Have you ever planned the perfect writing activity that you knew would engage students and get them excited to write awesome compositions? You included multiple writing strategies to help your students. You were so excited to read those compositions until you actually read them and discovered off topic compositions and compositions lacking basic components…been there, done that. 

A few years ago, I was facing that exact dilemma after our first writing composition of the year. I gave them criteria, writing strategies, and a strong model to help guide them through their writing. It wasn’t enough though because over half of my students struggled with staying on topic. 

I knew that I needed to tackle this issue before we moved on from this writing activity. There was a need to come up with a new writing strategy and fast. The next day for our warm-up question I asked them one question:

“What is this writing prompt asking you to do?”

Writing Strategy #1: Analyzing The Writing Prompt

Most of my students just rewrote the writing prompt in their own words and were unable to explain in detail what they were supposed to write. I took the time to do a THINK ALOUD and model how to annotate the writing prompt to identify exactly what it was asking students to write about.

I then gave them time to re-write their responses from the previous day and saw some improvement in the majority of students’ writing. Their writing was a bit more focused and on topic, but there were still components missing or that needed strengthening.

Writing Strategy #2: Analyzing Writing Samples

I had given my students criteria for a strong writing sample and a strong model, but did they really understand how to use these tools? I didn’t think so. 

In our weekly Cluster meetings for teachers, one step of our process for going through student work was identifying characteristics of strong, medium, and weak work. This helped us to see common trends in student work and come up with our next steps.

I brainstormed on how I could use this strategy with my students and their writing. Giving my students multiple writing samples to analyze and pull the characteristics of each sample seemed to be a good starting point. My hope was that this would allow them to not only identify their own criteria but to also help them better self-assess their own writing compositions.

How to Teach Analyzing Writing Samples

We worked on analyzing writing samples together with a simple three column chart that I created. Here’s a breakdown of how I structured that first analysis mini lesson:

• Teacher Model (I DO): Weak Writing Sample
  • I did a THINK ALOUD to model how to read/annotate the writing samples and identify what the writing sample included and what it was missing.
  • After my THINK ALOUD, I asked students to tell me what steps I did in my model to identify the characteristics of a WEAK writing sample. I wrote these steps on my whiteboard so that students had a blue print they could refer to during Partner Practice and Independent Practice.

• Partner Practice (WE DO): Medium Writing Sample
  • Students worked with their partner to read and annotate the MEDIUM writing sample. They logged their characteristics in their chart. I gave them 6-7 minutes to complete this task.
  • As students were working, I walked around the room to monitor progress and see which students were struggling.
  • We then regrouped as a whole class and discussed what characteristics were in the MEDIUM writing sample. This included what it was missing that kept it from being a STRONG sample.

• Independent Practice (YOU DO): Strong Writing Sample
  • I gave students five minutes to work independently to read the strong model and identify the characteristics that made it a STRONG writing sample.
  • Students then partnered up and discussed their findings with each other to compare before we shared out. I created an anchor chart that contained all the characteristics of a STRONG writing sample.

After independent practice time was over, I gave students an opportunity to self-assess their writing compositions. I was pleasantly surprised to see students referring back to their chart and the three writing samples. For students who stilled struggled to classify their writing, I pulled them into a small group to monitor them.

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Become a Writing Expert Guide: Middle School Writing Strategies

I knew that these two activities wouldn’t be a quick fix for my students’ writing. It would take some time to see results. I felt confident though that with more practice these tools would make an impact.

That’s how the Become a Writing Expert Guide was created. I combined these two activities into a simple writing strategies guide that students complete BEFORE they began their writing composition. 

I established this pre-writing activity as part of the writing process for my class. Step One allowed me to identify any misconceptions with the writing prompt before students began writing. This let me immediately address misconceptions with students.

For Step Two, I would create three different writing samples that were based on a different text. This allows students to see the thinking required and the writing expectations WITHOUT the thinking being done for them. 

Teacher Tip: Put a copy of each writing sample on a separate piece of chart paper and clearly label each sample. After students have completed their analysis, create an anchor chart with a class consensus of the characteristics/criteria for STRONG, MEDIUM, and WEAK writing samples. This gives students clear references that they can refer back to. Plus you can reuse these anchor charts for other similar writing activities. 

What were the results?

Each time we used these writing strategies before an assignment, it got easier for students to identify what they were being asked to write about. The amount of students with off-topic writing compositions decreased each writing activity. Students began writing clearer and more focused responses. I could see them using these steps even when they weren’t allowed to use the guide (benchmarks and districts assessments).  

For many students, analyzing their writing prompt and writing samples seemed to become second nature to them. They required less modeling and assistance with each use. It was easier for students to self-assess their writing and make little improvements during the editing/revising stage. 

Most importantly, writing scores were slowly but surely increasing. Even my SPED and lowest performing students were showing growth using this method. My 6th grade students came to me with a 43% overall writing score on their 5th grade ELA LEAP test. By the end of their 6th grade year, the overall writing score was 76% on the ELA LEAP test. I was amazed at the growth that my students achieved as writers in just one year. This guide was a huge step in their writing foundation. I’m excited to share the rest of my writing strategies and tools in this series with you!

Don’t forget to click the link below to download your FREE writing strategies guide. This resources comes with teaching tips, models, and a sample activity to use to introduce this strategy to students.

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