Teaching Writing to Students

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$389

AUD

35% off

$599 AUD

Quick Facts

Delivery Method Online
Professional Certificate
24hrs Suggested Study Time
3 Months Access
Tutor Support
Study On Any Device
4101 Students

Get the professional development training you need to improve student literacy as an accomplished teacher shares the secrets of turning guided reading strategies into opportunities for teaching writing.

Around 30% of students in sixth grade already have trouble with basic reading and writing. These literacy problems affect performance across subject areas, and they often leave teachers wondering how to help. Get the professional development training you need to improve student literacy as an accomplished teacher shares the secrets of turning guided reading strategies into opportunities for teaching writing. The road to literacy is also the road to ingenuity, invention, and imagination, and you'll soon learn how to take your students from groans to grins with creative lesson plans that really work!

We'll start our journey by talking about the reasons reading and writing are so difficult for students. Then we'll meet the total literacy framework and see how it mitigates literacy problems once and for all. Since this framework is based on guided reading lessons that flow naturally into writing challenges, you'll learn the recipe for a successful guided reading into writing lesson.

Once the framework is in place, we'll investigate a number of ways to modify this basic recipe for a variety of K-12 circumstances, wrapping up with a look at good writing habits and the traits of a productive writing conference. If you're looking for the right way to get students excited about the power of literacy, this is the course for you!

Courses are delivered to you through expertly executed lessons, online instruction and interaction with like-minded students. Our courses are designed to deliver all of the benefits of studying in a classroom whilst giving you the flexibility to study at a time and place to suit your needs. You can access your classroom 24/7 from any device with an internet connection.

This course has a 3 month duration. You'll complete comprehensive lessons, quizzes and assignments before submitting your final exam at the end of the course to achieve your certificate. Courses must be completed within the 3 month access period.

Have you ever wondered why so many of your students struggle to read and write? You're not alone! In this introductory lesson, we'll discuss why these two subjects are so hard for students and how we can make their lives a little easier. Get ready for some creative suggestions that you can read about today and use in the classroom tomorrow.

In order to really help our struggling readers and writers, we need a framework for implementing positive change. The total literacy framework is just the thing: Guided reading, writing, engagement, and assessment are the components that make it so effective. The best part is that this framework allows us a lot of flexibility and opportunities for success as we meet diverse learner needs. We'll discuss guided reading, writing, and engagement in today's lesson and look at assessment next time.

Assessment is the part of the total literacy framework that drives instruction. After all, we need to know where students are academically and where they need to go before we can teach them effectively. So in today's lesson, let's take a look at fun and simple ways to assess students' reading and writing skills without taking up too much class time.

Since a lot of our course is going to focus on turning guided reading lessons into writing opportunities within the total literacy framework, we need to begin with a basic guided reading and writing recipe. The recipe we'll go over in this lesson is one that you can easily modify for any K-12 setting, and it's dotted with examples from real classrooms where guided reading and writing are changing lives.

Have you ever read a great story only to think, "I could write something better than that"? Well, guess what? Your students think the exact same thing. Why not give them an opportunity to write stories after reading great books during guided reading time? You'll learn all the tricks in this action-packed lesson.

Nonfiction is often thought of as the ugly stepsister to its more creative counterpart, fiction. However, with a little imagination, you can make nonfiction come alive in your classroom. And even better, you can help your students write compelling articles after they read nonfiction. In this lesson, you'll learn how you can make fiction's stepsister a little less ugly.

Some students absolutely hate reading and writing poetry, but they won't after you introduce the techniques we're going to discuss today! If you're eager to bring out the natural poet in your budding writers, this lesson will give you just the creative jumpstart you've been waiting for. As an added bonus, you'll take a tour of the different kinds of poetry that inspire students.

Writing papers is never going to be the most interesting part of school, but it's always going to be necessary. So in this lesson, we'll discuss how to teach students to read research material and use it as a launch pad for papers that are clear and thought-provoking the first time around. We'll even discuss some techniques that make the whole process a little more enjoyable.

One of the neat things about employing the total literacy framework is that we can extend it across the content areas. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to use guided reading and writing to your advantage whether you're teaching math, social studies, or science. The best part is that your students will learn that reading and writing are never isolated endeavors!

Have you ever written something that was a little hard to understand? Even the best writers can find themselves struggling to make their point as clear as possible. So in this lesson, we'll go over how to teach students to craft their own style, hone their organization, and check for proper mechanics before they turn in any assignments.

Writing conferences are a great chance to make sure students are successful as they turn reading into writing and writing into ideas. I'm always surprised at how much I can accomplish by taking only a few minutes a week to discuss a student's writing. In this lesson, we'll discuss the power of conferences and how to make the most of them.

As we're building the total literacy framework in our classrooms, it's important to take time to encourage and inspire students by turning their small successes into big rewards. If you're looking for new strategies to motivate students and make reading and writing fun, you won't want to miss all the tips and tricks in this final lesson!

Marsha Spears

A veteran educator who has taught every grade but third, Marsha Spears has spent 35 years teaching students and training teachers. Spears earned a bachelor's and master's degree in educational administration with a specialty in curriculum and lite... Read more

Read Marsha Spears's Profile

Frequently Asked Questions

Once you've made the payment, we'll send you a confirmation email with a link to start your course. Feel free to get started whenever you're ready!

You'll have 3 months access to your course. In that time you are free to study at your own pace. The course duration is 24 hours.

Online learning is a flexible way to study that fits around your schedule, giving you the freedom to learn at your own pace from anywhere in the world. You'll have 3 months to complete the course and can take the multiple-choice questions and final exam whenever it suits you.

If you need help, you can contact us anytime. You can also join the discussion area where you can interact with other students. The discussion area for each lesson is open for the entire duration of the course.

Of course! We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. As long as you haven't completed the course, you can get a full refund within 7 days of enrolling.

We do not offer extensions or transfers for this self-paced course. However, you will have 3 months to complete the course, and if you need to cancel within the first 10 days of enrolment, we offer a money back guarantee.

The Learning Environment

From the moment that you enrol in the Teaching Writing to Students you will become an integral part of our learning community. You'll find yourself with the freedom to learn at a speed that suits you, on any device, from anywhere in the world. Achieving your career goals no longer has to mean compromising family and work commitments.

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Teaching Writing to Students

$599

$389AUD

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Write Fiction Like a Pro

Now Only

$389

AUD

35% off

$599 AUD

Quick Facts

Delivery Method Online
Professional Certificate
24hrs Suggested Study Time
3 Months Access
Tutor Support
Study On Any Device
6825 Students

A Hollywood writer and author teaches you how professional writers use story outlines to structure any type of story.

What's the single biggest difference between professional authors and novices? Professionals know how to structure novels and stories for maximum dramatic effect. This course helps you develop the same story structuring skills the pros use. You'll understand how your passion, theme, premise, and characters help you create the structure of your story, and you'll discover how viewpoint, dialogue, pacing, and many other techniques are used to build scenes and move your story from beginning to end.

Each assignment in this course helps you develop your own original novel or story. As you apply each technique, your story will take shape, with a clear path from beginning to end. And whenever you have questions or insights to share, you can join your instructor and classmates in the Discussion Area for some interactive brainstorming! Before you know it, you'll be prepared to ...write fiction like a pro.

The name of this course really says it all! For the next six weeks, we'll focus on techniques that professional authors use to write effectively and efficiently and that guarantee a story structure that delivers maximum emotional impact. After all, connecting with your audience is what great writing is all about, right? In this first lesson, we'll explore the idea of story structure, and you'll discover that nearly every piece of fiction that works follows the same fundamental rules. We'll also look at the often misunderstood difference between story and plot, a concept that will be vital throughout the rest of this course.

At the heart of every story are the dramatic elements of passion, theme, character, and premise. Your passion is what drives you to tell your story, and the theme is the underlying message it carries. To convey your theme, you'll create characters who represent that theme—either positively or negatively. Put all of these together and you've got your premise. We'll talk about all of these elements in today's lesson.

Character is what story is all about. Without a character, and a change in that character, there can be no story. In this lesson, you'll discover why the best characters are flawed. We'll explore your main character—the protagonist—and the opposition forces of the antagonist. And finally, we'll take a look at the other characters who round out your story.

Today's is the first of three lessons in which you'll see how to construct a story outline, act by act. In Act 1, you'll learn how to hook your readers. Then you'll fill them in with some character history called backstory. And finally, you'll exit Act 1 with a bang by triggering a traumatic event in the life of your protagonist.

If Act 1 ends with a bang, Act 2 starts with a whimper. Your protagonist begins in crisis, an emotional state brought on by his or her flaw. And because of that flaw, your protagonist will struggle throughout Act 2, as the antagonist delivers setback after setback. Fortunately, at the conclusion of Act 2 your protagonist finally figures out the source of all this emotional distress and how to overcome it.

The epiphany that ended Act 2 has prepared your protagonist for triumph in Act 3. Now it's time to devise a plan. The result will be a final confrontation with the antagonist. In this lesson, we'll discuss the best way to arrange the defeat of your antagonist—it's not what you might guess. Then, with that climax behind you, you're ready to tie up loose ends in the ending.

We've accomplished a lot in the last few lessons. By now you should be pretty comfortable with story structure. In the next three lessons, we'll take the concepts you've learned so far and apply them to the development of a real novel. Today we'll begin by using the dramatic elements to create a character, his or her flaw, and then put it all together into a formal story idea.

In this lesson, we'll expand the story idea for a novel into the nine checkpoints of our three-act outline. This is quite a challenge for just one lesson, but we've become pretty expert at this story structuring stuff by now, so let's go!

Now that you have your outline—and a beautiful one it is!—it's time for that magical moment when you begin expanding it into the long form. Yikes! The actual novel is about to materialize. We'll begin by inserting markers for the scenes that support and develop the outline. Then you'll start expanding those scenes and threading your theme throughout. This is really writing like a pro!

One of the most important choices an author makes is viewpoint. It affects every aspect of the story—from theme, to pacing, to suspense. In this lesson, we'll explore the three most common viewpoints—omniscient, third-person limited, and first person—and discover their advantages and disadvantages. Then we'll dig into techniques for developing characters and establishing a convincing story logic.

In this lesson, we'll look at techniques for refining your plot and controlling its pace. Then we'll unravel the internal structure of every piece of fiction you've ever read, discovering a structure that I bet you never knew existed. After today, you'll never forget it. It's called scene and sequel.

Now that your novel, play, or screenplay is well underway, it's time to think about polishing the final product. In this lesson, we'll look at some techniques for making your writing sparkle, including tips on dialogue and imagery and how to use them to show, not tell. We'll also see how to establish your own unique voice, paying special attention to the aspects of cadence and musicality. Finally, we'll talk a little about the creative process and your role now that you know how to . . . write like a pro.

Steve Alcorn

Steve Alcorn is the published author of a wide range of fiction and nonfiction works including the mystery A Matter of Justice, the historical novel Everything in Its Path, the romance Ring of Diamonds (under the pseudonym Sha... Read more

Read Steve Alcorn's Profile

Frequently Asked Questions

Once you've made the payment, we'll send you a confirmation email with a link to start your course. Feel free to get started whenever you're ready!

You'll have 3 months access to your course. In that time you are free to study at your own pace. The course duration is 24 hours.

Of course! We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. As long as you haven't completed the course, you can get a full refund within 7 days of enrolling.

What people are saying about our courses

If you have an idea for a book, but just can't get it together, this is the class for you. Steve Alcorn gives you the tools and the confidence to pull your ideas together and give them structure. Before you know it, you are inspired and writing. What a class! Steve Alcorn is a gifted instructor.

Verified Student

I have taken both Write Like a Pro and Steve's Mystery Writing course. I have now published three of the stories I worked on in Write Fiction Like a Pro, as a result of the course. Thank you, Steve, for offering it.

Verified Student

Can you see me? I'm giving you a standing ovation! Haven't done this much thinking, rethinking, breaking pencils, and eventually cheering since I graduated from college. Thank you for an inspiring and brilliant class!

Verified Student

See More Reviews

The Learning Environment

From the moment that you enrol in the Write Fiction Like a Pro you will become an integral part of our learning community. You'll find yourself with the freedom to learn at a speed that suits you, on any device, from anywhere in the world. Achieving your career goals no longer has to mean compromising family and work commitments.

Ready to get started?

Enrol Now