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Welcome to the writing resource page! |
Remember, good writing is re-writing! |
Stages of Writing
Writing is not a one-time flurry of creativity that results in a masterpiece. It takes time and thought. Even John Green agrees. Here is how many writers and students work:
Stage |
Activities |
1. Pre-writing |
- Students write on topics based on their own experiences. - Students engage in rehearsal activities before writing. - Students identify the audience for whom they will write. - Students identify the function of the writing activity. - Students choose an appropriate fore for their compositions based on audience and purpose. |
2. Drafting |
- Students write a rough draft. - Students mark their writing as a rough draft. - Students emphasize content rather than mechanics. |
3. Revising |
- Students reread their writing. - Students share their writing in writing groups. - Students participate constructively in discussion about classmates' writing. - Students make changes in their compositions to reflect the reactions and comments of both teacher and classmates. |
4. Editing |
- Students proofread their own compositions. - Students help proofread classmates' compositions. - Students increasingly identify and correct their own mechanical errors. - Students meet with the teacher for a final editing. |
5. Publishing |
- Students make the final copy of their writing, often using word processing. - Students publish their writing in an appropriate form. - Students share their finished writing with an appropriate audience. - Students sit in the author's chair to share their writing. |
Copyright © 2011 by the Florida Department of Education, University of Central Florida and State College of Florida
In my classes, students will write for a purpose and an audience, so their writing will need to be as polished and convincing as possible. Rather than writing many short assignments, I prefer to focus on a few large assignments that students will revise to make their very best.
Styles of writing |
In many English classes, you will encounter different kinds of writing styles. Not all essays are the same! You might see:
You can look at the SBAC rubrics for argumentative essays and informative/explanatory
essays (like expository) to get an idea of general expectations for these types of essays.
Here's Shmoop's take on argumentative essays...
- expository writing on a subject
- argumentative essays that use evidence to persuade the reader of a claim
- analytical essays that interpret the theme of a work and how literary devices convey that theme
- narrative writing on an event; sometimes fictional
You can look at the SBAC rubrics for argumentative essays and informative/explanatory
essays (like expository) to get an idea of general expectations for these types of essays.
Here's Shmoop's take on argumentative essays...
General Resources
- Strunk and White (from Miss Johnson's alma mater!) wrote pretty much the definitive guide to style in writing.
- We will be analyzing some literature and poetry; Purdue's Online Writing Lab has a lot of resources to help you write about 'em.
- Find everything you ever needed to know about rhetoric at "The Forest of Rhetoric."
- You can use BibMe or EasyBib to help you cite sources in a paper. Please also see the Purdue Online Writing Lab's guide to MLA formatting, which will be more accurate than using another site. (Often in English, you will use MLA format to cite sources; social studies classes might use APA instead. You can go here for more information about how different disciplines use different styles of citation.)