ENGL 483 – Elementary School Writing

As teachers you may notice that when you assign that traditional research paper in your classroom that you may lookout around to see all of your students looking like this. This look of pain and suffering coming from your students is most likely due to the monotonous rotation of research papers that your students are finding themselves stuck dealing with. Though research papers may be beneficial and essential in some cases, the amount that you assign within your classroom should be kept to a minimum. There are so many other ways that you can lead your students to conduct various assignments that are equally, if not more, successful than having your students research a particular topic and demonstrate the knowledge that they have gained which will consequently result in a more enjoyable and memorable experience with writing.

Going through school, my teachers would always assign research papers like discussed above and on rare occasions I had teachers that would allow our class a little freedom and the ability to take the writing assignment into our own hands. This change in instruction was definitely refreshing; however, it was much harder on us as students because we had become so accustomed to having someone tell us what to do.

As future elementary teachers we can take the knowledge that we have gained from our various courses here at Longwood, as well as our prior knowledge from the experiences we had as students ourselves in order to develop at an early age a greater appreciation within our students for writing prior to their arrival at the age where mandated research papers are more essential to the writing process.

Examples of RAFT assignments to incorporate into your classroom:

-Create an advertisement

-Create a booklet, brochure, or manual

-Create a commercial

-Conduct a demonstration

-Create a diorama or conduct an experiment

-Create a diary or journal entry

-Create a newspaper article

-Create a word search or crossword puzzle

Ideas:

-newspaper addressing why students are developing a dislike for

writing

-lesson plan to use in future class

-letter thanking a teacher for the good writing experiences you

had in their classroom