Essential Writing Skills for Young Writers 

Writing Practicum for Young Writers

In this on-going class young writers will develop their expository, descriptive, narrative argumentative, analytic, and persuasive writing.  Writing is critical to every single subject. Even mathematics often calls for argumentation in written form, especially in disciplines such as statistics. An easy no-stress way of writing the five paragraph essay will be introduced that struggling writers will find beneficial. Writing styles will be reviewed regularly. 

By placing a significantly higher emphasis on a variety of writing types, we can help address the challenges regarding student writing proficiency. This is especially important in the middle school years, when students are transitioning from the foundational skills, they learned in elementary school to the deeper levels of thinking required in high school and beyond. 
The class will be interactive. Learners will compose writing projects in class. Each month a new style of writing will be introduced, and creative and critical writing projects will be assigned. 

Weekly lessons are independent of one another such that students may come/go each week without any interruption in instruction. 

Schedule:

Reviewing the Writing Process
Argumentative/ Persuasive Writing  
Narrative Writing
Descriptive Writing
Analytic Writing/ Expository Writing
Review of all forms




General Weekly Learning session activity schedule:
•	Warm-up thinking game using the monthly writing style as a guide
•	Learners will weekly review the rules of critiquing using the teacher-made PowerPoints and/or videos
•	Weekly writing prompt relating to type of writing studied
•	Writing exercise responding to the writing instruction (analytic, persuasive, argumentative, narrative, descriptive or expository) writing.  
•	Wrap-up Review of what was taught in the class and, if enough time students will review one another’s writing. 

Curriculum is from Cheryl Carter’s Essential Writing Skills for College-Bound Students and Middle School Writing Success.

Summary of Writing types to be covered in this class.

•	Expository writing sets forth facts. You can find it in textbooks, journalism (except opinion or editorial articles), business writing, technical writing, essays, and instructions. This type of writing is predicated on exposition, or the description and explanation of a particular idea. Topics cover pretty much the entire gamut of human experience, from inventions to nature, emotions to politics, family to hobbies and more.

•	Descriptive writing evokes images through rich description. You can find it in fiction, poetry, journal writing, and advertising. Descriptive writing helps writers in many different aspects of writing. 

•	Persuasive writing aims to sway the reader toward the author’s point of view. It is used heavily in advertising and can also be found in opinion and editorial pieces, reviews, and job applications. Persuasive writing is a form of nonfiction writing that encourages careful word choice, the development of logical arguments, and a cohesive summary. There are two main components of persuasive writing: logic and emotional appeal.

•	Narrative writing tells a story. It can be found in fiction, poetry, biographies, human interest stories, and anecdotes. It is writing that is characterized by a main character in a setting who engages with a problem or event in a significant way. Narrative writing encompasses a lot: author’s purpose, tone, voice, structure, in addition to teaching sentence structure, organization, and word choice.”

•	 Analytic writing: This ability requires first identifying and then dissecting the subject at hand, after which the student can offer an argument about its meaning and merit. That is where analytical writing comes in. Analytical writing requires developing a thesis that supports their main claim, backing it up with proof from the text, and concluding with a summary that wraps the two together.

•	Augmentative writing This type of writing is a step above persuasive writing. While persuasive writing can get by with a heartfelt emotional appeal or a well-defended opinion, argumentative writing must cite scientific studies, statistics, and quotes from experts. It also highlights evidence that the author has generated with his/her own surveys and questionnaires.