We may not always define it this way, but writing is a thinking skill. Writing forces us to take the amorphous blobs of our thoughts and develop them into cohesive, clear structures. In other words, writing brings definition and refinement to our vague brain rumblings. 

In fact, I was reminded of this as I was working on the previous piece in this series, “You Should Write Today, Really.” As I was writing that article, I was working at a local cafe when a friend of mine walked in. She was a woman I taught with years ago (I was a school teacher for decades). She came over and said hi and I told her what I was doing. 

Writing Explains Your Thoughts 

As I explained what the series was about, she immediately noted that children are expected to explain their thinking through writing. And this doesn’t just happen in English class. Kids are expected to explain their thinking through writing in basically every school subject from science, to social studies, to math, and more. And they’re expected to do this starting at a young age. My friend and I joked how much easier our teaching job would have been if we could have swapped out all that writing for multiple choice questions instead! 

Writing Teaches Thinking 

But our discussion got me thinking about all of the various roles writing plays in our lives, and how writing is directly linked to our thinking. So really, learning how to write is actually learning how to think. So instead of focusing on how to teach writing, what we’re really asking is how do you teach thinking? 

So, after some deep thinking about thinking, I pulled from all of my teaching experience and came up with a list of tips to help answer that question: “How do you teach thinking?” So, here are some ways that you can help your children enhance their critical thinking skills and their writing skills at the same time. 

Seven Tips to Improve Your Students Writing 

1. Talk

First, encourage children to talk their ideas over before writing. Talking out loud helps children (and adults) structure, shape, and refine their ideas before ever having to put a pen to paper. Talking out loud can be with a whole group (like a writers workshop), or it can be done one-on-one with a partner (like with just you and your child). But no matter how many people you talk with or what form the talking takes, talking always jump starts writing.

2. Plan and Organize 

Second, offer the support of a graphic organizer! A huge part of thinking is planning, and a huge part of writing is also planning. Whether you’re writing an epic fantasy novel or a single page essay, good writing requires good planning. So instead of jumping head first into a wide open blank sheet of paper, do some prep work! And graphic organizers are a great way to get the prep work started. Organizers help you literally lay out your thoughts, they help you keep them all in one place, and they even give you a chance to introduce new, helpful vocabulary words. 

3. Share

Third, share examples! It’s pretty tough to learn any new skill if you don't know what the skill is in the first place! So we can’t expect children (or adults) to create amazing essays or book reports (or cover letters, resumes, and quarterly review reports) if they don’t know what an essay is supposed to look and sound like in the first place! So, with each new piece of writing, look up good examples of the kind writing you expect your students to do. Then, practice analyzing the examples to understand what makes them good in the first. Highlight specific sections, sentences, and word choice to show why this is a good example of the kind of writing the children are being asked to do. Then discuss with the children how they can use these examples as guides and inspiration and references and then let the children take from there. 

4. Start and End 

Fourth, focus on the first and the last. In any writing, the first and last sentences are usually the hardest. So, related to tip number three, find specific examples of great opening and closing sentences from the genre your child is writing in. For example, a great first sentence of a novel may not make a great first sentence of an essay. So, make sure if your child is writing an essay to find examples of great essay openers and closers. Once you find the right examples, break the sentences down into their word choice and grammar to illustrate why it’s a good sentence, and also show how the first and last sentences connect to the larger piece and context of the writing. You may have an amazing closing sentence (when you read it all by itself), but if that sentence doesn’t connect or make sense with the rest of the writing it's all for nothing. 

5. Practice 

Fifth, practice, practice, practice! We don’t often think of writing as a sport, but in so many ways it is! We know that to become a good athlete you have to practice over and over and over again. You know you have to drill your bank shots and goal blocks and foot work. Well, with writing it’s basically the same thing. You have to practice your sentences and word choice just as diligently as you would practice your football routines. You have to fail, get back up, fail again, and get back up again to become good at volleyball, soccer, and book reports, essays, and biographies. So, give your children plenty of space to fail, to mess up, to throw away the paper and start again. In other words, provide lots of opportunities for practice! Good writing doesn’t happen overnight, but good writing practice happens all day, every day.

6. Model 

Sixth, be a role model. Not just in an aspirational way, but by also being a literal model. Kids learn so much by watching and seeing. So to teach writing, they need to see you write. Maybe you haven’t written anything in years, that’s ok! By sitting down and showing your children how you write, you help teach them so much! Don’t be afraid to practice in front of your kids. Your writing doesn’t have to be perfect or even that good. By simply modeling the behavior, by letting your children see your process from beginning to end, they will learn so much! Plus, it’s ok to ask them for feedback! Be humble and let your kids help you and teach you just as you’re helping and teaching them. By asking your children for feedback, you help them learn how to talk to you (and each other) as fellow writers, how to give constructive feedback, and how to receive feedback as well. 

7. Track

Seventh, track your work! Writing logs or journals are instrumental in teaching your children how to write and how to think. Thinking doesn’t change overnight. It takes time, and you can only really appreciate how much things have changed when you keep track and make a record. Writing logs help you and your child see the progress they’ve made over time. Sometimes children can become discouraged that they haven’t gone further with their writing. But with a log, you can look back and truly see how far they’ve come. Or on the other side, sometimes kids think they’ve already done more than enough work, but when you check the log, both of you can see how much they’ve actually done and you both can plan the right amount of practice time they need to reach the writing progress they really want. All that to say, I really love writing logs. They are one of my favorite teacher tools!

Writing Helps You Understand 

Again, writing teaches thinking, because writing forces you to structure, shape, and refine your thoughts. Writing helps you explain what you need, what you want, and what you see. It helps you communicate your experience to others, and it helps you better understand their thoughts as well. Because if you can’t really understand your own thoughts, how can you really understand someone else’s? All of that to say, writing helps you in so many various ways throughout your life, and I hope these seven tips help you and your students grow your writing skills and help you both better understand yourself and others. To learn more ways writing helps you, check out the other articles in this series like: “You Should Write Today, Really.”