Easy Writing Across the Curriculum or Anywhere Else

By Herb Williams

This manual contains a complete, sequential program of lessons and examples that can be used to facilitate the writing process in a non-threatening way. This process approach, through a procedure of shaping ideas and working with words, promotes individual growth while allowing for group work, develops confidence, acknowledges accomplishments, and makes writing more satisfying and less painful.
At Montebello High School; near Los Angeles, I was hired as a writing consultant to provide MHS teachers with a process to instill writing across the curriculum. Through two faculty professional development sessions, 210 hours of in-class student writing sessions, in which 1,020 participants went through a four-step writing process of pre-writing, revising, editing and sharing in subjects including art, language, mathematics, music, and special education.
I taught English for 32 years at MHS, and for over fifteen years, I wrote a humor/satire column published in three different local newspapers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312963610

Book preview

Easy Writing Across the Curriculum or Anywhere Else

EASY WRITING

ACROSS THE CURRICULUM OR ANYWHERE ELSE

A Step-by-Step Guide for Writers, Teachers, and Tutors

By

Herb Williams

Copyright © 2014 by Herb D. Williams

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without express permission of the author, except the Draft Evaluation Form, the Proofreading Symbols Page, and the Student Survey Form which may be removed and copied without permission.

Request for permission should be mailed to Herb Williams, 1028 Occidental Circle, Redlands, California 92374, or emailed to [e-mail].

ISBN: 978-1-312-96361-0

INTRODUCTION

As a writing consultant and former teacher of composition, I found that students and adults don’t write enough and when they do write they most likely experience trouble in getting started, and often ask the question, What shall I write about, even though the subject is at hand. Also, if they write at all, they don’t do much editing or revising of their work. Erroneously, they either leave those important tasks up to a computer, which is not infallible by any means, or try to evaluate their own work without the adequate skills to do so. What is often left of a composition is a stilted, passive effort full of incorrect applications of words and phrases, and misspellings.

In addition, our society is an oral society, when we start talking at an early age, it is encouraged as a positive step toward proper development, but there is no established mark for effective writing. Early and late, written communication becomes a catch-as-catch-can proposition.

Ineffective writing is not just a problem in the field of education; it is all also one