Writing skills

Writing

Grammar is an important part of writing, effective writing requires much more. When a writing process is used to teach writing, students begin to understand writing as a form of communication. Furthermore, writing helps students recognize that they have opinions, ideas, and thoughts that are worth sharing with the world, and writing is an effective way of getting them out there!

There are many types (or modes) of writing such as descriptive writing, persuasive writing, 

informative writing, narrative writing, and creative or fiction writing. Many students are familiar with the basic writing assignments such as book reports, social studies reports, short stories, and essays on topics such as: "What I did on my summer vacation". But these writing assignments should be thought of as applications of basic writing modes. For instance, a book report is usually a type of descriptive writing, and an essay on dinosaurs might include both informative and perhaps persuasive writing.

Expository writing:

Expository writing is where the author intends to inform, explain, describe or define their subject to you. This is the most common type of writing you will find in text books and online. As the author is mostly trying to tell you all about the subject, their opinions are left out leaving you with facts and figures instead of trying to defend or support an opinion. An example of expository writing is "How-to" articles, where the author is explaining how to build or do something yourself.

 Expository writing is to-the-point and factual. This category of writing includes definitions, instructions,  directions and other basic comparisons and clarifications.

Expository writing is devoid of descriptive detail and opinion.

Expository writing is crucial for students to get comfortable with, since it will be needed in many potential careers that aren't primarily writing-oriented. Students must be able to organize their thoughts, follow a plan, and in higher grades, conduct research to support their theses. It requires thinking on multiple levels.

Descriptive writing:

Descriptive writing uses a lot of great visual words to help you see the person, place or thing they are writing about. The writing can be poetic at times, and explain things in great detail. When you are reading descriptive writing you feel as if you are there or can actually picture in your mind what they are describing. Metaphors, similes and symbols are often used in descriptive writing.

Descriptive writing is used to create a vivid picture of an idea, place or person. It is much like painting with words. It focuses on one subject and uses specific detail to describe that upon which your child is focused. For example, if your child is asked to write about his favorite ride at an amusement park, his writing will not only tell the name of the ride and what it looks like, but also describe the sensation of being on it and what that experience reminds him of. In upper grades, a student's descriptive writing should be more subtle and nuanced, using figurative and metaphorical language.

Narrative writing:

Narrative writing is very common in novels, poetry and biographies. The author puts themselves in their characters shoes and writes as if they were that person. They tell life stories and involve plots and storylines. Narrative is fun to read because you can replace the author with yourself and it will seem as if the story is happening to you.

Though it’s most commonly used when in personal essays (along the lines of  What I Did to Celebrate the Holidays), this type of writing can also be used for fictional stories, plays or even a plot summary of a story your child has read or intends to write. 

This is likely the most frequently used of the four most common types of writing, and students will spend a significant amount of time learning how to write narratives.

 Narrative writing is frequently, but not always, in the first person, and is organized sequentially, with a beginning, middle and end. 

Persuasive writing:

Persuasive writing takes on the opinion of the writer or issue the writer is writing for. This is considered biased material and is most often found in advertising. You know all of those commercials you see on television? Behind all the talk and messages is a persuasive writer. Always make sure you do background research when reading this type of material, as every story has two sides!

Persuasive writing is a more sophisticated type of writing to which your child will introduced around fourth grade. It can be thought of as a debate in writing. The idea is to express an opinion or to take a stance about something and then to support that opinion in a way that convinces the reader to see it the same way.

Persuasive writing contains an explanation of the other point of view and uses facts and/or statistics to disprove that view and support the writer's position.

Some examples of persuasive writing include essays, debate position papers, editorial pieces such as letters to the editor and book or concert reviews.