Ep 14 7 Tips for Teaching Writing During Co-vid 19 Teaching online

 

I didn’t plan on talking about this today. This will probably be my shortest podcast ever. 

 

I was actually supposed to release my podcast about freewriting, but then everyone bought all the toilet paper and Purell, and now we’re all teaching from home.

 

So, today I just want to talk about some easy things you can give students to do that requires no photocopying or learning Google Classroom or Canvas LMS.  Although I have lots of videos on my webpage, TPT and Instagram about Canvas, if you need them.

 

1. First of all, keep it simple. If you have to get some things together for your kiddos, keep  them simple. 
2. Let students practice what they already know how to do. No new content. 
3. Give them something to do that provides choice. For example,ask students to choose a book to read and write a paragraph recommending it to a friend or another way to demonstrate reading. It can be an online book if they have no access to books, but to their phone if they have WiFi. Here is a blog post on One-Pagers from the Cult of Pedagogy.
4. If you don’t have a way to deliver curriculum, like Google Classroom or Canvas, see if school can give you a way to do a mass email to parents and students. If you have parents signed up for Remind101, you can use that. 
5. For writing practice, students can write a story. Any story. You can give them a picture or image to start with and let them write about it. Remind students that capitalization and punctuation still matter. For those kids without internet, they can hand write stories in their journals. Their parents can take a picture and email it to you. 
6. Here’s another idea. What if your student pretended they were a character in the book they are reading. A new character of their own creation or one that’s already in the story. They could write their own version of how they would interact with the other characters. This could be in a diary format, story format, a letter to another character in the story, or some idea the student comes up with. 
7. Whatever you end up giving your students, remember that any practice reading and writing will help them.  Even if they aren’t getting direct instruction every day or learning new content, they will still learn. They will still be learning from what they read. Empathy for others, problem solving and knowing they aren’t the only person who feels awkward or different - this is what stories teach them. If they read non-fiction - they’ll learn information that can widen their background knowledge about the world.

 

If you feel overwhelmed by all of this, reach out to other teachers, either from your own school or on Instagram, Facebook or email. I’ll leave my links for all of those things in the show notes below. 

Take some time for yourself and your family. Write a little more. Read a little more. Walk around in nature, if you can. 

 

Well until next Sunday, stay healthy. Stay safe and enjoy your extra time with your family.

 

Bye for now and happy Writing!

 

Need help? Reach out to me at:

 

Teach2Write.com/blog

Teach2Write, LLC Facebook Page

@teach2write on Instagram

Email: [email protected]

 

Start Write Now Guide teaches my top four writing strategies as well as the intended audience strategy - also included are PowerPoint presentation and a rubric for assessment.

 

Music provided: Come Inside by Snowflake (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/59564 Ft: Starfrosch, Jerry Spoon, Kara Square, spinningmerkaba