Creating effective writing is unfortunately not a skill that many of us are born with the natural ability to do. For most of us creating good literary works requires us to develop and use a few techniques to perfect our writing and the articles that were posted intended to shed some light on some of the techniques that could be used to begin, maintain and finally produce great essay’s. I shall begin with planning and prewriting.
Prewriting, wow, I never knew it could have been so interesting or important. My first thought of prewriting was that it was simply a technique that I could use to make sure I don’t forget or leave out points. I had no idea that prewriting could be so influential in determining how an individual develops as a writer. This is most likely due to the fact that prewriting was never really given much emphasis during my school life before attending the Division or Teacher Education and Educational Administration (DTEEA. At DTEEA however prewriting was made to appear to me at least as some difficult process which often left me frustrated by the time I was done. According to Michelle Gatz however, this is not what it is supposed to be. It is simply a way to allow the writer to organize his/her thoughts or ideas.
To achieve this, prewriting may present itself in a variety of ways, some of which may include
Making a list of ideas, points or topics that you will want to talk about in your story. U can then talk it over with your friends to help refine the list which is more commonly referred to as brain storming. ok I have to admit that when I saw the words brainstorming the first thought I had was of it as a prewriting strategy or something along those line but after reading the article by Marie Sloane I can now see brainstorming as something more that can be used during English class but don’t get me wrong, brainstorming goes hand in hand with prewriting techniques. Brainstorming can be used in any subject. It occurs when students list ideas on how to solve a problem or deal with an issue. To brainstorm, students must list the ideas that they have about a topic or how to solve a problem. The teacher must be very careful not to list the merits or the ideas while the students are brainstorming. The merits can be discussed afterwards. It also helps to get the students excited about the brainstorming process so that they can remain motivated. Teachers should also encourage students to think outside the box. The different and innovative ideas that the students can come up with can sometimes even teach us as teacher’s new ways of solving problems. I found Sloane’s point of keeping ideas around to be very useful. If some of the ideas that that student gave were not viable for the current situation it doesn’t mean that they won’t be viable for a situation in the future. Storing those ideas would allow the students to use them as references.
It is my personal opinion that brainstorming not only be taught in English as a prewriting tool, but as a useful method of accomplishing gathering ideas in every subject. Techniques such as these don’t only have to be the English teacher’s responsibility, but can be integrated into the rest of the curriculum in order to develop students thinking skills.
Free writing is also an interesting technique that can be used. This is writing without looking back. It allows the writer to express his/her true feeling and ideas without worrying about correction in spelling or any other conventions of writing. After the free writing has been completed, the writing can look over his work, disregard the errors and sort through it to pick out the ideas, details or points which he can use to develop his story.
Graphic organizers can also be used in writing. These allow students to develop their ideas into pictures with a logical structure. They are very flexible and can be used in a variety of applications. Graphic organizers can also be used by the teachers to understand the student’s order of thinking as well as its completeness.. Apart from being used as a prewriting tool, they can be used throughout the writing process to allow the students to keep track of their work or to revise their work to see if their ideas are in their correct sequence. Certain Graphic organizers also serve as a scaffolding tool which allows the students to build on their previous knowledge or ideas. An important strategy that makes graphic organizers important is re representation. According to Scaife and Rogers, 1996, this is when different representations of the same structure may make the problem seem easier or harder to solve. The learners can be influenced by the extent to which the representations coerce them into considering the relationships between the points on the organizer
Constraining is also a benefit which is derived from using graphic organizers. It limits the inferences that can be made from the graphic organizer without harming what it is meant to represent.
In order to derive all the benefits of graphic organizers however, students must be trained on how to correctly create and understand graphic organizers. It is not as simple as drawing or representing what u think on a sheet of paper. The representations must have meaning and be properly applied to the situation. It is also very import that teacher allow the students sufficient time to really practice using the graphic organizers so that they can perfect a technique that is suitable to their individual needs.
Prewriting and writing can be achieved in many other ways however I believe that it is important to stress that no one techniques in appropriate for all students. Teachers should only show the students some of the different ways that they can prewrite and remind them of its importance. Whichever way that the student chooses is entirely up to them. It should be a way that the student is most comfortable with, not a way dictated by a teacher.
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