A Plan for Teaching Writing: Focus on the Elementary Grades

This workshop explains why many writing programs fail, and shows a better way to guide your student through a simple progression (copywork, dictation, narration, summarizing, outlining, short critical essays, long critical essays, research paper) that will develop both writing and thinking skills in a systematic, stepwise manner. Includes suggestions on how to use these writing and thinking skills in every area of the curriculum. Recommended for those teaching all K-6 students, as well as for those teaching older students who are reluctant writers.

This talk was given at the 2012 Society for Classical Learning Conference. (Susan was chewing ice during the whole conference, but Jim Weiss very kindly remastered the recordings for us so that all you hear is Susan talking, not chewing. He also gave Susan a short lecture about how bad it is to chew ice. Susan still chews ice, but now she hears Jim’s voice in the back of her head whenever she does. It’s kind of off-putting.)