more details and make it clearer. Teach students to reread their own work more than once as they think about whether it really conveys what they want to their reader. Reading their work aloud to classmates and other adults helps them to understand what revisions are needed. Your ELLs will develop greater language proficiency as they collaborate with their peers when revising.
- Rewriting—Have students incorporate changes as they carefully write or type their final drafts.
Rubrics help to make expectations and grading procedures clear, and provide a formative assessment to guide and improve your instruction. The Sample Writing Rubric , for example, can be used for upper elementary students.
As you work with your students to implement the writing process, they will begin to master writing and take it into all aspects of life. Peer review, with clear guidelines for students to give feedback on each other’s work, motivates students, allows them to discuss their writing with their peers, and makes the work load a little lighter for you. The Peer Edit with Perfection! PowerPoint Tutorial is a useful tool to teach students how to peer review and edit. You can also have students can edit their own work using a checklist, such as the Editing Checklist . Editing is when students have already revised content but need to correct mistakes in terms of spelling, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, and word choice. Use minilessons, small-group lessons, or individual conferencing if necessary to make sure that students have made thoughtful changes to their writing content before moving on to the final draft.
- Publishing—Encourage students to publish their works in a variety of ways, such as a class book, bulletin board, letters to the editor, school newsletter, or website. The ReadWriteThink Printing Press tool is useful for creating newspapers, brochures, flyers and booklets. Having an authentic audience beyond the classroom gives student writing more importance and helps students to see a direct connection between their lives and their literacy development.
- Lesson Plans
- Student Interactives
- Calendar Activities
It's not easy surviving fourth grade (or third or fifth)! In this lesson, students brainstorm survival tips for future fourth graders and incorporate those tips into an essay.
Students are encouraged to understand a book that the teacher reads aloud to create a new ending for it using the writing process.
While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.
The Essay Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for an informational, definitional, or descriptive essay.
The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.
The Stapleless Book can be used for taking notes while reading, making picture books, collecting facts, or creating vocabulary booklets . . . the possibilities are endless!
Students examine the different ways that they write and think about the role writing plays in life.
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Process-based approaches: suggested activities.
Here you'll find a brief introduction to each stage of the writing process (as it's commonly discussed in WAC literature), as well as a list of suggested activities that represent each stage. If you'd like more information or demonstrations of specific techniques, contact Rebecca Taylor ([email protected]).
I. Invention/ Prewriting Activities
Here most writing teachers focus on helping students get started with their writing projects, discover what they do (and don't!) already know about specific topics, and work to develop greater fluency as writers. Some invention and prewriting activities can take place during the first five or ten minutes of class; many may not need to be graded or even collected. Some teachers also use brief prewriting activities (entrance cards, critical question exchanges, and so on) in order to prime students for discussion and ensure that "dead air" doesn't ensue.
Focus: Writing to Discover
Focus: writing to reflect, focus: writing to gain fluency, ii. drafting activities/ assignments.
Talk frankly about your own drafting processes. My students love to hear that I write "fake introductions" because of some ongoing battles with writer's block. Consider bringing in samples of your own work in progress to help students see that real writers use multiple strategies as they draft. Also, offer students a wide variety of discipline-appropriate genres in which to draft. Students who are brilliant writers of personal narratives may flounder when asked to do a lab report; your best writers of thesis-driven research essays may need to learn how to write a good concert review.
Consider these genres:
Iii. revision activities/ assignments.
Revision is the real work of the FTS writing component. Many of our students report that they've never written more than a single draft of a paper; most succeeded in high school without ever doing substantive revision. The first time that they realize they need to change a thesis, incorporate new evidence, rewrite entire pages of material, reread course texts in order to write more substantive analyses--well, let's just say that these can be painful moments. Work hard to make revision a normal, ongoing part of the course so that students become habitual revisers. Consider the following strategies:
IV. Editing Activities
Editing should be viewed as the final stage of the writing process. Place emphasis on the student's responsibility for editing. Research suggests that premature editing contributes to writer's block and squelches important opportunities for discovery and revision. Focus on readability--errors matter most when they interfere with a reader's ability to make sense of the material. Pay most attention to repeated patterns of error, and make students responsible for studying these errors in the handbook or working with you or writing center tutors to correct them. A word to the wise: correcting errors on student papers will waste tremendous amounts of your time. Point them out, name them if you must--but don't try to fix each error that you see. Here are some strategies:
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20 Activities To Support Elementary Learners With The Writing Process
February 21, 2023 // by Laura Spry
Teaching the writing process to kids enables you to display a whole world of creative possibilities for them. Introducing fun and engaging writing tasks at a young age can instill a love of reading and writing, which is what we all want for our kids! It’s important to have a variety of activities ready to keep their attention. To help you instill a sense of confidence in young writers, we’ve compiled a list of 20 engaging resources for you to utilize!
1. The Best Part of Me
This adorable writing activity introduces students to the process of writing and promotes a positive classroom community. Students are encouraged to write about “The best part of me”; it could be a beautiful smile, helpful hands, fast legs, etc.
Learn More: Molly Maloy
2. Writing Tools Folder
Make your students a writing folder to keep track of their work. Add a list of commonly misspelled words to help reduce spelling errors. Keeping work all together helps kids develop good organizational skills too!
Learn More: Primary Flourish
3. Break it Down
Breaking a task down into chunks encourages kids to plan their writing well from an early age. By using ‘first’, ‘next’, and ‘last’ prompts in your activity, you save valuable time and scaffold the task for your students.
Learn More: First Grade Buddies
4. P-O-W-E-R Method
Plan, Organize, Write, Edit, Revise. The P-O-W-E-R method teaches kids to first plan their writing, then organize it, write the body of the text, edit it, and then make revisions. These colorful posters can be used in classroom displays or printed and given to each individual student.
Learn More: Laura Randazzo
5. Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
Story sequencing is an important skill to learn at the prewriting stage. Walking through an activity step-by-step introduces kids to instructional language. Writing skills are encouraged by exposing kids to an abundance of fun writing activities.
Learn More: A is for Adventures of Homeschool
6. Pre-Writing Heart
Part of the writing process is collecting and organizing information. Idea mapping is an important skill to learn. This fun and creative task can be filled in by children before they start writing. Best of all it can be adapted for any topic!
Learn More: Raise the Bar Reading
7. B-M-E Map
B-M-E modeling (beginning, middle, and end) encourages a good flow of ideas within the writing. Modeling this for your students first sets them up for success. Explain to your students that their story needs a character, an introduction at the beginning, a problem in the middle, and a happy conclusion at the end.
Learn More: Mrs. Jones’ Creation Station
8. Paragraph Writing
This burger activity introduces students to the importance of having a connection between ideas. Making sure their writing makes logical sense is key too. Let them discuss as a class what makes a good paragraph!
Learn More: Upper Elementary Snapshots
9. CUPS for Editing
Teaching the editing process can be made much simpler by drawing a cup outline and laminating the image to create this editing activity. C-U-P-S reminds children to check their Capitals, Understanding, Punctuation, and Spelling. This visual reminder is perfect for teaching careful editing and correct punctuation at the beginning of the editing stage.
Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers
10. ‘How-To’ Writing
Little kids are always eager to share their experiences, so put them to the test with this “how to” activity. Topic ideas could be anything from “how to build a snowman” or “how to make a sandcastle”. Before your learners spend time writing their pieces, help them create a brainstorming list to generate ideas!
Learn More: Susan Jones Teaching
11. Gallery Writer’s Walk
Hand out your student’s work randomly. Then, allow each student adequate time to read their peer’s work and correct spelling errors.
Learn More: Musings from the Middle School
12. Explode the Moment
This is a fun, creative writing exercise that your learners are sure to love! Learners must take a basic sentence from their story and add a vivid sensory detail to “explode” it and make it reader-friendly.
13. Opinion Writing Posters
Create posters that your kids can refer to when working on opinion or persuasive writing techniques. Get the kids involved in making them and brainstorm some transition words and phrases together!
Learn More: Classroom Freebies
14. Goal Setting
A popular prewriting strategy is to build confidence at the early stage of the writing process. These simple writing goal boards help learners keep track of their progress in a visual way! Name pegs allow you to keep track of student progress too.
Learn More: Mrs. B’s Beehive
15. Show Don’t Tell
For this fun game, distribute these printable bingo cards to your class. Discuss whether they are ‘show’ or ‘tell’ phrases. The teacher reads a card and students must then decide how the telling phrase could be replaced with a showing phrase!
16. Mind Mapping
Also known as idea maps, these tools provide a visual way to display thoughts. They’re a popular brainstorming technique and ensure that ideas are clearly defined. They’re perfect for discussing a topic as a group as each student can contribute.
Learn More: Good Parenting Brighter Children
17. Prewriting Printable
This dot marker activity is a perfect prewriting exercise for little ones who are just developing their fine motor skills. All you will need is some bingo markers or chunky colored markers. The goal is to neatly fill the circles with color.
Learn More: Free Homeschool Deals
18. Terrific Transitions
Coming up with effective transition words as a group will enable your students to feel confident using complex sentence structures in their work. Display common transitions in your learning space to make the writing process easier for your students.
Learn More: Teaching with Love and Laughter
19. Personalized Writing Jar
If your students are struggling with writing process ideas, this simple writing jar is the perfect tool! Students simply pick an activity from the jar and work on the task. You will need an empty jar, popsicle sticks, and some cards. Use markers and stickers to decorate.
Learn More: Childhood 101
20. Story Builders
Kids often find selecting a topic to write about hard; taking the fun out of the writing process. Create four different categories of cards (character, character trait, setting, and plot). Task your students to pick one from each pile to create a surprising topic to write about!
Learn More: Education Possible
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A Unique Kinesthetic Writing Process Activity for Older Students
Introducing or reviewing the writing process? In this post, you’ll find step-by-step ideas to walk students through what writers do as they pre-write, draft, revise, edit, and publish their work.
Jean Piaget was a child psychologist whose name is widely credited with his work in child development. According to Piaget,
“All of the most basic facts about the world are first discovered through physical means. As the brain matures, facts are abstracted and related to other concepts. Although the ability to abstract a concept and make complex connections between concepts are considered to be signatures of a mature mind, humans learn best by doing something concrete first, and then abstracting to more general concepts” (“Kinesthetic Learning”).
I’m sure most of us would agree with Piaget in that associations are integral to students’ retention of new information. When I was completing my coursework for my reading masters degree, I learned about a kinesthetic approach from the NCTE that can be used to teach the writing process. Every year, I’ve used it toward the beginning of the school year or at the outset of a writing unit, and it works. Students enjoy it, and it provides them with a meaningful metaphor.
For this activity, each student will need a container of Play-doh, pencils, and some room to work. If your students have sensory aversions to Play-Doh, you can also use other crafty materials, like pipe cleaners or even construction paper and tape.
This activity teaches students that writers are sculptors. Writers carefully mold their work in the same way that artists create their masterpieces. During the activity, the teacher acts as facilitator. You’ll be using this script , or you can modify it or create your own.
WRITING PROCESS ACTIVITY
In order to be able to evaluate our work when we are finished, we begin by establishing criteria we can later use to judge our work. Before we begin creating, I ask the entire class to brainstorm criteria for a good pencil holder: sturdy, functional, attractive, etcetera. We list them on the board so that we can revisit them to evaluate our pencil holders throughout the process.
After the criteria discussion, students brainstorm ideas for creating a pencil holder out of Play-Doh. They actually begin molding the pencil holder, and then the teacher instructs them to destroy it. This process happens more than one time. Students are always frustrated because they have become so attached to their initial creations.
I’ve found this activity provides the perfect way to explain how when we brainstorm topics, it’s important not to latch onto one in particular before we explore other options that could be better.
Instruct students to reflect upon the smashed creations and to take that knowledge, combine it with new ideas that were inspired as students worked during the prewriting stage, and create their first draft of a pencil holder. Sometimes students use one of their initial ideas, sometimes they use an idea that combines two or more of their ideas, and once in a while, students are inspired by their brainstorming and create something entirely new during the drafting stage.
As students work, we can help students understand that the prewriting stage is often the most time consuming but that when we diligently work to prepare ourselves for writing, the drafting process goes more smoothly.
After drafts are completed, put students in pairs to chat. “Do you know where the pencil goes?” In this way, writing is like sculpting because in both, we have to consider our audience and purpose. Will our purpose for writing or creating be obvious to our audience? It should be.
During the revision stage of this activity, invite students to look at their draft with fresh eyes. By examining their pencil holder from various angles (kneeling beside it, looking down from an aerial standpoint, standing farther away), students might be able to see what needs to be refined. Students then invite classmates to give them feedback as well. After all considerations are taken into account, students make the changes they deem necessary.
It’s during this stage that I direct students’ attentions back to the list of established criteria on the board. Those ideas developed in our prewriting stage help us to focus on making meaningful revisions.
Emphasis can be placed upon the fact that revision continues through the end of the writing process. It’s not trapped in the space between drafting and editing. Writers constantly examine their work and decide to tweak it.
In order to help students understand the differences between revising and editing (two often confused stages of the writing process), this activity focuses on editing being detail work. You can explain to students that editing changes are minor. They often focus on punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and other polishing details.
During the activity, students edit by trading Play Doh with someone who has a different color. This Play Doh is then used to add finishing touches, detail work, to make the work more “readable.” As students trade and tweak their creations, I talk to them about how authors often seek out other people to help them edit their work. Sometimes, we are blinded to our own mistakes, but a pair of fresh eyes can provide insight that we might be overlooking.
We don’t want students to see editing as a “once and done” task. After the first round of edits are made, students once again examine one another’s work and give each other ideas for improvement.
In finishing the lesson, encourage students to reflect upon what they have created by returning to the originally established criteria. Writers can craft pieces that use beautiful words and complex sentence structures. However, if the piece as a whole doesn’t make sense or doesn’t resonate with the intended audience, the essay can still be a flop. In the same way, these pencil holders might be vibrant and creative, but are they functional? Do they get the job done?
When students “publish” their pencil holders, they are essentially giving them a title and walking around the room to examine everyone else’s sculptures.
THE NEXT STEP…
The first year I used this script with my class, I was a little at a loss for what to do after the activity was completed. It was meaningful and engaging, and it helped them to understand the writing process, but afterward, they quickly forgot the information. I needed a bridge to transfer these ideas more concretely to the writing process. So. I created some reflection questions for students to either complete that day for homework or the next day to review. You can download them here .
I use this kinesthetic activity as a hook that leads into formal, direct instruction about the writing process. You can view the details of that lesson at the end of this post.
Even at the high school level, I find my freshmen and sophomores still have difficulty remembering the stages and what happens during each one. Part of this lack of understanding is due to the fact that teachers use different terminology for the same concepts, which confuses students. Another contributing factor is that when students have learned about the writing process, it wasn’t memorable for them.
Build a common foundation and lay the groundwork for what happens during each stage with this kinesthetic metaphor, and you’ll notice students are more engaged and prepared to discuss the writing process together the next day – and throughout the year.
MODELING WRITING: HOW TO MAKE THINKING TRANSPARENT
Paragraph acronyms for argumentative writing, email 101: a lesson on respectful digital communication, related resource:.
Click on the image below to view the details for my stages of the writing process lesson. I use this one-day review after the Play-Doh activity. Coupling the kinesthetic learning approach with this visual and auditory one results in a meaningful learning experience for a wide range of students.
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Melissa Kruse
An avid reader and writer, I've had the privilege of teaching English for over a decade and am now an instructional coach. I have degrees in English, Curriculum & Instruction, and Reading as well as a reading specialist certification. In my free time, I enjoy loving on my kids, deconstructing sentences, analyzing literature, making learning fun, working out, and drinking a good cup of coffee.
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The five-step writing process is a technique used to teach students how to break down the process of writing an essay into multiple steps. The steps are pre-writing, drafting, revising, proofreading and publishing.
To write an activity plan, a teacher will first start with a description of what the central ideas are in the lesson plan as well as what the learning objectives are for students and then will detail the activity and lessons themselves.
Online processing refers to a method of transaction where companies can use an interface, usually through the Internet, to take product orders and handle payments from customers. Online processing can be very costly, however.
The Writing Process stages, and how to use them to improve writing skills. Understand the 5 stages of the writing process prewriting, drafting, revising
#1: Play-Doh Creations · #2: “Publish” Your Students · #3: Become a Model · #4: Play a Game · #5: Use GraderAide to Make More Time for Activities.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Revise & Edit1 of 6 draggables. Order Information & Draft2 of 6 draggables. Narrow Your Topic3 of 6 draggables.
Students often tend to rush through the writing process, throwing together a rough draft and crying out, "I'm done!
1. Prewriting: Brainstorming and Graphic Organizer · 2. Rough Draft · 3. D.A.R.E. to Revise · 4. C.U.P.S. to Edit · 5. Peer Reflection · 6. Final Copy.
The writing process—prewriting, drafting, revising and editing, rewriting, publishing—mirrors the way proficient writers write. In using the writing process
The first stage in the writing process is prewriting, or activities done before starting a first draft. These activities in the prewriting stage
Focus: Writing to Discover · freewriting · brainstorming · clustering · surveying · outlining · listing · tree diagrams · twenty questions
Writing Center Classroom Activities, Classroom Ideas, Writing Center Organization
20 Activities To Support Elementary Learners With The Writing Process · 1. The Best Part of Me · 2. Writing Tools Folder · 3. Break it Down · 4.
WRITING PROCESS ACTIVITY · PREWRITING · DRAFTING · REVISING · EDITING · PUBLISHING · THE NEXT STEP… · READ NEXT:.