It is easy to write if you do some prewriting exercises to get started. The main objective of Prewriting Strategies is to warm up your brain before you write.
These are some of the best Prewriting Strategies to get your students started with writing
Table of Contents
Prewriting Strategy #1 Brainstorming / Listing
Brainstorming is a good way to generate a lot of ideas on a subject. The main purpose of a brainstorming activity is to come up with a list of as many ideas as possible without worrying too much about how you will use them.
If you are brainstorming ideas in groups, one group can act as scribe while other team member generate ideas.
To brainstorm, follow these steps:
- Begin generating ideas about a broad topic.
- Write as many ideas as you can in ten minutes or so.
- Group the ideas that go together.
- Cross the ideas that don’t belong.
Prewriting Strategy #2 Clustering or Mapping
if you prefer to work with information visually, clustering might the ideal strategy for you
Clustering is a technique to generate ideas and show the connection between ideas using circles and lines.
To use the clustering technique, follow these steps
- Write the main in the center of a piece of paper and draw a circle around it
- Write as many ideas as you can in circles around the main cirle
- Connect the ideas to main cirle using lines
- Write more ideas and repeat this process as you see necessary.
Prewriting Strategy #3 Free Writing
Free-writing is a process of generating a lot of information by writing non-stop.
Free-writing is characterized by writers writing:
- as many ideas as they can
- as fast as they can
- Writing without worrying about mistakes
To use the free-writing strategy, follow these steps
- Write the topic of your choice at the top of the page.
- Start writing as much as you can and as fast as you can during ten minutes or so without worry about mistakes
- Read your freewriting and see if the ideas you developed can be used for a paragraph.
Prewriting Strategy #4 Journalist’s Questions
When you are writing, you have to consider these six questions to explore your topic.
These are the questions that journalist ask themselves when writing a story.
- Who?
- What?
- Where?
- When?
- Why?
- How?
These questions can generate a lot of information about a topic very quickly but you need to learn how to ask the right questions.
Prewriting Strategy #5 Outlining
Creating an outline is a task that most learners avoid despite outlines being useful to write a consistent piece of writing.
An outline allows a writer to:
- categorize the main points
- organize the paragraphs into an order that makes sense
- make sure that each paragraph can be fully developed.
Assessment Related Articles
Check these pages and sites before you go:
- How to Assess Grammar and Lexis
- How to Assess Writing Skills
- How to Assess Reading Skills
- How to Assess Speaking Skills
- What are Objective and Subjective Tests?
- Reliability, Validity and Practicality
English Teaching Related Articles
These are some posts related to teaching listening:
- Stages for Teaching Listening
- Best Pre-Listening Activities
- Best While-Listening Activities
- Best Post-Listening Activities
- What Types of Listening are there?
These are some posts for teaching methodology:
- Presentation, Practice and Production Framework
- Teacher-Centered Instruction
- Student-Centered Instruction
- Tips to Reduce Teacher Talking Time
These are some assessment related posts