Teaching Academic Writing

In this month’s Teacher’s Corner, we examine four activities that help teachers teach academic writing. Each activity this month highlights an important aspect of academic writing that students can apply not only to writing courses, but to other subjects as well. In addition, each activity emphasizes the role of the learner in addressing and responding to his or her own writing.

Reading to Support Writing

Teaching students to conduct close readings and make annotations requires an emphasis on reading comprehension, vocabulary development, and intensive reading for details. Ultimately, close readings and annotations give students the tools to better navigate academic texts—texts that they will be expected to explain, synthesize, and evaluate in all of their academic writing assignments. This activity will show you how to teach students to closely read a text and make useful and relevant annotations to use in related writing tasks.

Writing Check with the Academic Word List

In this week’s activity, students will use the AWL to check and revise their own written work using an online tool called an AWL highlighter. AWL highlighters are an easy way for teachers to identify target vocabulary and for students to check their own written work for correct use of words from the AWL.

Writing Consultations

In this week’s Teachers Corner, we offer a template for conducting a successful teacher-student writing consultation. The time and work involved in consultations might seem overwhelming, but the value students take from the individual, focused feedback can carry over into the rest of their continued writing development.

Using a Proofreading Checklist

In this week’s Teacher’s Corner, we share a simple activity that students lead and conduct in the final days before submitting an essay.