Writing Strategies for English Learners

Today, I would like sharing Writing Strategies fo English Learners. We’ve developed what we think is a useful chart on the table below that will help you guide your English learners in developing their writing skills. Down the left column of the chart, you see the domains of writing that students should develop and across the top row of the chart, you see the three stages of English language development. In each coordinate of the chart, there are very brief descriptors of the types of writing activities or instructional tools that can be useful in that particular domain. In the pages following Table, you will find explanations of each descriptor—what it is, how to do it, and why it’s effective.

We want to be clear that the explanations of these instructional tools are brief. A good reading/language arts methods text will expand on our explanations. You may find those that we’ve referenced in this book especially helpful. Also, be mindful that some of these writing activities take several days to accomplish with your students. Others require you to repeatedly model with your students. Our primary purpose here is to provide helpful teaching tools for you to use with your students at the three stages of writing development.

	Beginning	Intermediate	Advanced
Narrative	Wordless Picture Books Story Captions Pattern Books Lists Greeting cards and postcards	Show not tell Sentence Combining Story maps Retelling familiar stories Buddy journals	Literature response journals Hostseating/reader response
Expository	Life murals Lists and maps Time lines and cycles Concept books Language experience approach Found Poetry	Sentence Patterns Writing structured paragraphs Graphic organizers Content area big books Retelling	Sentence Patterns Double-entry journals
Poetry	Pattern poetry
Persuasive		What-so-what-now-what?

If you have questions, just leave a comment!