Activities and assignments to engage students as expert writers and speakers

As you know how  to build steps of the composing process into a syllabus encourages students to take on the habits of expert writers or public speakers. I focused on building drafts or outlines and activities surrounding those into the course calendar. In this post, I will focus on low-stakes exercises and activities that will give students practice, build their fluency, and help them internalize your standards for a good performance.

Assignments that are giving to us from the university encourage innovation as well as the creation of the students. Invention, or pre-writing, is the process by which ideas are selected, narrowed, advanced, or developed. As such, you should consider whether to consign something before a topic is selected, to jump-start creative ideas, or after it is selected, to encourage deeper approaches. I often hear professors say that students are not good at selecting topics, but I seldom hear them discuss helping students do so. Sometimes, a simple class conversation about an idea, a case, or an article can start the process, but usually, students need a little time to understand what topics are appropriate and worth developing in your discipline. All the assignments described below can be used to spark or narrow topic ideas, or develop an argument and expand on a argument. If any grade is assigned, it should be for low stakes, that is, a small percentage or a or participation grade.

Idea blog:  Students write brief (minimum 1-2 paragraph) reflections on readings done for class or class discussions. You can also ask students to search the news or to observe everyday life, and connect what they see to course content. If possible, have them share these and read each other’s. Or, select a few of the best, read them to the class, and explain what the student did well (thus, modeling what you want to see more of).

In the university our lecturer asked us to maintain a blog. Most of the tudents maintained it till the end of the semester of that subject. But now HOW AM I? I started the blog on that day and updating it as soon as I find time. I am not shy to say that my writing skills improved a lot when I doing this task. So as a student (currently Level 1) in Staffordshire University, UK I would like to say that you please start developing a blog to improve your skills.

Mini-essays/speeches: At the end of a lecture, create an open-ended question, and ask students to write an answer in the form of an impromptu essay or as a sentence outline for a speech. Ask them to make the first sentence a thesis statement, i.e., one that answers the question in one way or another, and that the rest serve as support for the view.  Collect these at the end of class. For the essays, during the next class read the best one and explain why you thought it worked. For the speeches, ask one brave student with a good outline to deliver it, or you perform it.

Like this in the school and in the evening classes which I attended practiced this method and now I am proud of my writing skills especially the CREATIVE WRITNG. Why? Because I have the logical brain to argue points when writing essays and also I like to take this opportunity to say that  I now proud in Sri Lanka as I have won he All Island Prizes in creative writing too. So my advice for you is to start writing essays today by yourelf by searching time.