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Revision makes a piece sound better; editing makes it look better.

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Teaching Writing and Learning With Graphic Organizers

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Teaching Writing and Learning With Graphic Organizers

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http://www.emergingedtech.com/2013/03/teaching-writing-and-learning-with-graphic-organizers/

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There are dozens of great brainstorming and organizing tools available on the web to help students prepare for writing assignments and develop their skills.

For some reason, writing tends to be the task many students dread the most. As a result, teachers are always on the lookout for ways to make the assignment more enjoyable - or at least less despised! Incorporating graphic organizers into the writing and learning process is a great way to get students to think outside the box and engage more willingly in the process.

What Are Graphic Organizers?
A graphic organizer is a visual aid that helps depict the correlation between ideas, facts, or concepts. The most common visual learning strategies are concept mapping, webbing, and mind mapping.

Concept Mapping
A concept map creates a visual representation of the relationship between ideas. Usually encompassed in a box or circle, each idea is linked to another by the word or phrase that describes the relationship. This process helps students see how a story or concept can be narrowed down into specific topics.

Webbing
By creating a web, students will see how their central idea is linked to supporting details. They'll realize the varied groups of information encompassed in a single lesson are all tied together.

This brainstorming process is perfect for launching a writing project. It also provides guidance on where to proceed during the research process. Unlike other brainstorming techniques, webbing has some organization and structure to it. Webs help students arrange their ideas by sorting them according to relevance and importance.

Mind Mapping
A mind map is the visual representation of hierarchical information. Starting in the middle and branching out, the visuals progress from the thesis to the supporting evidence.

Students can replace traditional note-taking techniques with mind mapping for a much more visually stimulating result.

How Can Graphic Organizers Help Educators Teach?
Proponents of this teaching style claim it is the most effective visual learning strategy. Graphic organizers help students see the little details amidst the big picture. These are great tools for helping students structure their thinking.

Another great benefit of graphic organizers is their flexibility. They can be used to help facilitate learning in all subject areas.

Additionally, when students use graphic organizers, the teacher has a better understanding of the student's level of understanding. This makes it easy to offer suggestions and point out areas of improvement.

How Can Graphic Organizers Help Students Learn?
By using graphic organizers, students can learn to:

Visualize the general concept and break it down into manageable, specific ideas.

Analyze the correlation between two ideas or themes.

Structure their writing projects better and make the entire process easier.

Communicate their ideas.

Visually represent their thinking process.

Explore all possible options by brainstorming.

Determine the validity, relevance, and correlation of evidence.

Enhance understanding when reading and writing.

Easily identify the main elements of a composition.

Evaluate cause and effect.

Compare and contrast ideas.

Implement problem solving skills

Enhance organizational skills

Expand their vocabulary.

Recognize sequences, hierarchies, and patterns.

What Are The Best Graphic Organization Tools?
There are various ways you can go about creating concept maps, webs, and mind maps.

There are some great software programs you can buy or download. For example, check out Inspiration, Edraw or Creately. These programs allow your students to create their own visuals and explore technology.

Otherwise, you can download pre-formatted templates. For example, here are some graphic organizer templates that are specifically designed to help facilitate the writing process.

If you need even more inspiration, check out this list of graphic organizer resources. You're sure to find what you need there!

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
10 Ways Students Can Use Twitter for Paper Writing
6 Free Online Collaborative Interactive White Boards - 2012 Update
Creately is an easy to use, easy access, affordable web based diagramming tool

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Teaching Writing and Learning With Graphic Organizers

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For some reason, writing tends to be the task many students dread the most. As a result, teachers are always on the lookout for ways to make the assignment more enjoyable - or at least less despised!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPRM2ZXyrS0&list=PLb5RXypPqP5sNAYNUDEfwaq2QYPauhCcc

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A Day in the Life of Our Writing Workshop

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Describes a day in our first grade writers workshop.

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28 Awesome Anchor Charts for Teaching Writing

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28 Awesome Anchor Charts for Teaching Writing

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https://www.weareteachers.com/25-awesome-anchor-charts-for-teaching-writing/

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When it comes to writing, many kids struggle to get their ideas down on paper. That's why we've rounded up all the best writing anchor charts, to help your students master narrative, transitions, punctuation, editing, theme, and so much more! Try some of these ideas in your classroom to give your kids the writing support they need.

1. Why Writers Write

First and second graders will draw inspiration from this fun-filled anchor chart about why we write. Make this chart applicable to older students by expanding on each aspect with a specific audience or goal. "To share experiences" can become "to share experiences with friends, in a postcard, or with readers of a memoir."

Source: Cara Carroll

2. Expanding Sentences

Show students how a simple sentence can become a real powerhouse by exploring when, where, how, and why, along with adding adjectives. So powerful!

Source: Upper Elementary Snapshots/Expanding Sentences

3. Personal Narrative

Personal narrative is a style that all students practice in elementary school, and writing anchor charts can help keep them on track. Visit the link below for great worksheets to use with your students to prepare them to write their personal narratives.

Source: Rachel's Reflections

4. Hook Your Reader

Want to know how to draw the reader in and make them eager to continue? You need a hook! Teach students how to grab a reader's attention from the get-go, pulling them in with facts, questions, or even sound effects.

Source: Little Minds at Work

5. Point of View

Learn the differences between first person (I), second person (you), and third person (narrator), and talk about when each type is effective.

Source: Oh Boy ... It's Farley!

6. Organized Paragraph

Use a stoplight to help early elementary students understand and write clear paragraphs. As students are editing their work, have them read with green, yellow, and red pencils in hand so they can see how their paragraphs are hooking and engaging readers. See a video of this chart in action here.

7. Practicing Transitions

There are more stoplight writing anchor charts, and this one is perfect for helping students learn and practice their transition words. Draw the stoplight first and invite students to help come up with different words. Then encourage students to put the transition words into practice.

Source: A Happy, Hungry, Healthy Girl

8. Author's Perspective

Sometimes, an author's opinion comes out strongly in their writing, even if they don't state it up front. Use this chart to help students find the clues to an author's perspective.

Source: Crafting Connections/Author's Perspective

9. Author's Purpose Pie

This is a quick and easy anchor chart to help students see different types of writing. It'll also help them do a quick check to make sure their writing aligns.

Source: Literacy Ideas

10. Dig Deeper

Keep going! Sometimes it's hard to express what you mean by certain writing and revision requests, and writing anchor charts can show exactly what you mean. Now students can get a good look at what it means to dig deeper.

Source: Pinterest

11. Alternatives to "Said"

If your students are learning about writing dialogue, an anchor chart like this could really come in handy. Encourage students to try other ways to have their characters respond.

Source: ESL Amplified

12. Understanding Character

Before you can write about character, you first have to understand it. This anchor chart will help your young writers understand the difference between inside and outside characteristics.

Source: Teacher Trap

13. Diving Deeper Into Character

Now that your students understand the difference between inside and outside characteristics, dive deeper into describing a specific character. This anchor chart is a wonderful idea because students can write their idea(s) on a sticky note and then add it.

Source: Crafting Connections/Teach and Task Lessons

14. Six Traits of Writing

This anchor chart is jam-packed with things to help fourth- and fifth-grade writers remember the six traits of writing. Use the chart as a whole-class reference or laminate it to use in small groups. When it's laminated, students can check off each aspect they've included in their own writing. Meaningful dialogue? Check! Problem and solution? Check!

Source: Working 4 the Classroom

15. Writing Realistic Fiction

This anchor chart reminds upper elementary students how to create realistic stories. It really walks your students through the process, so they have all the elements they need to create their own stories.

Source: Two Writing Teachers/Realistic Fiction

16. Sequence of Events

Help early elementary students stay organized with an anchor chart that's focused on order-of-events language. Tactile learners can write their first drafts on sentence strips and use this format to put the events in order before they transcribe their work onto writing paper.

Source: Life in First Grade

17. Informational Text Structures

Focus upper elementary students on the most important aspects of informational writing while keeping them organized. This chart could be used to support paragraph writing or essays.

Source: Teaching With a Mountain View/Informational Text Structures

18. OREO Opinion Writing

This deliciously inspired opinion anchor chart can be used by students in grades 3-5 during writers workshop or when developing an opinion for discussion or debate. To build out student writing, have them "double-stuff" their OREOs with extra E examples. See a video featuring this chart here.

19. Features of a Great Report

Use examples of outstanding student work to make this anchor chart. Keep it relevant by updating the examples with student work throughout the year. In kindergarten, this will also showcase how students move from prewriting and pictures to writing words and sentences.

Source: Joyful Learning in KC

20. Write From the Heart

Sometimes the hardest part about writing is coming up with whom and what you should write about. This is the fun part, though! Use this anchor chart to remind your students that they have lots of good writing options.

Source: First Grade Parade via Cara Carroll

21. Argument Writing

Use this anchor chart with middle schoolers to make sure they're considering all sides of an argument, not just the one that matters the most to them. One way to adapt this chart, as students develop their understanding of argument, is to write each element-claim, argument, evidence-under a flap that students can lift if they need a reminder.

Source: Literacy & Math Ideas

22. Writing Process

This is an anchor chart you'll direct your students to again and again. The writing process has several steps, and it's good to remind students of this so they don't get frustrated.

Source: What's Skow-ing On in Fourth Grade?

23. Writing Checklist

For those young writers in your class, these cover the basics in a clear way.

Source: Kindergarten Chaos

24. RACE for Writing

Use the RACE mnemonic when your students are working on persuasive writing. It reminds them to cite their sources and be sure to answer the question being asked.

Source: @mrspuffer

25. Cause and Effect

Cause and effect will always be an essential part of any story. Help your students come up with different scenarios for cause and effect. In many instances, you could have multiples effects, so challenge your students to identify three to four at a time. This will really give them something to write about!

Source: 2nd Grade Superheroes

26. A Strong Lead

This upper-grade anchor chart gives students lots of ways to start their writing. Update it midyear with strong examples of leads that students have written or that they've found in books. Students could also copy this chart into their notebooks and keep track of the different ways they've started their own writing, seeing if they've developed a signature lead.

Source: Miss Klohn's Classroom

27. Crafting Power Sentences

Inspire students to get crafty and creative with their sentences. Update the moods or keywords with every writing assignment, so students are constantly refining their clauses, verbs, and descriptions.

Source: Teaching My Friends

28. Show, Don't Tell

"Show, don't tell" is a cardinal rule of writing. This anchor chart, best for upper elementary writers, can be used to strengthen scenes in fiction and narrative nonfiction works. Build out this chart for middle school writers with additional ideas and more complex emotions.

Source: Upper Elementary Snapshots/Show, Don't Tell

29. Narrative Organizer

Leave this chart up in your classroom for your students to reference often when they're writing. It really takes them through creating a successful story.

Source: Working 4 the Classroom

30. Expository Writing

This chart makes it easy for students to remember key concepts, both with color-coding and simple metaphors. Give them colored pencils and ask them to underline the corresponding sections in their essays.

Source: Adventures of a Future Teacher

31. Peer Editing

Peer editing teaches kids a variety of skills, and not just with writing. They learn to read closely, offer (and accept) useful constructive feedback, and get more comfortable sharing their writing with others. This chart helps kids through the sometimes-challenging process.

Source: Taleof2Teachers

32. Strong Sentences

Get early elementary students to write longer, more descriptive sentences with this chart. Bonus: Use sentence strips to switch out the examples of strong sentences, based on student writing.

Source: The Good Life

33. Internal Story

This chart gives students the language to add their own thoughts to their writing. Modify this chart by highlighting key phrases for students with special needs. Or have students create different thought-bubble icons to represent each internal dialogue sentence starter.

Source: Totally Terrific in Texas

34. Evidence Supported

Upper elementary students will benefit from reminders on how to refer to and cite text evidence. Use this anchor chart during writing and discussion to help connect the language that we use across domains.

Source: History Tech

35. Publishing Guidelines

Kids are often quick to turn in their papers without making sure they've included all the necessary requirements (like their names!). Use this chart to remind them about the important things to check for before they hand in their work.

Source: Juice Boxes and Crayolas

36. Figurative Language

As you teach your students about figurative language and how to use it, you'll want to have examples. This anchor chart dives into five different concepts. Each of these could actually be its own anchor chart. Perhaps have your students come up with examples on sticky notes and then place them on the chart.

Source: Willow Grove Elementary School

37. Forms of Poetry

Introducing poetry types to your students? This anchor chart covers the basics and helps kids remember that not all poetry needs to rhyme.

Source: ELA Anchor Charts

38. CUPS and ARMS

This is a popular method for teaching kids to revise and edit as well as the difference between the two. Simple acronyms keep the key strategies close at hand.

Source: Amy Lemons

39. Spicy Edits

Encourage your students to think of their writing like a recipe, which they can always tweak and improve. Have them choose one element, or "spice," to add to their work as they revise.

Source: Beyond Zebra/Pinterest

40. Writing Buddies

Sometimes students can get stuck when working with writing buddies, but writing anchor charts can help. This one encourages students to be positive and make good, thoughtful suggestions.

Source: Apostrophe Books Twitter

What are your favorite writing anchor charts? Share your ideas in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

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40 Awesome Anchor Charts for Teaching Writing

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Give your students a leg up on composing, editing, punctuation, and so much more with these terrific writing anchor charts.

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https://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/922

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Summary: Few sources available today offer writing teachers such succinct, practice-based help-which is one reason why 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing was the winner of the Association of Education Publishers 2005 Distinguished Achievement Award for Instructional Materials.

Explore NWP.org's resources on Teaching Writing

More Resources on Teaching Writing

The National Writing Project's 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing offers successful strategies contributed by experienced Writing Project teachers. Since NWP does not promote a single approach to teaching writing, readers will benefit from a variety of eclectic, classroom-tested techniques.

These ideas originated as full-length articles in NWP publications (a link to the full article accompanies each idea below).

Table of Contents: 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing

1. Use the shared events of students' lives to inspire writing.

2. Establish an email dialogue between students from different schools who are reading the same book.

3. Use writing to improve relations among students.

4. Help student writers draw rich chunks of writing from endless sprawl.

5. Work with words relevant to students' lives to help them build vocabulary.

6. Help students analyze text by asking them to imagine dialogue between authors.

7. Spotlight language and use group brainstorming to help students create poetry.

8. Ask students to reflect on and write about their writing.

9. Ease into writing workshops by presenting yourself as a model.

10. Get students to focus on their writing by holding off on grading.

11. Use casual talk about students' lives to generate writing.

12. Give students a chance to write to an audience for real purpose.

13. Practice and play with revision techniques.

14. Pair students with adult reading/writing buddies.

15. Teach "tension" to move students beyond fluency.

16. Encourage descriptive writing by focusing on the sounds of words.

17. Require written response to peers' writing.

18. Make writing reflection tangible.

19. Make grammar instruction dynamic.

20. Ask students to experiment with sentence length.

21. Help students ask questions about their writing.

22. Challenge students to find active verbs.

23. Require students to make a persuasive written argument in support of a final grade.

24. Ground writing in social issues important to students.

25. Encourage the "framing device" as an aid to cohesion in writing.

26. Use real world examples to reinforce writing conventions.

27. Think like a football coach.

28. Allow classroom writing to take a page from yearbook writing.

29. Use home language on the road to Standard English.

30. Introduce multi-genre writing in the context of community service.

1. Use the shared events of students' lives to inspire writing.

Debbie Rotkow, a co-director of the Coastal Georgia Writing Project, makes use of the real-life circumstances of her first grade students to help them compose writing that, in Frank Smith's words, is "natural and purposeful."

When a child comes to school with a fresh haircut or a tattered book bag, these events can inspire a poem. When Michael rode his bike without training wheels for the first time, this occasion provided a worthwhile topic to write about. A new baby in a family, a lost tooth, and the death of one student's father were the playful or serious inspirations for student writing.

Says Rotkow: "Our classroom reverberated with the stories of our lives as we wrote, talked, and reflected about who we were, what we did, what we thought, and how we thought about it. We became a community."
ROTKOW, DEBBIE. 2003. "Two or Three Things I Know for Sure About Helping Students Write the Stories of Their Lives," The Quarterly (25) 4.
2. Establish an email dialogue between students from different schools who are reading the same book.

When high school teacher Karen Murar and college instructor Elaine Ware, teacher-consultants with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project, discovered students were scheduled to read the August Wilson play Fences at the same time, they set up email communication between students to allow some "teacherless talk" about the text.

Rather than typical teacher-led discussion, the project fostered independent conversation between students. Formal classroom discussion of the play did not occur until students had completed all email correspondence. Though teachers were not involved in student online dialogues, the conversations evidenced the same reading strategies promoted in teacher-led discussion, including predication, clarification, interpretation, and others.
MURAR, KAREN, and ELAINE WARE. 1998. "Teacherless Talk: Impressions from Electronic Literacy Conversations." The Quarterly (20) 3.
3. Use writing to improve relations among students.

Diane Waff, co-director of the Philadelphia Writing Project, taught in an urban school where boys outnumbered girls four to one in her classroom. The situation left girls feeling overwhelmed, according to Waff, and their "voices faded into the background, overpowered by more aggressive male voices."

Determined not to ignore this unhealthy situation, Waff urged students to face the problem head-on, asking them to write about gender-based problems in their journals. She then introduced literature that considered relationships between the sexes, focusing on themes of romance, love, and marriage. Students wrote in response to works as diverse as de Maupassant's "The Necklace" and Dean Myers's Motown and DiDi.

In the beginning there was a great dissonance between male and female responses. According to Waff, "Girls focused on feelings; boys focused on sex, money, and the fleeting nature of romantic attachment." But as the students continued to write about and discuss their honest feelings, they began to notice that they had similar ideas on many issues. "By confronting these gender-based problems directly," says Waff, "the effect was to improve the lives of individual students and the social well-being of the wider school community."
WAFF, DIANE. 1995. "Romance in the Classroom: Inviting Discourse on Gender and Power." The Quarterly (17) 2.
4. Help student writers draw rich chunks of writing from endless sprawl.

Jan Matsuoka, a teacher-consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project (California), describes a revision conference she held with a third grade English language learner named Sandee, who had written about a recent trip to Los Angeles.

"I told her I wanted her story to have more focus," writes Matsuoka. "I could tell she was confused so I made rough sketches representing the events of her trip. I made a small frame out of a piece of paper and placed it down on one of her drawings - a sketch she had made of a visit with her grandmother."

"Focus, I told her, means writing about the memorable details of the visit with your grandmother, not everything else you did on the trip."

"'Oh, I get it,' Sandee smiled, 'like just one cartoon, not a whole bunch.'"

Sandee's next draft was more deep than broad.
MATSUOKA, JAN. 1998. "Revising Revision: How My Students Transformed Writers' Workshop." The Quarterly (20) 1.
5. Work with words relevant to students' lives to help them build vocabulary.

Eileen Simmons, a teacher-consultant with the Oklahoma State University Writing Project, knows that the more relevant new words are to students' lives, the more likely they are to take hold.

In her high school classroom, she uses a form of the children's ABC book as a community-building project. For each letter of the alphabet, the students find an appropriately descriptive word for themselves. Students elaborate on the word by writing sentences and creating an illustration. In the process, they make extensive use of the dictionary and thesaurus.

One student describes her personality as sometimes "caustic," illustrating the word with a photograph of a burning car in a war zone. Her caption explains that she understands the hurt her "burning" sarcastic remarks can generate.
SIMMONS, EILEEN. 2002. "Visualizing Vocabulary." The Quarterly (24) 3.
6. Help students analyze text by asking them to imagine dialogue between authors.

John Levine, a teacher-consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project (California), helps his college freshmen integrate the ideas of several writers into a single analytical essay by asking them to create a dialogue among those writers.

He tells his students, for instance, "imagine you are the moderator of a panel discussion on the topic these writers are discussing. Consider the three writers and construct a dialogue among the four 'voices' (the three essayists plus you)."

Levine tells students to format the dialogue as though it were a script. The essay follows from this preparation.
LEVINE, JOHN. 2002. "Talking Texts: Writing Dialogue in the College Composition Classroom." The Quarterly (24) 2.
7. Spotlight language and use group brainstorming to help students create poetry.

The following is a group poem created by second grade students of Michelle Fleer, a teacher-consultant with the Dakota Writing Project (South Dakota).

Underwater
Crabs crawl patiently along the ocean floor
searching for prey.
Fish soundlessly weave their way through
slippery seaweed
Whales whisper to others as they slide
through the salty water.
And silent waves wash into a dark cave
where an octopus is sleeping.

Fleer helped her students get started by finding a familiar topic. (In this case her students had been studying sea life.) She asked them to brainstorm language related to the sea, allowing them time to list appropriate nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The students then used these words to create phrases and used the phrases to produce the poem itself.

As a group, students put together words in ways Fleer didn't believe many of them could have done if they were working on their own, and after creating several group poems, some students felt confident enough to work alone.
FLEER, MICHELLE. 2002. "Beyond 'Pink is a Rose.'" The Quarterly (24) 4.
8. Ask students to reflect on and write about their writing.

Douglas James Joyce, a teacher-consultant with the Denver Writing Project, makes use of what he calls "metawriting" in his college writing classes. He sees metawriting (writing about writing) as a way to help students reduce errors in their academic prose.

Joyce explains one metawriting strategy: After reading each essay, he selects one error that occurs frequently in a student's work and points out each instance in which the error is made. He instructs the student to write a one page essay, comparing and contrasting three sources that provide guidance on the established use of that particular convention, making sure a variety of sources are available.

"I want the student to dig into the topic as deeply as necessary, to come away with a thorough understanding of the how and why of the usage, and to understand any debate that may surround the particular usage."
JOYCE, DOUGLAS JAMES. 2002. "On the Use of Metawriting to Learn Grammar and Mechanics." The Quarterly (24) 4.
9. Ease into writing workshops by presenting yourself as a model.

Glorianne Bradshaw, a teacher-consultant with the Red River Valley Writing Project (North Dakota), decided to make use of experiences from her own life when teaching her first-graders how to write.

For example, on an overhead transparency she shows a sketch of herself stirring cookie batter while on vacation. She writes the phrase "made cookies" under the sketch. Then she asks students to help her write a sentence about this. She writes the words who, where, and when. Using these words as prompts, she and the students construct the sentence, "I made cookies in the kitchen in the morning."

Next, each student returns to the sketch he or she has made of a summer vacation activity and, with her help, answers the same questions answered for Bradshaw's drawing. Then she asks them, "Tell me more. Do the cookies have chocolate chips? Does the pizza have pepperoni?" These facts lead to other sentences.

Rather than taking away creativity, Bradshaw believes this kind of structure gives students a helpful format for creativity.
BRADSHAW, GLORIANNE. 2001. "Back to Square One: What to do When Writing Workshop Just Doesn't Work." The Quarterly (23) 1.
10. Get students to focus on their writing by holding off on grading.

Stephanie Wilder found that the grades she gave her high school students were getting in the way of their progress. The weaker students stopped trying. Other students relied on grades as the only standard by which they judged their own work.

"I decided to postpone my grading until the portfolios, which contained a selection of student work, were complete," Wilder says. She continued to comment on papers, encourage revision, and urge students to meet with her for conferences. But she waited to grade the papers.

It took a while for students to stop leafing to the ends of their papers in search of a grade, and there was some grumbling from students who had always received excellent grades. But she believes that because she was less quick to judge their work, students were better able to evaluate their efforts themselves.
WILDER, STEPHANIE. 1997. "Pruning Too Early: The Thorny Issue of Grading Student Writing." The Quarterly (19) 4.
11. Use casual talk about students' lives to generate writing.

Erin (Pirnot) Ciccone, teacher-consultant with the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project, found a way to make more productive the "Monday morning gab fest" she used as a warm-up with her fifth grade students. She conceived of "Headline News." As students entered the classroom on Monday mornings, they wrote personal headlines about their weekends and posted them on the bulletin board. A headline might read "Fifth-Grader Stranded at Movie Theatre" or "Girl Takes on Responsibility as Mother's Helper."

After the headlines had been posted, students had a chance to guess the stories behind them. The writers then told the stories behind their headlines. As each student had only three minutes to talk, they needed to make decisions about what was important and to clarify details as they proceeded. They began to rely on suspense and "purposeful ambiguity" to hold listeners' interest.

On Tuesday, students committed their stories to writing. Because of the "Headline News" experience, Ciccone's students have been able to generate writing that is focused, detailed, and well ordered.
CICCONE, ERIN (PIRNOT). 2001. "A Place for Talk in Writers' Workshop." The Quarterly (23) 4.
12. Give students a chance to write to an audience for real purpose.

Patricia A. Slagle, high school teacher and teacher-consultant with the Louisville Writing Project(Kentucky), understands the difference between writing for a hypothetical purpose and writing to an audience for real purpose. She illustrates the difference by contrasting two assignments.

She began with: "Imagine you are the drama critic for your local newspaper. Write a review of an imaginary production of the play we have just finished studying in class." This prompt asks students to assume the contrived role of a professional writer and drama critic. They must adapt to a voice that is not theirs and pretend to have knowledge they do not have.

Slagle developed a more effective alternative: "Write a letter to the director of your local theater company in which you present arguments for producing the play that we have just finished studying in class." This prompt, Slagle says, allows the writer her own voice, building into her argument concrete references to personal experience. "Of course," adds Slagle, "this prompt would constitute authentic writing only for those students who, in fact, would like to see the play produced."
SLAGLE, PATRICIA A. 1997. "Getting Real: Authenticity in Writing Prompts." The Quarterly (19) 3.
13. Practice and play with revision techniques.

Mark Farrington, college instructor and teacher-consultant with the Northern Virginia Writing Project, believes teaching revision sometimes means practicing techniques of revision. An exercise like "find a place other than the first sentence where this essay might begin" is valuable because it shows student writers the possibilities that exist in writing.

For Farrington's students, practice can sometime turn to play with directions to:

add five colors

add four action verbs

add one metaphor

add five sensory details.

In his college fiction writing class, Farrington asks students to choose a spot in the story where the main character does something that is crucial to the rest of the story. At that moment, Farrington says, they must make the character do the exact opposite.

"Playing at revision can lead to insightful surprises," Farrington says. "When they come, revision doesn't seem such hard work anymore."
FARRINGTON, MARK. 1999. "Four Principles Toward Teaching the Craft of Revision." The Quarterly (21) 2.
14. Pair students with adult reading/writing buddies.

Bernadette Lambert, teacher-consultant with the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (Georgia), wondered what would happen if she had her sixth-grade students pair with an adult family member to read a book. She asked the students about the kinds of books they wanted to read (mysteries, adventure, ghost stories) and the adults about the kinds of books they wanted to read with the young people (character-building values, multiculturalism, no ghost stories). Using these suggestions for direction, Lambert developed a list of 30 books. From this list, each student-adult pair chose one. They committed themselves to read and discuss the book and write separate reviews.

Most of the students, says Lambert, were proud to share a piece of writing done by their adult reading buddy. Several admitted that they had never before had this level of intellectual conversation with an adult family member.
LAMBERT, BERNADETTE. 1999. "You and Me and a Book Makes Three." The Quarterly (21) 3.
15. Teach "tension" to move students beyond fluency.

Suzanne Linebarger, a co-director of the Northern California Writing Project, recognized that one element lacking from many of her students' stories was tension. One day, in front of the class, she demonstrated tension with a rubber band. Looped over her finger, the rubber band merely dangled. "However," she told the students, "when I stretch it out and point it (not at a student), the rubber band suddenly becomes more interesting. It's the tension, the potential energy, that rivets your attention. It's the same in writing."

Linebarger revised a generic writing prompt to add an element of tension. The initial prompt read, "Think of a friend who is special to you. Write about something your friend has done for you, you have done for your friend, or you have done together."

Linebarger didn't want responses that settled for "my best friend was really good to me," so "during the rewrite session we talked about how hard it is to stay friends when met with a challenge. Students talked about times they had let their friends down or times their friends had let them down, and how they had managed to stay friends in spite of their problems. In other words, we talked about some tense situations that found their way into their writing."
LINEBARGER, SUZANNE. 2001. "Tensing Up: Moving From Fluency to Flair." The Quarterly (23) 3.
16. Encourage descriptive writing by focusing on the sounds of words.

Ray Skjelbred, middle school teacher at Marin Country Day School, wants his seventh grade students to listen to language. He wants to begin to train their ears by asking them to make lists of wonderful sounding words. "This is strictly a listening game," says Skjelbred. "They shouldn't write lunch just because they're hungry." When the collective list is assembled, Skjelbred asks students to make sentences from some of the words they've collected. They may use their own words, borrow from other contributors, add other words as necessary, and change word forms.

Among the words on one student's list: tumble, detergent, sift, bubble, syllable, creep, erupt, and volcano. The student writes:

A man loads his laundry into the tumbling washer, the detergent sifting through the bubbling water.

The syllables creep through her teeth.

The fog erupts like a volcano in the dust.

"Unexpected words can go together, creating amazing images," says Skjelbred.
SKJELBRED, RAY. 1997. "Sound and Sense: Grammar, Poetry, and Creative Language." The Quarterly (19) 4.
17. Require written response to peers' writing.

Kathleen O'Shaughnessy, co-director of the National Writing Project of Acadiana (Louisiana), asks her middle school students to respond to each others' writing on Post-it Notes. Students attach their comments to a piece of writing under consideration.

"I've found that when I require a written response on a Post-it instead of merely allowing students to respond verbally, the responders take their duties more seriously and, with practice, the quality of their remarks improves."

One student wrote:

While I was reading your piece, I felt like I was riding a roller coaster. It started out kinda slow, but you could tell there was something exciting coming up. But then it moved real fast and stopped all of a sudden. I almost needed to read it again the way you ride a roller coaster over again because it goes too fast.

Says O'Shaughnessy, "This response is certainly more useful to the writer than the usual 'I think you could, like, add some more details, you know?' that I often overheard in response meetings."
O'SHAUGHNESSY, KATHLEEN. 2001. "Everything I Know About Teaching Language Arts, I Learned at the Office Supply Store." The Quarterly (23) 2.
18. Make writing reflection tangible.

Anna Collins Trest, director of the South Mississippi Writing Project, finds she can lead upper elementary school students to better understand the concept of "reflection" if she anchors the discussion in the concrete and helps students establish categories for their reflective responses.

She decided to use mirrors to teach the reflective process. Each student had one. As the students gazed at their own reflections, she asked this question: "What can you think about while looking in the mirror at your own reflection?" As they answered, she categorized each response:

I think I'm a queen - pretending/imagining
I look at my cavities - examining/observing
I think I'm having a bad hair day - forming opinions
What will I look like when I am old? - questioning
My hair is parted in the middle - describing
I'm thinking about when I broke my nose - remembering
I think I look better than my brother- comparing
Everything on my face looks sad today - expressing emotion.

Trest talked with students about the categories and invited them to give personal examples of each. Then she asked them to look in the mirrors again, reflect on their images, and write.

"Elementary students are literal in their thinking," Trest says, "but that doesn't mean they can't be creative."
TREST, ANNA COLLINS. 1999. "I was a Journal Topic Junkie." The Quarterly (21) 4.
19. Make grammar instruction dynamic.

Philip Ireland, teacher-consultant with the San Marcos Writing Project (California), believes in active learning. One of his strategies has been to take his seventh-graders on a "preposition walk" around the school campus. Walking in pairs, they tell each other what they are doing:

I'm stepping off the grass.
I'm talking to my friend.

"Students soon discover that everything they do contains prepositional phrases. I walk among my students prompting answers," Ireland explains.

"I'm crawling under the tennis net," Amanda proclaims from her hands and knees. "The prepositional phrase is under the net."

"The preposition?" I ask.

" Under."
IRELAND, PHILIP. 2003. "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time." The Quarterly (25) 3.
20. Ask students to experiment with sentence length.

Kim Stafford, director of the Oregon Writing Project at Lewis and Clark College, wants his students to discard old notions that sentences should be a certain length. He explains to his students that a writer's command of long and short sentences makes for a "more pliable" writing repertoire. He describes the exercise he uses to help students experiment with sentence length.

"I invite writers to compose a sentence that goes on for at least a page - and no fair cheating with a semicolon. Just use 'and' when you have to, or a dash, or make a list, and keep it going." After years of being told not to, they take pleasure in writing the greatest run-on sentences they can.

"Then we shake out our writing hands, take a blank page, and write from the upper left to the lower right corner again, but this time letting no sentence be longer than four words, but every sentence must have a subject and a verb."

Stafford compares the first style of sentence construction to a river and the second to a drum. "Writers need both," he says. "Rivers have long rhythms. Drums roll."
STAFFORD, KIM. 2003. "Sentence as River and as Drum." The Quarterly (25) 3.
21. Help students ask questions about their writing.

Joni Chancer, teacher-consultant of the South Coast Writing Project (California), has paid a lot of attention to the type of questions she wants her upper elementary students to consider as they re-examine their writing, reflecting on pieces they may make part of their portfolios. Here are some of the questions:

Why did I write this piece? Where did I get my ideas?
Who is the audience and how did it affect this piece?
What skills did I work on in this piece?
Was this piece easy or difficult to write? Why?
What parts did I rework? What were my revisions?
Did I try something new?
What skills did I work on in this piece?
What elements of writer's craft enhanced my story?
What might I change?
Did something I read influence my writing?
What did I learn or what did I expect the reader to learn?
Where will I go from here? Will I publish it? Share it?
Expand it? Toss it? File it?

Chancer cautions that these questions should not be considered a "reflection checklist," rather they are questions that seem to be addressed frequently when writers tell the story of a particular piece.
CHANCER, JONI. 2001. "The Teacher's Role in Portfolio Assessment." In The Whole Story: Teachers Talk About Portfolios, edited by Mary Ann Smith and Jane Juska. Berkeley, California: National Writing Project.
22. Challenge students to find active verbs.

Nancy Lilly, co-director of the Greater New Orleans Writing Project, wanted her fourth and fifth grade students to breathe life into their nonfiction writing. She thought the student who wrote this paragraph could do better:

The jaguar is the biggest and strongest cat in the rainforest. The jaguar's jaw is strong enough to crush a turtle's shell. Jaguars also have very powerful legs for leaping from branch to branch to chase prey.

Building on an idea from Stephanie Harvey ( Nonfiction Matters, Stenhouse, 1998) Lilly introduced the concept of "nouns as stuff" and verbs as "what stuff does."

In a brainstorming session related to the students' study of the rain forest, the class supplied the following assistance to the writer:

Stuff/Nouns : What Stuff Does/Verbs
jaguar : leaps, pounces
jaguar's : legs pump
jaguar's : teeth crush
jaguar's : mouth devours

This was just the help the writer needed to create the following revised paragraph:

As the sun disappears from the heart of the forest, the jaguar leaps through the underbrush, pumping its powerful legs. It spies a gharial gliding down the river. The jungle cat pounces, crushing the turtle with his teeth, devouring the reptile with pleasure.
LILLY, NANCY. "Dead or Alive: How will Students' Nonfiction Writing Arrive?" The Quarterly (25) 4.
23. Require students to make a persuasive written argument in support of a final grade.

For a final exam, Sarah Lorenz, a teacher-consultant with the Eastern Michigan Writing Project, asks her high school students to make a written argument for the grade they think they should receive. Drawing on work they have done over the semester, students make a case for how much they have learned in the writing class.

"The key to convincing me," says Lorenz, "is the use of detail. They can't simply say they have improved as writers - they have to give examples and even quote their own writing . . . They can't just say something was helpful - they have to tell me why they thought it was important, how their thinking changed, or how they applied this learning to everyday life."
LORENZ, SARAH. 2001. "Beyond Rhetoric: A Reflective Persuasive Final Exam for the Writing Classroom." The Quarterly (23) 4.
24. Ground writing in social issues important to students.

Jean Hicks, director, and Tim Johnson, a co-director, both of the Louisville Writing Project (Kentucky), have developed a way to help high school students create brief, effective dramas about issues in their lives. The class, working in groups, decides on a theme such as jealousy, sibling rivalry, competition, or teen drinking. Each group develops a scene illustrating an aspect of this chosen theme.

Considering the theme of sibling rivalry, for instance, students identify possible scenes with topics such as "I Had It First" (competing for family resources) and "Calling in the Troops" (tattling). Students then set up the circumstances and characters.

Hicks and Johnson give each of the "characters" a different color packet of Post-it Notes. Each student develops and posts dialogue for his or her character. As the scene emerges, Post-its can be added, moved, and deleted. They remind students of the conventions of drama such as conflict and resolution. Scenes, when acted out, are limited to 10 minutes.

"It's not so much about the genre or the product as it is about creating a culture that supports the thinking and learning of writers," write Hicks and Johnson.
HICKS, JEAN and TIM JOHNSON. 2000. "Staging Learning: The Play's the Thing." The Quarterly (22) 3.
25. Encourage the "framing device" as an aid to cohesion in writing.

Romana Hillebrand, a teacher-consultant with the Northwest Inland Writing Project (Idaho), asks her university students to find a literary or historical reference or a personal narrative that can provide a fresh way into and out of their writing, surrounding it much like a window frame surrounds a glass pane.

Hillebrand provides this example:

A student in her research class wrote a paper on the relationship between humans and plants, beginning with a reference to the nursery rhyme, "Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies . . . ." She explained the rhymes as originating with the practice of masking the stench of death with flowers during the Black Plague. The student finished the paper with the sentence, "Without plants, life on Earth would cease to exist as we know it; ashes, ashes we all fall down."

Hillebrand concludes that linking the introduction and the conclusion helps unify a paper and satisfy the reader.
HILLEBRAND, ROMANA. 2001. "It's a Frame Up: Helping Students Devise Beginning and Endings."The Quarterly (23) 1.
26. Use real world examples to reinforce writing conventions.

Suzanne Cherry, director of the Swamp Fox Writing Project (South Carolina), has her own way of dramatizing the comma splice error. She brings to class two pieces of wire, the last inch of each exposed. She tells her college students, "We need to join these pieces of wire together right now if we are to be able to watch our favorite TV show. What can we do? We could use some tape, but that would probably be a mistake as the puppy could easily eat through the connection. By splicing the wires in this way, we are creating a fire hazard."

A better connection, the students usually suggest, would be to use one of those electrical connectors that look like pen caps.

"Now," Cherry says (often to the accompaniment of multiple groans), "let's turn these wires into sentences. If we simply splice them together with a comma, the equivalent of a piece of tape, we create a weak connection, or a comma splice error. What then would be the grammatical equivalent of the electrical connector? Think conjunction - and, but, or. Or try a semicolon. All of these show relationships between sentences in a way that the comma, a device for taping clauses together in a slapdash manner, does not."

"I've been teaching writing for many years," Cherry says. "And I now realize the more able we are to relate the concepts of writing to 'real world' experience, the more successful we will be."
CHERRY, SUZANNE. "Keeping the Comma Splice Queen Happy," The Voice (9) 1.
27. Think like a football coach.

In addition to his work as a high school teacher of writing, Dan Holt, a co-director with the Third Coast Writing Project (Michigan), spent 20 years coaching football. While doing the latter, he learned quite a bit about doing the former. Here is some of what he found out:

The writing teacher can't stay on the sidelines. "When I modeled for my players, they knew what I wanted them to do." The same involvement, he says, is required to successfully teach writing.

Like the coach, the writing teacher should praise strong performance rather than focus on the negative. Statements such as "Wow, that was a killer block," or "That paragraph was tight" will turn "butterball" ninth-grade boys into varsity linemen and insecure adolescents into aspiring poets.

The writing teacher should apply the KISS theory: Keep it simple stupid. Holt explains for a freshman quarterback, audibles (on-field commands) are best used with care until a player has reached a higher skill level. In writing class, a student who has never written a poem needs to start with small verse forms such as a chinquapin or haiku.

Practice and routine are important both for football players and for writing students, but football players and writers also need the "adrenaline rush" of the big game and the final draft.
HOLT, DAN. 1999. "What Coaching Football Taught Me about Teaching Writing." The Voice (4) 3.
28. Allow classroom writing to take a page from yearbook writing.

High school teacher Jon Appleby noticed that when yearbooks fell into students' hands "my curriculum got dropped in a heartbeat for spirited words scribbled over photos." Appleby wondered, "How can I make my classroom as fascinating and consuming as the yearbook?"

Here are some ideas that yearbook writing inspired:

Take pictures, put them on the bulletin boards, and have students write captions for them. Then design small descriptive writing assignments using the photographs of events such as the prom and homecoming. Afterwards, ask students to choose quotes from things they have read that represent what they feel and think and put them on the walls.

Check in about students' lives. Recognize achievements and individuals the way that yearbook writers direct attention to each other. Ask students to write down memories and simply, joyfully share them. As yearbook writing usually does, insist on a sense of tomorrow.
APPLEBY, JON. 2001. "The School Yearbook: A Guide to Writing and Teaching." The Voice (6) 3.
29. Use home language on the road to Standard English.

Eileen Kennedy, special education teacher at Medger Evers College, works with native speakers of Caribbean Creole who are preparing to teach in New York City. Sometimes she encourages these students to draft writing in their native Creole. The additional challenge becomes to re-draft this writing, rendered in patois, into Standard English.

She finds that narratives involving immigrant Caribbean natives in unfamiliar situations - buying a refrigerator, for instance - lead to inspired writing. In addition, some students expressed their thoughts more proficiently in Standard English after drafting in their vernaculars.
KENNEDY, EILEEN. 2003. "Writing in Home Dialects: Choosing a Written Discourse in a Teacher Education Class." The Quarterly (25) 2.
30. Introduce multi-genre writing in the context of community service.

Jim Wilcox, teacher-consultant with the Oklahoma Writing Project, requires his college students to volunteer at a local facility that serves the community, any place from the Special Olympics to a burn unit. Over the course of their tenure with the organization, students write in a number of genres: an objective report that describes the appearance and activity of the facility, a personal interview/profile, an evaluation essay that requires students to set up criteria by which to assess this kind of organization, an investigative report that includes information from a second source, and a letter to the editor of a campus newspaper or other publication.

Wilcox says, "Besides improving their researching skills, students learn that their community is indeed full of problems and frustrations. They also learn that their own talents and time are valuable assets in solving some of the world's problems - one life at a time."
WILCOX, JIM. 2003. "The Spirit of Volunteerism in English Composition." The Quarterly (25) 2.
© 2003 by the National Writing Project
All rights reserved

Compiled and edited by Art Peterson.
Designed by Karen Karten.

3: "Romance in the Classroom: Inviting Discourse on Gender and Power" by Diane Waff is reprinted from The Voice of the Philadelphia Writing Project (3) 1. Copyright © Winter 1994.

11: "A Place for Talk in Writers' Workshop" by Erin (Pirnot) Ciccone is reprinted from The Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project Newsletter (21) 2. Copyright © 2000.

12: A version of "Getting Real: Can a Writing Prompt Be Authentic?" by Patricia Slagle first appeared in The Louisville Writing Project Network News.

20: "Sentence as River and as Drum" by Kim Stafford is reprinted from The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft. University of Georgia Press: Athens, Georgia. Copyright © 2003 by Kim Stafford. All rights reserved.

30: "The Spirit of Volunteerism in English Composition" by Jim Wilcox is reprinted from Write Angles III: Still More Strategies for Teaching Composition. Copyright © 2002 by the Oklahoma Department of Education.

Related Resource Topics

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Summary: Few sources available today offer writing teachers such succinct, practice-based help-which is one reason why 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing was the winner of the Association of Education Publishers 2005 Distinguished Achievement Award for Instructional Materials. The National Writing Project's 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing offers successful strategies contributed by experienced Writing Project teachers.

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As a "part of speech" transition words are used to link words, phrases or sentences. They help the reader to progress from one idea (expressed by the author) to the next idea. Thus, they help to build up coherent relationships within the text.

Transitional Words

This structured list of commonly used English transition words - approximately 200, can be considered as quasi complete. It can be used (by students and teachers alike) to find the right expression. English transition words are essential, since they not only connect ideas, but also can introduce a certain shift, contrast or opposition, emphasis or agreement, purpose, result or conclusion, etc. in the line of argument.
The transition words and phrases have been assigned only once to somewhat artificial categories, although some words belong to more than one category.

There is some overlapping with prepositions and postpositions, but for the purpose of usage and completeness of this concise guide, I did not differentiate.

Agreement / Addition / Similarity

The transition words like also, in addition, and, likewise, add information, reinforce ideas, and express agreement with preceding material.

Opposition / Limitation / Contradiction

Transition phrases like but, rather and or, express that there is evidence to the contrary or point out alternatives, and thus introduce a change the line of reasoning ( contrast).

Cause / Condition / Purpose

These transitional phrases present specific conditions or intentions.

Examples / Support / Emphasis

These transitional devices (like especially) are used to introduce examples as support, to indicate importance or as an illustration so that an idea is cued to the reader.

Effect / Consequence / Result

Some of these transition words ( thus, then, accordingly, consequently, therefore, henceforth) are time words that are used to show that after a particular time there was a consequence or an effect.

Note that for and because are placed before the cause/reason. The other devices are placed before the consequences or effects.

as a result

under those circumstances

in that case

for this reason

in effect

for

thus

because the

then

hence

consequently

therefore

thereupon

forthwith

accordingly

henceforth

Conclusion / Summary / Restatement

These transition words and phrases conclude, summarize and / or restate ideas, or indicate a final general statement. Also some words (like therefore) from the Effect / Consequence category can be used to summarize.

as can be seen

generally speaking

in the final analysis

all things considered

as shown above

in the long run

given these points

as has been noted

in a word

for the most part

by and large

to sum up

on the whole

in any event

in either case

all in all

Obviously

Ultimately

Definitely

Time / Chronology / Sequence

These transitional words (like finally) have the function of limiting, restricting, and defining time. They can be used either alone or as part of adverbial expressions.

Many transition words in the time category ( consequently; first, second, third; further; hence; henceforth; since; then, when; and whenever) have other uses.

Except for the numbers ( first, second, third) and further they add a meaning of time in expressing conditions, qualifications, or reasons. The numbers are also used to add information or list examples. Further is also used to indicate added space as well as added time.

Space / Location / Place

These transition words are often used as part of adverbial expressions and have the function to restrict, limit or qualify space. Quite a few of these are also found in the Time category and can be used to describe spatial order or spatial reference.

List of Transition Words

Transition Words are also sometimes called (or put in the category of) Connecting Words. Please feel free to download them via this link to the category page:
Linking Words & Connecting Words as a PDF.

It contains all the transition words listed on this site. The image to the left gives you an impression how it looks like.

Usage of Transition Words in Essays

Transition words and phrases are vital devices for essays, papers or other literary compositions. They improve the connections and transitions between sentences and paragraphs. They thus give the text a logical organization and structure (see also: a List of Synonyms).

All English transition words and phrases (sometimes also called 'conjunctive adverbs') do the same work as coordinating conjunctions: they connect two words, phrases or clauses together and thus the text is easier to read and the coherence is improved.

Usage: transition words are used with a special rule for punctuation: a semicolon or a period is used after the first 'sentence', and a comma is almost always used to set off the transition word from the second 'sentence'.

Example 1:
People use 43 muscles when they frown; however, they use only 28 muscles when they smile.

Example 2:
However, transition words can also be placed at the beginning of a new paragraph or sentence - not only to indicate a step forward in the reasoning, but also to relate the new material to the preceding thoughts.

Use a semicolon to connect sentences, only if the group of words on either side of the semicolon is a complete sentence each (both must have a subject and a verb, and could thus stand alone as a complete thought).

Further helpful readings about expressions, writing and grammar: Compilation of Writing Tips How to write good ¦ Correct Spelling Study by an English University

Are you using WORD for writing professional texts and essays? There are many easy Windows Shortcuts available which work (almost) system-wide (e.g. in every programm you use).

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transition words list connecting  transitional transitions phrases  sentences example rule comma semicolon

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As a "part of speech" transition words are used to link words, phrases or sentences. They help the reader to progress from one idea (expressed by the author) to the next idea. Thus, they help to build up coherent relationships within the text.

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5 theme examples: How to develop story themes

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5 theme examples: How to develop story themes

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https://www.nownovel.com/blog/theme-examples-from-literature/

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http://bornagaintechnologies.org/ohs/moodledata/8/theme_and_moral_notes.pdf

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FIVE ADVANTAGES OF THIRD PERSON OMNISCIENT POV

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FIVE ADVANTAGES OF THIRD PERSON OMNISCIENT POV

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http://ingridsundberg.com/2011/03/31/five-advantages-of-third-person-omniscient-pov/

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https://www.novel-writing-help.com/third-person-point-of-view.html

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FIVE REASONS TO WRITE IN THE FIRST PERSON POINT-OF-VIEW

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FIVE REASONS TO WRITE IN THE FIRST PERSON POINT-OF-VIEW

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http://ingridsundberg.com/2011/03/14/five-reasons-to-write-in-the-first-person-point-of-view/

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing in first person?

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing in first person?

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https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/2079/what-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-writing-in-first-person

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing in first person?

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A lot of people are either on the side of first person or the side of third person. But what are the advantages and disadvantages of writing in first person for fiction?

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Point Of View: Enhancing Your Narrative Voice

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Point Of View: Enhancing Your Narrative Voice

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/point-of-view-enhancing-y_n_2720529.html

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Point Of View_ Enhancing Your Narrative Voice _ HuffPost

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6 Secrets to Creating and Sustaining Suspense

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6 Secrets to Creating and Sustaining Suspense

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http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/6-secrets-to-creating-and-sustaining-suspense

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Thriller writing? Mystery writing? Literary fiction? It's all the same: Building apprehension in the minds of your readers is one of the most effective keys to engaging them early in your novel and keeping them flipping pages late into the night.

Simply put, if you don't hook your readers, they won't get into the story. If you don't drive the story forward by making readers worry about your main character, they won't have a reason to keep reading.

Think: Worry equals suspense.

The best part is, the secrets for ratcheting up the suspense are easy to implement. Here are six of the most effective.

1. Put characters that readers care about in jeopardy.

Four factors are necessary for suspense-reader empathy, reader concern, impending danger and escalating tension.

We create reader empathy by giving the character a desire, wound or internal struggle that readers can identify with. The more they empathize, the closer their connection with the story will be. Once they care about and identify with a character, readers will be invested when they see the character struggling to get what he most desires.

We want readers to worry about whether or not the character will get what he wants. Only when readers know what the character wants will they know what's at stake. And only when they know what's at stake will they be engaged in the story. To get readers more invested in your novel, make clear: 1) What your character desires (love, freedom, adventure, forgiveness, etc.); 2) what is keeping him from getting it; and 3) what terrible consequences will result if he doesn't get it.
[9 Practical Tricks for Writing Your First Novel]
Suspense builds as danger approaches. Readers experience apprehension when a character they care about is in peril. This doesn't have to be a life-and-death situation. Depending on your genre, the threat may involve the character's physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual or relational well-being. Whatever your genre, show that something terrible is about to happen-then postpone the resolution to sustain the suspense.

We need to escalate the tension in our stories until it reaches a satisfying climax. Raise the stakes by making the danger more imminent, intimate, personal and devastating. So, if the moon explodes in Act 1, the entire galaxy better be at risk by Act 3. If tension doesn't escalate, the suspense you've been developing will evaporate.

It's like inflating a balloon-you can't let the air out of your story; instead, you keep blowing more in, tightening the tension until it looks like the balloon is going to pop at any second.

Then blow in more.

And more.

Until the reader can hardly stand it.

Incidentally, this is one reason why adding sex scenes to your story is actually counterintuitive to building suspense. By releasing all the romantic or sexual tension you've been building, you let air out of the balloon. If you want to titillate, add sex; if you want to build suspense, postpone it.

FREE DOWNLOAD:
11 Editing Symbols All Writers Need to Know

2. Include more promises and less action.

Suspense happens in the stillness of your story, in the gaps between the action sequences, in the moments between the promise of something dreadful and its arrival.

When I was writing my novel The Bishop, I began with the goal of letting the entire story span only 52 hours. I thought that by packing everything into a tight time frame I would really make the story suspenseful.

As I worked on the book, however, I realized that there was so much that needed to happen to build to the climax that if I kept to my 52-hour time frame, events would need to occur one after another so quickly that there wouldn't be space for suspense to happen among them. Finally, I added another 24 hours to the story to create the opportunity for the promises and payoffs that would make the story suspenseful.

If readers complain that "nothing is happening" in a story, they don't typically mean that no action is occurring, but rather that no promises are being made.

Contrary to what you may have heard, the problem of readers being bored isn't solved by adding action but instead by adding apprehension. Suspense is anticipation; action is payoff. You don't increase suspense by "making things happen," but by promising that they will. Instead of asking, "What needs to happen?" ask, "What can I promise will go wrong?"

Stories are much more than reports of events. Stories are about transformations. We have to show readers where things are going-what situation, character or relationship is going to be transformed.

Of course, depending on your genre, promises can be comedic, romantic, horrific or dramatic. For example, two lovers plan to meet in a meadow to elope. That's a promise.

But the young man's rival finds out and says to himself, "If I can't have her, no one can." Then he heads to the field and hides, waiting for them, dagger in hand.

The lovers arrive, clueless about the danger ...

Milk that moment; make the most of the suspense
it offers.

And then show us what happens in that meadow. In other words ...
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3. Keep every promise you make.

In tandem with making promises is the obligation of keeping them. The bigger the promise, the bigger the payoff. For example, in my first novel I had the killer tell a woman whom he'd abducted, "Your death will be remembered for decades." That's a huge promise to readers. I'd better fulfill it by making her death memorable or terrifying. In another book I had a character tell the hero that the villain had "a twist waiting for you at the end that you would never expect."

Another huge promise. Readers think, OK, buddy. Let's see if you deliver.

That's what you want.

So you'd better deliver.

A huge promise without the fulfillment isn't suspense-it's disappointment.

Every word in your story is a promise to the reader about the significance of that word to the story as a whole. This is where so many authors-both of suspense novels and of fiction in other genres-fumble the ball. If you spend three paragraphs describing a woman's crimson-colored sweater, that sweater better be vital to the story. If not, you're telling readers, "Oh, by the way, I wasted your time. Yeah, that part really wasn't important to the story."

Never disrespect your readers like that.

When stories falter it's often because the writers didn't make big enough promises, didn't fulfill them when readers wanted them to be fulfilled, or broke promises by never fulfilling them at all.

Here's a great way to break your promise to the reader: Start your story with a prologue, say, in which a woman is running on a beach by herself, and there are werewolves on the loose. Let's see if you can guess what's going to happen. Hmm ... what a twist this is going to be-she gets attacked by the werewolves! Wow. What a fresh, original idea that was.

How is that a broken promise? Because it was predictable. Readers want to predict what will happen, but they want to be wrong. They're only satisfied when the writer gives them more than they anticipate, not less.

I'm always annoyed when an author introduces a character, gives me background information on where she went to college, what she studied, her love interests, her favorite snack food and so on, and then kills her off right away or fails to give her any significant role in the story.

When readers invest their time, they want that investment to pay off.

Make big promises.

Then keep them.
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4. Let the characters tell readers their plans.

I know, this seems counterintuitive. Why would we want readers to know what's going to happen? Doesn't that give the ending away?

I'm not talking about revealing your secrets or letting readers know the twists that your story has in store. Instead, just show readers the agenda, and you'll be making a promise that something will either go wrong to screw up the schedule, or that plans will fall into place in a way that propels the story (and the tension) forward.

Simply by having your characters tell readers their schedules, you create a promise that can create anticipation and build suspense:

* "I'll see you at the 4 o'clock briefing."

* "Let's meet at Rialto's for supper at 8."

* "All right, here's what I have lined up for the rest of the morning: Follow up on the fingerprints, track down Adrian, and then stop by the prison and have a little chat with Donnie 'The Midnight Slayer' Jackson."

A story moves through action sequences to moments of reorientation when the characters process what just happened and make a decision that leads to the next scene. We do this in real life as well-we experience something moving or profound, we process it, and then we decide how to respond. Problem is, in those moments of reflection, a story can drag and the suspense can be lost. During every interlude between scenes a promise must be either made or kept.

And, if you resolve one question or plot thread (that is, you keep a promise you made earlier), introduce another twist or moral dilemma (in other words, make another promise).

When a story lags it's almost always because of missing tension (there's no unmet desire on the part of the characters) or not enough escalation (there's too much repetition). To fix this, show us how deeply the character wants something but cannot get it, and escalate the story by making it even more difficult to get.
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5. Cut down on the violence.

The more violence there is, the less it will mean.

This was a problem I faced with my thriller The Knight. In the story, a killer is reenacting 10 crimes from a 13th-century manuscript that was condemned by the church. If I showed all 10 crimes, the story would have certainly included lots of gruesome violence, but the murders would have gotten boring after a while. Instead, my investigator finds out about the killings partway through the crime spree, and he has to try and stop the killer before the final grisly crime.

A murder is not suspense. An abduction with the threat of a murder is.

If you want readers to emotionally distance themselves from the story, show one murder after another, after another, after another; but if you want to build tension, cut down on the violence and increase the readers' apprehension about a future violent act.

The scariest stories often contain very little violence.

And, of course, different genre elements dictate different means of suspense. In a mystery you might find out that a person was beheaded. This occurs before the narrative begins, so the focus of the story is on solving the crime. If you're writing a horror story, you'll show the beheading itself-in all of its gory detail. If you're writing suspense, the characters in the story will find out that someone is going to be beheaded, and they must find a way to stop it.

Reader expectations, and the depth and breadth of what is at stake in the story, will determine the amount of mystery, horror or suspense you'll want to include. Nearly all genres include some scenes with them. As a writer, it's vital that you become aware of how you shape those sequences to create the desired effect on your reader-curiosity, dread or apprehension (see the chart on this page).

Also, remember that valuing human life increases suspense. Because readers only feel suspense when they care about what happens to a character, we want to heighten their concern by heightening the impact of the tragedy. Show how valuable life is. The more murders your story contains, the more life will seem cheap, and if it's cheap, readers don't need to be concerned if it's lost.
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6. Be one step ahead of your readers.

When I write my novels I'm constantly asking myself what readers are hoping for, wondering about or questioning at each point in the story. Our job as writers is to give them what they want, when they want it-or, to add a twist so that we give them more than they ever bargained for.

Here are some ways to do that to amp up the suspense:

→ As you develop your story, appeal to readers' fears and phobias. (Phobias are irrational fears, so to be afraid of a cobra is not a phobia, but to be afraid of all snakes is.) Most people are afraid of helplessness in the face of danger. Many are afraid of needles, the dark, drowning, heights and so on. Think of the things that frighten you most, and you can be sure many of your readers will fear them as well.

→ Make sure you describe the setting of your story's climax before you reach that part of the story. In other words, let someone visit it earlier and foreshadow everything you'll need for readers to picture the scene when the climax arrives. Otherwise you'll end up stalling out the story to describe the setting, when you should be pushing through to the climax.

→ Countdowns and deadlines can be helpful, but can work against you if they don't feed the story's escalation. For example, having every chapter of your book start one hour closer to the climax is a gimmick that gets old after a while because it's repetitious and predictable-two things that kill escalation. Instead, start your countdown in the middle of the book. To escalate a countdown, shorten the time available to solve the problem.

→ As you build toward the climax, isolate your main character. Remove his tools, escape routes and support system (buddies, mentors, helpers or defenders). This forces him to become self-reliant and makes it easier for you to put him at a disadvantage in his final confrontation with evil.

→ Make it personal. Don't just have a person get abducted-let it be the main character's son. Don't just let New York City be in danger-let Gramma live there.

No matter what you write, good prose really is all about sharpening the suspense. Follow these six secrets, and you'll keep your readers up way past their bedtime.

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Thanks for visiting The Writer's Dig blog. For more great writing advice, click here.
Brian A. Klems is the editor of this blog, online editor of Writer's Digest and author of the popular gift book Oh Boy, You're Having a Girl: A Dad's Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.

Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianKlems
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