Writing, as we hope to impart to our students, can be very fun. There’s nothing else quite like being in full creative flight, with your brain moving and inventing faster than your fingers can get the words out.
But, as every author, journalist and blog writer knows, the opposite of this is the dreaded condition known as writer’s block. This is when, for no apparent reason, no words will come and even staying at the keyboard feels like a challenge.
Here are ten tips for helping to alleviate this common condition with students to get their best words and sentences flowing again.
Talking about being blocked can often help to unblock a student, as analysing the condition helps one to move beyond it – and describing not being able to write is the beginning of being able to describe other things too.
Point out that maths or science students don’t get maths or science blocks, and that writer’s block is often just a way of not engaging with the work at hand.
Providing a list of writing topics/prompts/things to write about can serve as a treatment for being “blocked” and can be doubly helpful if related to the topic.
Brainstorming can often help. If blocked students claim not to like the writing prompts you brought in, challenge them to come up with their own topics – or get them to rework existing ones themselves if they claim to have “no ideas”.
Encourage peer discussion on the relevant topics. This can often work wonders as students help each other and themselves without even realising it.
Show students news reports or articles to surprise them with real events and introduce new ideas or ways of approaching old ones.
Go for a walk outside to offer both a break – always helpful – and a new perspective.
Engage in free writing, where students don’t worry about expectations or the suitability of what they’re creating but instead focus on just getting something out
Now that students have some material or notes, however brief, the teacher can suggest some methods for organising, paraphrasing and summarising this raw material into a more useful form.
Students can use the skill of Summarising – also one of the twelve main reading strategies in CARS & STARS Online – to isolate important points or rework factual reportage into its essential events and details. This can be useful in incorporating content into their own writing, especially if it serves as a catalyst for new fiction.
Reading of all kinds is often a spark for new ideas. With CARS & STARS Online students are exposed to many different types of text and new ways of interpreting it, which is sure to have them inspired.
Students using CARS & STARS Online will be exposed to different text types as standard throughout the program, beginning at the lowest levels, meaning that their imagination is engaged from different angles from the very start. Becoming a better reader helps one become a better imaginer – and CARS & STARS Online can help your students be both.
If you are interested in learning more about the CARS & STARS Online subscriptions and how they can help children to achieve better results, then sign up for a free trial to be an integral part of your child’s reading success.
