SHARON’S BLOG

Why teach writing? After all, it’s tough. It’s confusing. And sometimes crying is involved.

If your writing class is flagging and your zeal is dragging, consider this post as a friendly smile I am sending your way.

So, what are some of the benefits of teaching our kids to write? 

Benefits

1. Students become more organized in their thinking when they learn to write. Writing clearly involves organizational skills that will aid our students in other subjects. 

Click here for middle school organizational skills. >>

Click here for high school organizational skills. >>

2. Writing causes students to think through topics or defend a position. Through this process, students gain an understanding of logical thinking and the best way to present their ideas. They learn the difference between facts and opinions, and they learn how to support their ideas with facts. 

3. Students learn to communicate, not just give their opinions. The movers and shakers of tomorrow will have writing skills beyond social media posts and texting. When students understand there’s an audience, they begin to write more effectively and become powerful communicators.

For a tutorial on the difference between writing opinions and writing to persuade, click here. >>

4. Writing, like reading, is connected to a plethora of life’s activities. Writing isn’t just for school; it’s a life skill. Whether it’s an email to co-workers, a letter to a senator, an acceptance speech for an award, or a love letter to a spouse, our children’s futures will be filled with opportunities to communicate clearly in writing.

5. Our children have the chance to affect the culture positively. During World War II, C. S. Lewis’s students believed they were wasting their time learning writing and literature. Their friends were fighting, and the world seemed to be ending.

He encouraged them not “to throw down our weapons and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen.”

Armed with the godly values and worldviews you’ve been teaching, plus their new communication skills in writing, our children can be a positive influence to their generation.

6. We want our children to be able to teach the next generation. Their children—our grandchildren—are going to need to know how to communicate clearly in writing. Writing skills are crumbling around us. Let’s equip our children with this important life skill so they can have the tools to teach the next generation.

Writing is not an easy subject to teach. Even mothers who are proficient writers have told me this.

Try not to be discouraged by a perceived failure. Find a workable writing curriculum that will help your children think, write, and think again. It will be worth it—now and twenty years from now.

More Practical Resources for You

Click here for 4 very achievable steps to making composition easier. 

Use this handy writing schedule to help students plan their tasks.

For a free grading grid for your 5th – 8th graders, go to this page and click the Free Sample button under the teacher’s guide.

For a free grading grid for your 9th – 12th graders, go to this page and click the Free Sample button under the teacher’s guide.

Here are three ideas to help your writers, and only two of them are crazy. (The ideas, not the writers.)

Would you like to overcome your students’ resistance to writing?

Is it possible to shock your children into writing?

Yours for a more vibrant writing class,

Teachers, connect with Sharon on Facebook or Pinterest!

Are your writers struggling? Do you wish you could figure out why your children won’t write? Would you love to have a peaceful writing class experience?

Help your struggling writers—and you!—by identifying five hurdles to writing. Then learn practical actions you can take against those hurdles.

This article by me in The Old Schoolhouse magazine is also loaded with links to other helpful posts that will give you and your writers some welcome relief.

Click here to drain some of the tension from your writing class

Frustrated that your students don’t finish an essay or don’t know the steps to complete one? Worry no more! Click here for my latest article in The Informer about a super-practical writing schedule you WILL use!