Add Variety to Your Students' Writing

According to Amiee Buckner in Nonfiction Notebooks, you can help student writers add some variety to their writing by using Topic Change-Up. When using this strategy, students will be able to add various writing formats to their collection of writing tools. Use this strategy after your students have decided on a topic. First, you choose five or six formats they are familiar with, such as a newspaper article, advice column, annotated top-ten list, picture book (either narrative or informational), poem, journal entry, etc.  This is like a quick write where students start writing and have to keep writing until the time is up. Start them out by giving them a format to use and have them begin writing. As they are writing, you give them a different format and they have to keep writing (not start over), but switch to the new format. This will give them a better idea of how they may want to eventually complete their writing.   You can even add different text structures to the strategy in addition to different formats. If you try this strategy, please let us know how it went and if there is anything you would change for the next time.