Authentic Writing Strategies

A. Letters to the Community

Write a letter to the mayor, principal, school board committee, senate, sheriff, firefighter, or other important people from the community. Have the students tell the person that their writing to how much they appreciate what they are doing and possibly some of the concerns they may have.

B. Book Review

Have the students read a book from the classroom library. They will write a review about the book and rate the book from their own personal opinion. The summary will be available for the rest of the students to read, so they will be able to choose if they want to read that book or not.

C. Autobiography

The students will write autobiographies about themselves. Have them write a variety of short stories of their family traditions, interesting facts about their life, etc. When they are finished, we will publish their autobiographies. The student will get a copy and another copy will be in the classroom library so the students will be able to learn about their peers. For an activity, we will have the students guess which classmate we are spotlighting. There will be a bulletin board posting the clues about that person.

D. Newsletter/Journal

Divide the students into small groups. The groups will be assigned a certain subject area to write on. Each week, they will be assigned a different subject area so they won’t get bored with the same one. The students will write a small summary of what they have learned during that week. They will make a small newsletter every week and hand it out to the rest of the class, so they will have a record of what they learned throughout the year.