Writing help for students & teachers

The Writing "Prescription" Posters. (Click link to view posters in a new window)


To the Teacher: Your visual learners will benefit from this set of posters. They are a reminder of many revising and editing strategies you have taught them throughout the year. The pictures will automatically remind them of the strategy even after only seeing the animals one time.

To the Students: The animals on these posters need some help! They are in the waiting room at Dr. Do Lots' animal clinic. Only one of the animals is doing well, but the rest of them have specific problems that have kept them from writing effective papers. See if you can help the Doctor prescribe the WRITE medicine for each animal. Then thnk about your own writing and see if you need any help from Dr. Do Lots. Don't forget to take your medicine when you get your PRESCRIPTION from the Doctor though. Some students hear wonderful medicine from their teachers, but never improve because they forget to take their PRESCRIPTION! Get well soon!

Story Focus - One Piece of the Puzzle

I have a puzzle that I show teachers and students of penguins doing about 30 or 40 things in the picture. Each one is isolated from the others, and all seem like interesting and fun activities.
I ask my audience to look carefully at the entire puzzle and decide which is the most original and unique activity in their opinion.....the one they would enjoy doing the most. Then I have them write a story, pretending that they were the ones doing the events, in place of the penguins.
They end up writing pretty focused papers about one piece of the puzzle instead of every little part. I show them that this strategy can be used in their own writing to make the papers more manageable.

Language Arts Visual Aids

A student's paper is very much like an X-ray that allows the "Doctor", better known as the writing teacher, to prescribe the appropriate medicine.
Sometimes that might be a Band-aid here and there, while often a student needs some major surgery to become a good writer.
I had so much fun designing this set of twenty-six posters. These visual aids help students remember key revising and editing strategies. The set also includes strips of just the animals for the desks to remind those visual learners what to do.
I used the idea of Dr. Do Little helping animals, but in this case his name is Dr. Do Lots. I thought the teachers would appreciate that title more!
See this poster and all our other products at www.thewriteprescription.com or
on www.teacherspayteachers.com  under The Write Prescription/Bill MacDonald

Why low composition scores?

The REAL reason our students are getting low composition scores each year is due to the lack of sufficient writing training in the lower grades.

If we want our students to succeed, we must give writing training to all grade levels, not just the testing grades.

Experiencing this deficiency in students during my early years of teaching, I have developed new methods that model visual & auditory strategies at the bottom of the pyramid, then oral skills, next the reading and finally the writing skills.

In my in-class training, I show teachers how to analyze the pyramid level of their students. With that knowledge, they can then give specific instruction at that level and move up when the students are ready. To the students, I show them visual and auditory strategies at the bottom of the pyramid, then oral skills, next the Reading, and finally the Writing skills.

Building a strong foundation pays big dividends when testing time comes!