How to Teach a Writing Prompt

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Laura from young writers workshops dot com. And I'm going to talk about how to teach a writing prompt. A writing prompt although it can mean anything that you use, you give to a student to respond to and write. Generally referring now to something that is tied to a state assessment. The writing prompts that are most often taught are used for to prepare students to take an state, high stakes test. In so you want, you really want to prepare students so that they'll be ready and know how to handle this situation. Model for your students how you analyze the question so using a writing prompt that you've generated or that you get from your district. Demonstrate how you would read the question, how would you analyze it. How would you think it through. This is a really important part of teaching the prompt for the students because they are going to encounter a different one, but they'll have to know how to approach it. The next step is to create a concept map or some graphical way for them to get some ideas out, brainstorming how, what are some of the ways that they can respond this prompt. Next model from your theses statement the body of their, or the body of their response. And a concluding statement. Walk through the whole thing with the students because they are going to be doing this in a more stressful situation. So the more you can model the process for them, the more opportunity they'll have for success. Next model revising your paragraph that you've generated or your set of paragraphs. You want to make sure that students understand that they do need to leave themselves time to go back over what they've written even if it isn't a timed situation or a situation where they're not in a regular writing workshop setting. And then have them practice this over and over, the more practice they have in responding to prompts the more likely that they will do well. So those are some ways that you can teach a writing prompt."