Writing Needs To Be Done In Middle School

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

Writing is an essential tool and has been noted as a precursor for great speaking by teachers at all grade levels. However, with writing being an important aspect throughout one’s academic career and beyond, it is one of the most tedious tasks to teach. It sounds like a cliché, but in order to get better at something, one has to keep completing the task and each time, accomplish something different while maintaining prior knowledge. There are various ways that enhance a student’s writing abilities and the focus of these research strategies will prove that encouraging students to write enhances writing.

Instead of focusing on the different types of writing styles they will encounter in college and the workforce, most of the writing instruction students receive in their underclassman English courses at Carrizo Springs High School is primarily focused on preparation for the English Language Arts Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills Written Composition test, which has standards that are different than the outcomes they will be expected to accomplish in their dual credit English class and future college writing courses. Therefore, there must be a method implemented at Carrizo Springs High School and Southwest Texas Junior College to help students become more successful in dual credit English before they even step foot in that class. Students must understand that how they perform in that class will have an effect on their

Starting middle school was a mixture of anxiety and excitement. There was a brand new campus to explore, but we were also nervously anticipating the academic program that was about to begin. Most of my grade had been together since the age of four and by this time there were clear social divides. There were the girls who were seen as popular, and then there was everybody else. You could say that I was part of the popular crowd, though at the time I didn’t notice myself standing apart from the others. As a group of friends we got on well, we’d hang out, go to the cinema, have sleepovers, all the usual things friends do. Then things gradually started to change.

Writing is a practice that most of us were taught when we were young. We were taught the basics of grammar, how to form a sentence, conjunction words, how to write paragraphs and more. Although we have learned this skill while growing up and have used the skill every year after entering kindergarten, this does not mean our writing process will ensure the best work. The authors that I chose each encourage their audience to excel in the art of writing in their own way to help with the writing process.

Kelly Gallagher discusses how to promote students’ writing in chapter four of Teaching Adolescent Writers. Gallagher assesses his students’ writing from the beginning to know where his classroom stands: “Each of my thirty-eight freshman students completed a timed writing piece on the second day of school and turned them in without their names on the papers” (73). This allowed Gallagher to assess his classroom as a whole instead of as individuals. He took this writing and sorted into piles he assumed were “heavy readers (defined as those who frequently read for fun),… moderate readers, and… light readers” (73). Gallagher based these predictions on the diction, sentence structure and variety, essay development, craft, and punctuation and editing skills (74). As Gallagher asserts, these predictions are not entirely accurate, but they allowed him to understand that the majority of heavy readers are skilled writers because they have an underlying foundation for their writing in their reading. This does not mean that all good readers are good writers. Gallagher asserts, “Reading alone does not explain why some of my readers write well and others don’t” (75). He goes on to create a formula explaining that reading paired with an “exposure to intensive hands-on writing instruction” lead to students becoming better

I agree with how Valerle Struss the way she explains how students are supposed to be taught Writing in college. In this day in age, many student struggles with ability to know how to even write a simple sentence. The main reason students in college are not able to do this simple task is because as technology advances more and more people rely on it. This is sometimes a good thing, but not always. People have learned to rely on the technologies they have around them. Which at the end of the day won’t do them any good? So, let’s take the advice of Mrs.Struss and the way she thinks how college students should actually be taught.

In Peg Tyre’s article, The Writing Evolution, he addresses how some students struggled with writing in schools and how more time needed to be spent on teaching the proper aspects of writing. In his article, Tyre mentions a specific high school that took large measures to figure out why their students were doing so poorly on english and writing exams. This particular high school, New Dorp, made a writing revolution in which they placed an intense focus across nearly every academic subject, teaching the skills that underlie good analytical writing (Tyre 4). They received extraordinary results. Pass rates for the English Regents, for example, bounced from 67 percent in June 2009 to 89 percent in 2011 (Tyre 4). The number of kids enrolling in a program that allowed them to take college-level classes shot up from 148 students in 2006 to 412 students in 2011 (Tyre 4).

In my English 1010 class, I have learned to do a number of things through writing essays. I have written a Literacy Narrative, a Discourse Community Analysis, and a Writing Research essay. Firstly, I have learned to identify how an author’s purpose, audience, genre, and context determine effective writing. The purpose of the literacy narrative was to help me understand myself better as a writer (Jones 1). My teacher was the intended audience of the narrative. The genre of the narrative was non-fiction because it was about my experience as a writer. The context of writing made my writing more interesting and more effective. All those things make effective writing because you have to know what you need to write about and who is receiving your writing. I displayed these skills by going into detail of my experiences with reading and writing through my life. In the narrative I shared how fun and exciting it was when my second grade class got the opportunity to write a book, A Book of Future Astronauts (Writing is Good).

“Mr. Josten, Mr. Josten!” yelled one of the eighth graders from my current math class in Crescent Middle School. I figured it would be another out of context question, as that was the norm for Andrew. Andrew had always seemed to be the one who tried his hardest, but could not focus on his schoolwork, or anything for that matter. I acknowledged his raised hand to hear, “what would happen if someone figured out how to pass things through time?” I figured since there was a small amount of time left in the class period, I could answer his question thoroughly since I majored in both math and science. “Well Andrew, if I had to guess I would say that someone would receive that object unexpectedly in a different time period. However, if someone creates

The intro to chapter 9 in Cunningham & Allington(p.150) made me chuckle a bit, as I have many times asked that especially to my youngest son who “strongly disliked” writing up all the way through 8th grade. And he was not that amused over my question. I do believe that he was mostly thinking about how he could get out of the writing task altogether more than what to write. Fortunately now, a changed student, as a freshman in High School his attitude towards writing has greatly improved. I can only imagine how many other students are facing the same frustrations, and how inventive teachers have to be to encourage all students to write.

A tall robust boy with dark hair and yellow eyes entered Ellingburg middle school school at exactly 7:55 on september the 18th, it was the second day of school. His big build is easy to locate in the rush of teens. There is a tap on his elbow he looks sideways, at a medium sized boy, something changes in his eyes. Jack is short compared to Sebastian. Jack is a skinny boy with long legs, his dark hair hanging loosely over his dark brown eyes. A loud bell rang and Jack grabbed Sebastian's arm. Sebastian froze for a second and then ran. Sebastian knows Jack just thinks of him as a friend, but it is different for him, he does not know if Jack knows.

The nature of writing has changed in the past century. While writing still remains a form of visual communication, much of this change has been a result of technological advancements such as, from pen to paper or from a typewriter to a networked computer. The changes and expansion in the ways we are able to write today have brought about changes in writing pedagogy as well. The teaching of writing has been part of formal schooling in the United States for over 200 years (Kean 7). One major pedagogic change in United States’ education has to do with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. These standards have led to a change in the instruction of writing in schools. This paper, will focus on instructional changes of writing over time and current expectations for writing abilities as whole.

As a freshman at Linden High School, I have learned that writing provides students with the necessary communication and thinking skills necessary to succeed in school. Before I enrolled in ACL, I was a lazy writer who detested every aspect of writing. Now, I have learned to embrace writing challenges and learn from my mistakes. Writing persuasive and research papers proved to be difficult for me because it required organizational and research skills. As the year progressed, I began feeling more confident in my writing skills and looked forward to expressing my ideas on paper. As a writer, I have gained the knowledge and tools to grow as a student.

Because communicating effectively in writing is so critical, we want our students to have the skills necessary to express one’s ideas in writing. To address this need, PRA has included two major improvement strategies around writing on the Universal Improvement Plan (UIP). Our first improvement strategy states that educators will provide consistent and effective writing instruction using innovative, relevant, and engaging strategies. Our second improvement strategy explains that teachers will score student writing using common rubrics associated with established curriculum, both independently and collaboratively. The improvement strategies were written to specifically address the vetted root causes-- Lack of student engagement and effort were identified as causes for lack of growth in writing. A common language for teaching writing across the curriculum and over many grades will address this