Strategies and activities of writing habit

Actually writing is about inspiration and craft, but those skills won’t go far without a devoted
practice. Our writing motivation will never be constant but our routine must be. Writing skills
might vary with each individual but whom are most successful all have one thing is common:
they made time to write. To enrich or develop our writing habit we should follow some strategies
and activities. Such as-

Instant writing
It’s important to develop students’ ability to write without much preparation. The tasks may take
only ten or fifteen minutes or be even shorter. Such activity will considerably boost students’
confidence.

1. Sentence completion: dictate part of a sentence and ask students to complete it about
themselves. This can be also extended.
For example:
a. The only thing I would like to learn is how to…
b. One of the most exciting things that have ever happened to me is …
In here students will extended these sentence in their own way without taking much time.

2. Free writing — is a technique in which a person writes continuously for a period of time
without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic. It produces raw, often unusable material, but
helps writers overcome blocks of apathy and self-criticism. Basic free writing follows these
guidelines:
 Write nonstop for a period of time (10–20 minutes).
 not to do any corrections in writing on that time.
 Write whatever comes into our mind like-food habits, reading taste, contents we
usually follows in social media etc. This type of activity is really helpful because
stds get chance to express their own experience and their personal views.

3. Using music: Music is one of the comfort zone for most of us. It has a special soothing
power to relief our stress. There is a universality about music that means it can connect any
people without considering their age, community even their languages. Activity related to
music can help us to share our taste, our ideas or our thinking, very swiftly.
a. Musical Stories - In here stds can write stories on the basis of music they listen to. If the
music conveys a strong atmosphere or environment it will often spark the stds creative
thinking or content what comes to their mind.

4. Using pictures: Pictures can often used to present situation for grammar, vocabulary,
speaking, writing, reading even listening task. It can be used for the activity like-

a. Discribing pictures-what you are seeing on those picture or what people are doing
on those picture, or what happening on that picture.
b. Story tasks-pictures are really useful to prompt stds into writing stories. There are different tasks like-
 Given dramatic pictures and to ask stds to write what happened next.
  Stds can given a series of sequence pictures and ask to write the stories which the pictures tell.
 Given a pictures with a title and ask to write a story about that picture.

5. Writing Poems: Poetry writing activities can be immensely satisfying for stds because it
allows stds to express themselves in a way that is much deeper level than any other writing
activities. It allows std to play with new vocabulary in a way that other genres can’t. Here we
can give task like-
a. Stem or frame of poems: In here teachers can use sentence or phrase of stems or frames
like -I think…because…/I hope… because/ I wish…. because….
Stds will fill the gaps and try to make a rhythm like poem. And after completing them it
will look almost like a poem. It will give them pleasure to find out their own creative
power.
Collaborating Writing
Collaborative writing has the power to foster the writing habit in a unique way as it allows
students to learn from each other.
6. Dictogloss: In dictogloss technique students recreate a text that the teacher reads to them.
The main purpose of the activity is to focus the students’ attention on specific items of
language. Dictogloss is useful for our four skills and vocabulary acquisition too. In here at
first time the students hear the story from their teachers without making any notes. Then in
pairs they discuss what they have heard and try to establish the main facts. After that they are
going to hear the story again. This time students take notes and now they will concentrate on
both the language and the facts. Each time students hear the text again they will reconstruct
the story more accurately without changing its meaning. In here they will work in groups of 3
or 4 members and trying to write a text collaboratively. The students have been provoked
into using what they have heard and any other language they know to help write the story.
Writing in groups and pairs
7. Expanding sentences – Where teacher will presented stereotypical statement like: Boys like
football. Girls like shopping. and asked his stds to share their opinion or defend to this topic.

8. Story circle- all the students in a group are sitting in a circle. Each student has a blank sheet
of paper in front of them. The teacher dictates a sentence (e.g. Once upon a time a beautiful
princess lived in a castle by the river). and write it at the top of the paper. Each student is told
to write one sentence. Once they have done it, they will pass the paper to the left one for
writing the next sentence of the story. This procedure continues until each student has their
original piece of paper in front of them. They are told to write the last line of the story. This
activity encourages students to analyze their partners’ writing and it is really a fun process of
learning!

9. Jigsaw techniques

The “Jigsaw Method” is a teaching strategy of organizing student group work that helps
students collaborate and rely on one another. This teaching strategy is effective for completing
multiple tasks at once and for giving students a greater sense of individual responsibility. The
jigsaw method allows the teacher to break students into groups and assign them into smaller
pieces to work collaborately.

Implementing Jigsaw in the Classroom

This technique can be apply in classroom by following some steps. Suppose I want to uses the
jigsaw method to teach my students about Nansel mendela.
1. I will break my class up into five home groups, with 5 students in each group.
2. Each student in a group is assigned one of the following topics: Nansel's childhood, his career,
his campaign and his political life, prison life and his presidency. I will provide each student
articles, books, and worksheets on that specific topic.
4. Students form expert groups will include all students from the class who have been assigned
the same period of Nansel's life. For example, all students whom are assigned Nansel's childhood
will be in one group.
5. Then they work in their new groups to research, write notes, and discuss their topic until they
feel comfortable giving an overview of the main points.
6. After that the students go back to their original groups to share their piece of the writing.
7. Once each student takes a turn to explain their part, the whole group has learned the main
points from all periods of Nansel's life.
8. And last I may asked the groups write a report on Nansel Mendela. Through this we can
complete this activity.
10. Using technology: - is another a great way to practice writing. In here teacher can ask
individual students to write a question to another student in the class like - Do you like
reading? Have you ever faced reading block? Or which type of jounra you prefer to read?
Students to communicate each other by using technology like-email, text, live chat or writing a
blog, sending notes.

a. Email exchanging- A logical extension of e-mail exchanges can create a live chat
environment, where stds can talking to each other just like real time and in here writing
becomes more like conversation. It can be fun and also help students to build confidence,
relief from formal writing and give them encouragement for more writing.