October 26 Event with Dr. Mary Ann Corley, Captions, and Fear of Writing!

Submitted by Steve Schmidt on Wed, 10/13/2021 - 10:55
  • 131 Views
  • 2 Comments

Hi Everyone,

Please save the date, register for the event, and gather your questions for our October 26 at 2 PM ET webinar, Help Adult Literacy Students Increase Their Writing Fluency with Dr. Mary Ann Corley! This free one-hour event will answer the questions: What strategies are most effective for our emerging ABE and ESOL writers? How can we help our students who are afraid to write? 

One of my favorite writing techniques that I learned from Dr. Corley is picture captioning. Give students a picture and have them write a brief sentence about what they see. Find pictures to caption here and here. 

I recently reflected on what makes picture captioning valuable for our students. It certainly aids in developing writing fluency. It also assists learners in developing their ability to summarize. If they can capture a picture's thousand words in a short sentence, they can summarize! Learning to summarize is one of the most valuable writing skills we can teach our students (US Department of Education, 2012). A non-threatening task like picture captioning also helps students get over their fear of writing. 

  • How do you help your students who are afraid to write?

Thanks for your thoughts group members,

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group 

Comments

Hi Colleagues,

I have been thinking about the issue of helping students who are afraid to write. This is a question I posed at writing workshops, and here are some of the answers I received:

  • Use the video Why are you afraid to write?
  • Avoid loaded words like essay 
  • Say “put pen to paper” or "hands to keyboard" instead of write

​​​​​​​I know there are other great answers to this question!

  • How do you help your students who are afraid to write?

 

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Group