Writing Teachers Gather Round

[lunabee34]

I know a lot of my flist is in academia, and zulu and I have been talking about teaching and teaching writing specifically, and I decided to host a post about teaching writing.

So, if you teach or have taught writing at any age level, what are some of the strategies you use? Specific assignments? General thoughts about writing instruction?

If you have ever been a student of writing, what are some things your teachers did that worked? Failed abysmally? General thoughts about learning/teaching writing?

Recs for books, essays, or websites also appreciated.

Please feel free to share this around.

I'll put my thoughts in comments rather than the top-level post.

Comments

Re: Peer Review

[the_rck]

I found peer critique frustrating in high school because the people who looked at my 'write-a-fairy-tale' assignment thought I had made up the word 'lass' and couldn't figure out what it meant from context.

Re: Peer Review

[lunabee34]

Ha! Yes. That is always the problem with peer reviewing. Some students are terrible peer reviewers.

In an ideal world, the way this is supposed to work is that weak peer reviewers are supposed to benefit from the example of stronger ones and that weak ones are supposed to get better with practice. In the real world, that just doesn't happen.