Are you looking for strategies to teach students to organize writing activities? If so, keep reading.
1. At the top of a piece of paper, write five or six sentences out of sequence about a story the student has read. Get the student to cut the sentences apart and paste them in the proper order at the bottom of the paper.
2. Inspect the student’s work regularly to make sure that the student is organizing the writing learning experience appropriately.
3. Provide the student a group of related words (e.g., author, read, love, bestseller, etc.) and have them write a properly organized paragraph that includes each word.
4. Provide the student several short sentences and have them combine them to make one longer finished sentence (e.g., “The cat is big. The cat is brown. the cat is mine.” becomes “The big, brown cat is mine.”).
5. Get the student to arrange a sequence of statements on a topic in an appropriate order so that they make sense in a paragraph.
6. Get the student to begin to practice organizational writing skills by writing simple sentences with subjects and verbs. Get the student to then expand the sentences by adding adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases.
7. Get the student to create stories about topics that are of interest. The student is more likely to be successful if they are writing about something of interest.
8. Get the student to create an outline or skeleton of what they are going to write. From the outline, the student can then practice organizational skills in writing.
9. Get the student to develop organizational skills in writing simple sentences. As the student shows success, slowly increase the complexity of sentence structure required and move on to paragraphs, short stories, etc.
10. Get the student to read a short story and then list the activities of the story. From that list, have the student construct a paragraph using the correct sequence of activities.
11. Minimize distracting stimuli by placing the student in a study carrel or “office” when engaged in writing learning activities. This should be used as a way to lessen distractions, not as a punishment.
12. Get the student to read their own written work aloud to help them find errors in organization.
13. Give practice organizing writing learning activities using an app or a handheld educational device that gives the student instant feedback.
14. Get the student to write a paragraph describing the activities of a daily comic strip.
15. Using a written essay that the student has not seen, cut the paragraphs apart and ask them to reconstruct the essay by putting the paragraphs in an appropriate order.
16. Get the student to write step-by-step instructions (e.g., steps in making a cake) so they can practice sequencing activities.
17. Assist the student to brainstorm ideas about a topic and then show them how to put these ideas into outline form by combining some ideas and discarding others.
18. Consider using one of the apps on one of our best writing apps lists:
The Tech Edvocate’s List of 31 Grammar & Writing Apps, Tools & Resources
Ten Apps to Help Learners Develop Writing Skills
10 of the Best Grammar and Writing Apps for Elementary School Learners
11 of the Best Grammar and Writing Apps for High School Learners
10 of the Best Grammar and Writing Apps for Middle School Learners
