Teacher Tools Related to Writing

List of tools

  • Adaptations for Struggling Writers

    Adaptations include accommodations in the learning environment, instructional materials, and teaching strategies as well as modifications to task demands and actual tasks. Most students who struggle with writing, including those typically in general education classrooms, will only require accommodations. A small number of students with writing disabilities will require significant changes to expectations for their writing processes and performance, the content of their writing assignments, and how or if they will write. Here you will find a list of adaptations specifically for writing.

  • Spelling Instruction Procedures

    Because so many students with writing problems experience difficulty with spelling, teachers need evidence-based instructional procedures for explicitly teaching developmentally appropriate spelling skills and strategies. Here you will find ideas for organizing weekly spelling instruction, curriculum considerations, spelling activities, and spelling study strategies.

  • Genre-Focused Planning Strategies

    A planning strategy is a series of steps designed to achieve the related goals of generating, organizing, and sifting ideas for a paper. Planning takes place before and during writing and written plans should be checked after writing has occurred to ensure the plan was followed. Planning strategies typically use acronyms to encapsulate the multiple steps involved and some sort of graphic organizer to record ideas. Here you will find a planning strategy for writing stories and one for writing persuasive papers.

  • Revising Strategies

    A revising strategy is a series of steps designed to achieve the related goals of identifying mismatches between intended and actual text, adding meaningful content to clarify, support, and elaborate upon what has been written already, and produce a document that communicates with precision the author’s ideas in a way that is engaging for the reader. Revising strategies typically use acronyms to encapsulate the multiple steps involved. Here you will find two revision strategies—a collaborative checklist and an iterative procedure for revising text at multiple levels.

  • Content Area Integration

    Even in the elementary grades, teachers must address content area knowledge and learning, which is difficult to do when so much of the school day is devoted to literacy instruction, unless an integrated approach is taken. Here you will find two means of promoting writing competence as well as disciplinary expertise, both of which capitalize on cooperative and collaborative learning techniques.

Developed by: Gary Troia, Ph.D, University of Washington