One of the biggest problems facing English teachers is how to inspire our students to be better writers.  It may seem like a bit of an uphill battle on most days, but I think it is a battle that we can win as long as we remain creative in our strategy.   I’ve explained before my lack of expertise and how grammar-challenged I am.  To say that I stink at grammar is an understatement, but I understand the value in knowing the basic rules which need to be followed (and, unlike some of my students, I understand that there are actually rules!)  I have a love for creative writing and logical rhetoric- my bookshelf is covered with everything from classic fiction to Aristotle’s Poetics with C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce somewhere in between.  I am a style junkie- no matter how good the content of a paper is, if it doesn’t flow well or it doesn’t read well, then much of the strength of the paper is lost.

The key to inspiring a student to write better is to help the student step away from the words on the paper and see it differently.  In the battle against really poor writing, I suggest a “Shock and Awe” approach of breaking out the whole arsenal and attacking the paper from every angle.  By going at a paper with many tools from many different perspectives, students can see their papers in ways they may have not previously thought to look at them.  Before Web 2.0 and the abundance of Internet-based tools, I would read my papers out loud, record myself with a small tape recorder, and have someone else read it to me just to try to catch places I might stumble while reading.  With access to the Internet, these tools make the process more effective and creative.  Creating a checklist that aligns with the rubric helps the kids to concretely see what is being expected of them, but using these tools and more will help them to approach their writing altogether differently.

See it differently…
Help the students to see their paper differently by showing it differently.  Wordle creates tag clouds of any text or website and shows it as an image (I’ve written on Wordle before as others have).  Text appears in various sizes and style depending on frequency.  Words that are more frequently used appear larger and bolder while those that are infrequently used are smaller.   By copying and pasting the paper into Wordle you can see what words are commonly used (or abused).  For example, if a student were writing a paper on Nazi Concentration Camps, you should see certain words more frequently (war, hatred, Nazi, Jews, etc.).  If when the tag cloud is created the word “America” appears larger than “Jews” or “Nazi” then the focus of the paper may be wrong.  Also, if words such as “like” are HUGE, then like you know the like student like used it like way too like often.  (See how this posting would look on Wordle.)

Hear it differently…
Read the Words is a great site that lets you upload a document (rich text, Word, PDF, etc), and have it read it for the students.  Students can export the files as a MP3s so they can save their reading on their computer or MP3 player/ iPod and listen to it offline.  What used to be free, no longer is, but at $50 a year for a premium account, this might fit into many teacher’s budget.  You can also have students create a free account which will let them create 3 readings, but they cannot delete the recordings so it is a bit limiting.  There are other sites that convert text to speech and some operating systems have it as a built in feature.  Another option would be to use a program such as Audacity and record the students reading their papers aloud so they can hear themselves and possibly hear places where the flow of the text isn’t working so well.

See editing differently…
Using the “Track Changes” feature in Word or similar features that other word processors use (even using the collaborative features of Google Docs, Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace, Acrobat.com, and even a web-based site like a Wiki) helps the student to see who made the changes.  Another great option is a program that is in beta called Text Flow.  Similar to “Track Changes,” but better it allows you to add multiple versions of a document and see who made what changes and where.  Collaborative and group editing has been used forever, but Text Flow makes it much easier to organize.

Everyone is creative- some are more creative in different ways than others, but by nature we are creative beings.  Some are artistically and some are scientifically creative.  Some are abstract while others are more logical in their creativeness.  Some kids are not their most creative when writing the words on the paper, but if given the chance to see the document differently, their creativity will grow and their writing will improve.  What ways do you bring out creativity in your students?