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The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.

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The Purdue OWL® is committed to supporting  students, instructors, and writers by offering a wide range of resources that are developed and revised with them in mind. To do this, the OWL team is always exploring possibilties for a better design, allowing accessibility and user experience to guide our process. As the OWL undergoes some changes, we welcome your feedback and suggestions by email at any time.

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5 tips on how to write an impressive composition.

New year, new school, new opportunities for growth! Read our article as we share some tried and true tips for parents and children in the lead up to the first day of primary school.

A Whole New World Awaits

New classmates, new teachers, new school environment — your child’s tiny world is about to get a lot bigger. With these changes come opportunities for personal, social and cognitive growth.

The Countdown And Preparation Begins

In these weeks as you count down to your child’s first day of school, you may be wondering, “What will school be like for my child? Will my child be able to cope in the new environment?”

Parents can help by being proactive —  research from professionals at Duke University   suggests that establishing a strong communication channel with your child’s teachers helps and so does monitoring changes in your child's behaviour or mood when he or she first starts school.

Whether at home or in school, we’ve got some great tips for every stage of preparation that will help you (and your child) pave a smooth journey towards the new school term in January.

1. Create A Routine That Works

Studies have shown that  routines help children feel safe and secure . Set up a routine that works for your child — whether it’s a shower before dinner or an afternoon snack before naptime, it’s important that your child gets into a routine that he or she is comfortable with. 

2. Identify Friendly Figures In School

Helping your child identify teachers or staff he or she can go to for assistance is important. When your child recognises trustworthy figures of authority, he or she will feel more secure in the new environment.

Related Article: Gear Up For Primary 1

3. Prepare An 'Emergency' Fund

You may want to consider setting aside an “emergency fund” for your child. Placing extra money in a separate wallet or purse to be kept in his or her school bag means that your child will still have access to money if he or she misplaces pocket money. However, you should set some strict rules about when this money can be used.

4. Test Out That Transport Route

It may be a good idea to have a few dry runs of your child’s journey to and from school to help your child familiarise himself or herself with the route. Help your child identify key landmarks and remember the specific place where he or she will be dropped off or picked up from everyday.

Related Article: Raising A Responsible Child

5. Set Mini Goals To Achieve Together

Help to make the experience seem less daunting by setting mini goals for the first day of school. Start with small tasks like “Leave the house on time” or “Remember to bring my water bottle home” or “Meet one new friend in class today”. These mini goals give your child something to look forward to on his or her first day of school!

Download Our Special Guide To Surviving And Thriving In Primary 1

The Learning Lab would like to extend our help as you and your child are preparing for Primary 1 and the new adventures that lie ahead. Download our fun and informative guide filled with 25 great tips to help your child survive and thrive in Primary 1!

Writing is a creative medium for expressing thoughts and perspectives on diverse subjects. However, it can be difficult for your child to accurately convey his or her thoughts fluently in writing.

Writing essays and other literary compositions are an integral part of student life that extends to adult life. And although your child is far from the world of employment, it is worth noting that most jobs require writing skills at some capacity.

Here at The Learning Lab, we believe that effective written communication is a meaningful skill that helps our students become better at relaying information, conveying their thoughts and forming trusting relationships.

Nurture your child’s mastery of written English by introducing him or her to what we consider the five basic elements to writing an effective composition.

1. Determine the Central Idea of the Composition

An essay, as with most written compositions, has an introduction, a body and a conclusion.

The central idea connects these three parts to create one theme. It gives the composition direction and purpose, making it enjoyable and easy to read.

To bring out the central idea throughout the written composition, it is important to first identify the key words from the question. If the title or headline for the composition is provided, the key words would likely be supplied as well.

For example, if your child is tasked to write about “The Person I Admire the Most”, the key words are “person” and “admire”. In this case, the central idea would not only be about the person, but also about the qualities that make that person admirable and why.

2. Check That the Composition Has a Smooth and Cohesive Flow

Another element that makes a written piece effective is effortless flow. This involves weaving words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs together, in a logical manner, to support the central idea.

To achieve coherency, we recommend drafting an outline⁠ — ⁠an organised set of questions that will give your child clarity and direction in crafting the composition.

Using the same topic, “The Person I Admire the Most”, the outline may look like this:

Introduction

• Who is the person I admire the most? 
• What makes this person distinctive?
• What are the qualities I admire about this person?
• Why do I admire these specific qualities about this person?
• How does this person inspire me to become a better version of myself?

The outline helps both the writer and the reader understand the point of the composition in a smooth and logical manner.

3. Support Statements with Evidence

A composition supported by evidence in the form of interviews, dialogues, speeches, testimonials, personal accounts or citations from reliable sources suggests credibility and is more persuasive to the reader.

At the primary school level, students can provide anecdotal evidence — evidence collected in a casual or informal manner. They can rely on personal testimonies to provide real-life accounts and experiences to back up their ideas.

In secondary school, students are presented with several different topics or questions and may pick the one they wish to write about. These range from writing fictional stories to providing their thoughts on real-world topics like the impact of global warming.

As such, students in secondary school are encouraged to read up on worldly events so they remain updated on current issues and can incorporate quotes or facts into their composition where needed.

4. Evoke Emotion and Sustain Readers’ Attention

People read not only to be informed but also to be entertained, and perhaps to gain a new perspective about a subject or even to find inspiration. 

A well-written composition captures and sustains a reader’s attention. Your child can achieve this by using descriptive words or phrases to bring out specific emotions in readers. Figures of speech are also helpful in injecting creativity in his or her written compositions. 

Using metaphors and similes, for example, helps the reader understand a subject by comparing it to something else. If your child is describing a dull performance, he or she can write something along the lines of, “watching the show was like watching paint dry.'' 

Artful narratives help the reader relate to your child’s story more as compared to writing a matter-of-factly composition.

5. Work Towards a Distinctive Style

While the elements above are all very important in crafting an engaging and compelling composition, “style” is the one factor that can make a student’s composition stand out from the rest.

We don’t mean personality. What we mean by style is the manner in which a student consistently and distinctly writes. It’s the artistic flair with which ideas are put together in words. 

Mark Twain, for instance, is best known for his humour and sharp social satire. Jane Austen’s writing is filled with irony and often features female protagonists, while JK Rowling’s prose is easily recognisable through her vivid imagination and invention of strange words.

At The Learning Lab, our teachers look at facts as well as opinions. We want to be able to assess, through students’ writing, how clear and creative these ideas are processed and presented.

Lastly, it’s worth reminding your son or your daughter that there are no set rules in writing. This is what makes the English language attractive and interesting — its contextual flexibility, socio-cultural variations and playfulness.

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ― Sylvia Plath

Bring Out the Wordsmith in Your Child

The foundation of effective communication is literacy; the ability to read and write. But at TLL, we want our students to go beyond learning how to simply read and write.

In our English programmes, a lot of emphasis is placed on allowing our students to exercise their powers of putting the English language on paper; gaining confidence, picking up the tricks of the trade and tackling common problems along the way.

Through our simple yet effective 6-step structured approach to writing, we introduce students to good writing, teach them specific writing techniques and help them understand the importance of characterisation, tone and imagery.

From generating ideas and structuring the flow of the story for a story curve to detailing the characters’ successes or failures in the climax, click here to find out more about TLL's structured 6-step writing approach.

Early Years

Nursery 2 – kindergarten 2.

In addition to building a foundation for word recognition, vocabulary and sentence structure when it comes to writing, our early years programmes also inculcate fundamental skills in reading and speaking.

Primary 1 – Primary 6

At the primary levels, we help develop our students' ability to analyse questions, craft precise answers and produce writing of greater quality, sophistication and length to excel in all examinable components of the English subject.

Secondary & Junior College

Secondary 1 – junior college 2.

Our secondary to junior college programmes help students further develop their writing, speaking, comprehension and listening skills, enhancing their overall language appreciation and mastery. 

Recent Posts

Find Out More About Our English Programmes

Walking by the Way

the road to inspired learning

Engaging Creative Writing Lessons for Your Students

I often hear students protest, “But I’m not creative.” And moms look at me with a shoulder shrug and a mirror claim, “I’m not creative either.”

I don’t buy in.

We have been gifted with a creativity muscle. It’s just that it doesn’t work properly if it hasn’t been exercised.

As I design creative writing lessons , my goal is to provide you with engaging, hands-on activities–creative writing exercises to keep your students smiling, laughing, and moving that yellow pencil (or purple marker!) across the page.

The Importance of Creative Writing

Why should you care about creative writing? Because creative writers are creative thinkers.

Creative thinkers are resourceful problem-solvers. They aren’t afraid to try new things as their curiosity leads them to experiment. Creative thinkers gain emotional intelligence as they explore their own thoughts and feelings, the thoughts and feelings of others, and the big, big world around them.

Creative writing doesn’t have to be hard, scary, or dreadful. I promise. I’m here to help you deliver interesting, enjoyable lessons to your students.

Browse the lessons below to find the just-right creative writing activity for your students.

Creative Writing Lessons and Activities for Early Elementary

Character Sketch: My Pet Dragon Even young students can write a character sketch with this guided writing activity. Students fill out the pet dragon form and then write a short sketch using the information on the form.

Christmas Story Writing Prompts Flip, flap, and mix until you find a setting, characters, and conflict you want to use for your short story.

Circus Writing Prompt Cards This set of writing prompt cards is great for kids who need help generating ideas. The prompts are questions. As the students answer the questions, they will have ample ideas for writing a circus themed story.

Creative Writing Activities for Kids This group of activities from other bloggers will provide you with lots of new ideas for your students.

Creative Writing Dice Game You can partner with your student for this fun dice game; it is the perfect remedy for students who balk at pushing their pencils.

Design a Circus Poster Creative Writing Activity Another great activity for reluctant writers; the circus poster only includes a tiny bit of writing, but a great bit of creating thinking.

Dialogue Lesson Plan for Young Writers Introduce the importance of dialogue with This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen. This lesson also includes a hands-on dice writing game that helps students write their own dialogue examples.

Dinosaur Creative Writing Prompts This set of writing prompts will help your student write a paragraph or journal entry about dinosaurs.

Dinosaur Writing Prompt Cards This set of writing prompt cards will motivate your student to write a dinosaur themed short story. The cards are structured in a way to help your student generate gobs of ideas for a short story.

Fairy Tale Writing Prompts Inspire your student to write with fairy tale settings, objects, and characters.

Halloween Story Writing Prompts Write spooky stories with this set of flip, mix, and match strips. Students are given various options for settings, characters, and conflicts.

Hot Air Balloon Writing Prompt Cards If your student complains about not knowing what to write about, try this set of adventure themed writing prompt cards. You can easily guide your student through the writing process with these prompts.

Imaginary Animals Writing Activity Even young students in kindergarten and first grade can enjoy a creative writing lesson. Your students will love creating crazy animals with playdough and using the writing form to compose simple paragraphs.

Listmaking Writing Prompts Students may not be ready to write sentences or paragraphs, but you can entice them to make lists with these engaging prompts.

Mad Science: Adjectives Writing Lab First, students will imagine wonderful and strange things hissing and fizzing in a mad scientist’s lab. Next, students will name and write a description for each item. Finally, students will use their descriptions to write paragraphs about the mad scientist’s lab.

Monster Creative Writing Prompt Cards Boost your student’s imagination with these monster creative writing prompts. You can use these for paragraph writing or journal entries; some of the prompts might even lead to short stories.

Mystery Writing Prompts Do you have a super sleuth? Let your detective try writing some mystery stories using these prompts.

Nurture Creative Thinking with Wordless Books The precursor to creative writing is creative thinking. This activity, designed to build your student’s creative thinking skills, is based on Aaron Becker’s wordless books, Journey and Quest .

Pet Picture Writing Prompts I love using pictures for prompts! Grab this set of free pet pictures and use some of the ideas in the post to get your students writing about pets.

Pirate Writing Prompts It’s a pirate’s life with these fun prompts. Print and cut out the cards. Laminate and put them on a ring and let your student pick one and write.

Teach Parts of a Story with a Picture Book Use Help! We Need a Title!  by Herve Tullet to teach your student about author, title, characters, setting, conflict, and resolution.

Super Hero Writing Prompts Save the day with these fun prompts for your students.

Thanksgiving Dice Writing Activity Your students will laugh out loud as they create silly sentences about Thanksgiving.

Use a Picture Book Teach the Story Element of Conflict The Pencil  by Allan Ahlberg is a fantastic base for teaching how to add conflict and resolution to a short story. Use the lesson and game to teach it to your students.

Writing Activity for Sam and Dave Dig a Hole: Make a List Use the book Sam and Dave Dig a Hole to inspire your student to create a fun (and funny!) list.

Write Backstories for Fairy Tale Characters Have you ever wondered what Rapunzel was doing before she got trapped in that tower? Or what about Goldilocks? What was she doing before she invaded the Three Bears’ house? Explore all kinds of writing possibilities with this fun creative writing lesson.

You can also find an assortment of creative writing lessons and activities for elementary students in the Tip-Top Printables Shop .

Creative Writing Lessons and Activities for Upper Elementary

Pictures to Inspire Creative Writing If you are looking for an easy way to boost interest in creative writing, try this simple activity.

Pourquoi Tales Writing Lesson Why does the leopard have spots? How did the bear lose its tail? Let your students build their creative thinking skills while composing pourquoi tales with this lesson plan.

Creative Writing Lessons for a Homeschool Co-op

I taught this series of posts for a local homeschool co-op, but you can use them however you want.

Creative Writing Lesson One: Cliché and Metaphor Students learn the importance of words with this lesson–including how to avoid clichés and what makes a great metaphor.

Creative Writing Lesson Two: Sensory Details Students consider how a reader experiences the world through writing and how sensory details are a key part of that experience.

Creative Writing Lesson Three: Showing vs. Telling Students learn how to recognize authors who utilize showing, and students will be able to articulate the difference between showing and telling.

Creative Writing Lesson Four: Capturing Images Image is essential. Students learn why images are necessary and how to capture their own.

Creative Writing Lesson Five: Character and Conflict Introduce character and conflict and why these story elements are vital for short story writers.

Creative Writing Lesson Six: Point of View Students learn about point of view and then enjoy reading poems and using pictures to write descriptions from different points of view (and perspectives).

Creative Writing Lesson Seven: Fractured Fairy Tales As we work to put together everything we’ve learned in the previous lessons, students begin composing their own fractured fairy tales.

Creative Writing Lesson Eight: Revision After a mini-lesson about revision, students partner up for peer editing.

You can use this Writing Ideas Notebook to help your students record and explore dozens of writing ideas.

EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE ONE-ON-ONE LEARNING CAN MAKE FOR YOUR STUDENT! 

Creative Writing

Strong writers are often more successful in all aspects of life. LifeReader’s Creative Writing package is meant to help students develop their creative writing skills by crafting their own blog. Students will also be given the opportunity to submit their work in multiple writing contests and create a personal portfolio.

 8 th -12 th grade; Minimum of 3 students; 10 group sessions

• Join for Free

Creative Writing Lab: Experiment with Words

A course by karen villeda , writer and editor.

Overcome the fear of writing by learning to combine literary genres such as narratives, poetry, and essays

• Spanish with subtitles in English
• 96% positive reviews ( 53 )
• 1546 students
• Information

Ever wondered if writing could be more fun? In this online course, Mexican writer Karen Villeda shows you her creative process based on experimentation and combining literary genres. She has had more than ten books published, some of which have won awards, and was writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa.

Throughout this course, get ready to be introduced to different creative techniques for tackling the blank page and uncover some amazing ideas in the process . Delve into the world of literary genres and learn to combine them in your texts. Karen talks about key themes like work, perseverance, and planning when it comes to writing . Then wrap everything up by learning to do a critical review of your text.

What will you learn in this online course?

12 lessons & 16 downloads

• 12 lessons (1h 20m)
• 16 additional resources (2 files)
• Online and at your own pace
• Available on the app
• Audio: Spanish
• Spanish , English , Portuguese , German , French , Italian , Polish , Dutch
• Level: Beginner
• Unlimited access forever

What is this course's project?

Combine elements from the narrative, poetic, and essay genres to develop a short text.

Projects by course students

By paisajeinteriorsabiduria

By aasanzzp

Who is this online course for?

Anyone with a curious, open mind and the enthusiasm to write.

Requirements and materials

No previous knowledge or experience in writing is necessary for this course.

As for materials, all you need is paper and a pencil or pen. If you prefer, you can opt for a computer with a word processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

jmahcordeiro

Curso muito interessante para estimular a criatividade. Maravilhoso!

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carolinacepeda

El curso y la profesora me estimula a escribir.

zulytaveras

Estoy comenzando el curso, y me esta gustando mucho, sobre todo la manera cómo puedo ir expresando mis sentimientos por medio de las palabras.

maquiammateus

As primeiras partes, em que a professora fala sobre literatura experimental, são interessantíssimas. Porém, quando começa a proposta de escrita, o curso fica reduzido a um único exercício com pouca abertura para criação e, desculpe a ironia, bem pouco experimental, pois mais parece uma atividade para se seguir passo a passo. No final, o curso todo ficou parecendo um único exercício nada estimulante.

emanuelapuleio

È un corso interessantissimo, un mix di conoscenze visive che non possono mai mancare grazie.

• More reviews

Karen Villeda A course by Karen Villeda

Despite having grown up surrounded by books, Mexican writer Karen Villeda had a lot of difficulty learning to read. Her mother patiently taught her and, before long, she was reading pirate stories by herself, and at just 19, she published her first book. Karen believes that literary genres are interchangeable and can be combined, which is why she considers her writing to be a hybrid.

She has had more than ten books published, and her book Dodo (Fondo Editorial Tierra Adentro) won the Premio Nacional de Poesía Joven Elías Nandino in 2013 and is part of the Archivo de Literatura Hispánica en Audio. Karen's work has earned her more than fifteen prizes and she has also been writer-in-residence in the University of Iowa. She is currently an editor and gives classes in creative writing.

Introduction

• Presentation

The world of words and diamond mines

• Creative writing and literary genres
• Why experiment?
• Materials and materiality of writing

The Perfect Diamond!

• The narrative

Cut and polish the diamond for jewelry

• Fill your blank sheets
• Review and editing
• Where to go?

Final project

What to expect from a domestika course, learn at your own pace.

Enjoy learning from home without a set schedule and with an easy-to-follow method. You set your own pace.

Learn from the best professionals

Learn valuable methods and techniques explained by top experts in the creative sector.

Meet expert teachers

Each expert teaches what they do best, with clear guidelines, true passion, and professional insight in every lesson.

Certificates Plus

If you're a Plus member, get a custom certificate signed by your teacher for every course. Share it on your portfolio, social media, or wherever you like.

Get front-row seats

Videos of the highest quality, so you don't miss a single detail. With unlimited access, you can watch them as many times as you need to perfect your technique.

Share knowledge and ideas

Ask questions, request feedback, or offer solutions. Share your learning experience with other students in the community who are as passionate about creativity as you are.

Connect with a global creative community

The community is home to millions of people from around the world who are curious and passionate about exploring and expressing their creativity.

Watch professionally produced courses

Domestika curates its teacher roster and produces every course in-house to ensure a high-quality online learning experience.

Domestika's courses are online classes that provide you with the tools and skills you need to complete a specific project. Every step of the project combines video lessons with complementary instructional material, so you can learn by doing. Domestika's courses also allow you to share your own projects with the teacher and with other students, creating a dynamic course community.

All courses are 100% online, so once they're published, courses start and finish whenever you want. You set the pace of the class. You can go back to review what interests you most and skip what you already know, ask questions, answer questions, share your projects, and more.

The courses are divided into different units. Each one includes lessons, informational text, tasks, and practice exercises to help you carry out your project step by step, with additional complementary resources and downloads. You'll also have access to an exclusive forum where you can interact with the teacher and with other students, as well as share your work and your course project, creating a community around the course.

You can redeem the course you received by accessing the redeeming page and entering your gift code.

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Book: Introduction to Creative Writing (Lumen)

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THE LEARNING CURVE

​a magazine devoted to gaining skills and knowledge.

THE LEARNING AGENCY LAB ’S  LEARNING CURVE COVERS THE FIELD OF EDUCATION AND THE SCIENCE OF LEARNING. READ ABOUT METACOGNITIVE THINKING OR DISCOVER HOW TO LEARN BETTER THROUGH OUR ARTICLES, MANY OF WHICH HAVE INSIGHTS FROM EXPERTS WHO STUDY LEARNING. 

How To Teach Writing To Anyone

• March 19, 2020

​Writing is a key skill. The ability to put words down on paper is a critical skill for success in college and career, but few students graduate high school as proficient writers. Less than a third of high school seniors are proficient writers, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Low-income, and Black and Hispanic students fare far worse and less than 15 percent scoring proficient.

So how can students learn to write better? What tools do they need to become better at making an argument on paper? In this document, we’re largely focused on argumentative writing, which is central to, well, just about every aspect of modern life, from emails to workplace memos to empowered citizens.

Teaching argumentative writing involves teaching both argumentation and writing. This means there’s research on how to teach writing, there’s research on how to teach argumentation, and there’s research on the intersection of the two.

Earlier research in this topic often referred to it as “persuasive” writing. More recent research seems to prefer and use the term “argumentative” writing. One reason why is that “argumentative” is seen as a broader term. Persuasion is a particular goal that argumentative writing might have. But argumentative writing is seen to encompass many possible goals: persuasion, but also analysis, collaborative problem-solving, and conceptual clarity.

Main takeaways

There are important nuances further below, but the general picture of best practice based on experimental and quasi-experimental research looks something like the following:

• Students need sufficient foundational skills and knowledge (in spelling, typing, content-specific knowledge) and may be taught some of this knowledge in the course of writing . This means that educators in early grades should work on building basic skills in hand-writing, spelling, and typing, and that educators in later grades spend some time focusing on sentence-building skills and incorporate content learning into writing assignments.
• Students benefit from a writing environment where they write and edit frequently using word processing software on long pieces of writing that generate student interest.  Although students in early grades may by predominantly writing by hand, as they move on to late elementary school and middle school they should transition to typing, which enables more rapid editing. Although work on basic transcription and sentence-building skills is vital, educators also need to assign longer pieces of work as students progress.
• Students benefit from clear writing purposes and from having well-defined goals for improvement.  This suggests that educators choose writing assignments that have larger purposes beyond simply being submitted for a grade—student writing that is published, displayed, or otherwise shared can improve student motivation. It also suggests that educators carefully structure the revision process. For instance, revision goals like “come up with two more reasons in favor of your argument and one reason in favor of an opposing argument” help students meaningfully revise their papers.
• Students benefit from instruction on models of good and bad writing, and through explicit strategies in the writing process:  for example, pre-writing techniques, ways of organizing the material, making their reasoning explicit. Educators must correct misperceptions of what writing that focus on the product of writing (instead of the process). And they must be explicit about the strategies that good writers use to ultimately create solid writing.
• Students benefit from guidance in genre-specific practices  (for instance, diagrams that help students “fill out” both sides of an argument, character sheets that help students flesh out the characters in their narratives, etc.). Educators can’t assume that skill in one genre of writing will necessarily transfer to others; students have to be taught about the expectations and norms of the writing community.
• Students benefit from collaborating with each other: editing, receiving feedback, and editing again, or even working in groups to co-write material.  Providing feedback to others seems to provide as much or more benefit to writing skill as editing one’s own paper. Educators should focus on teaching students how to edit judiciously and provide feedback in a supportive way.​

Learning to Write

There is also an  increasing recognition  of the discipline- and genre-specific nature of writing. It’s not about teaching a single, relatively discrete skill — “writing” — but about teaching ways writing in  science , ways of  writing  in  history , ways of writing in literature. Writing in any genre is not a fully transferable skill—it  requires  contextual knowledge (about the purpose and the audience of the work), content knowledge (about the subject of the work), and writing process knowledge.

Methods and Approaches

Experimental and quasi-experimental work in this area has been the subject of many meta-analyses, with slightly differing emphases. These are fairly comprehensive quantitative summaries of the work in this area, but a substantial number of the underlying studies have  methodological problems  of one sort or another: e.g., no random assignment, no controlling for the Hawthorne effect, no measures of whether the intervention was implemented with fidelity, or simply  no descriptions  of the control condition.

More recent studies  tend to be  of higher quality, and also result in higher effect sizes than older studies (suggesting that earlier studies may have been understating the effect of some of the proposed interventions).

Meta-analyses look at broad swaths of different studies and group studies into categories to be able to calculate the effects of individual types of interventions. These categories are not always mutually exclusive. For instance, the distinction between “writing process” models (which focus on the process of writing — prewriting, organizing, drafting, editing, revising, etc.), “self-regulation” models (which focus on setting writing goals and teaching students to monitor their writing and editing to achieve those goals), and “peer writing” models (where student co-write and edit each others work)  can overlap  substantially. In other cases, single categories encompass quite a diverse set of practices. For instance, the “strategy instruction” model  includes interventions  involving pre-writing activities, peer writing, persuasive writing structures, etc.

Another complexity is how writing outcomes are measured. Rubric-based instruction may help students improve their writing when measured by the rubric, but not necessarily when evaluated through other means.

Research evaluating the popular 6+1 trait writing model, for example, shows  little improvement  in student outcomes when those outcomes are not measured with the 6+1 writing rubric.

Main Takeaways About Learning To Write

Teachers don’t assign enough writing..

The survey’s results, however, suggest some improvements in teacher practice compared to 40 years ago. Compared to an assessment made in 1979-80, teachers are giving students more questions that ask for more original analysis, they’re incorporating more research-backed strategies like process writing, explicit strategy instruction, and collaborative writing in the curriculum, and they use technology more often.

These findings dovetail with  another recent large-scale survey  of 361 high school teachers across several disciplines. Again, the main finding is that students don’t compose texts that are long enough (most writing practice asks students to compose texts one-paragraph in length or less), and that few writing assignments as students for analysis and interpretation. Moreover, most teachers say they are not prepared to teach writing (71% say they had either no or minimal college-level training in the subject in their teacher preparation programs).

Although experts argue that argumentative writing should happen across all disciplines, English teachers have often shouldered the main responsibility for teaching writing skills of all sorts (at least as judged by the surveys mentioned earlier). This emphasis, however,  clashes  with a tradition of emphasizing the literary tradition in English language arts classes (e.g., fiction and narrative), rather than argumentation. One way of providing students with more opportunities to write is to have teachers across many disciplines assign writing tasks. This has been a common aim of several reforms.

Time and expertise seem to be the main obstacles to teachers assigning more writing. Teacher workloads are high, while providing meaningful feedback on long pieces of writing takes considerable effort. Teachers report simply not having enough time to assign long pieces of writing, provide feedback on them, and providing lots of opportunities for revision.

Many teachers also report not being very confident in their ability to teach writing, not having the training or experience to teach writing well, or both. This lack of expertise (or at least lack of confidence) also likely discourages teachers from assigning more challenging pieces of writing.

Research has also revealed a number of best practices. The following best practices all improve student outcomes, and are listed in approximate order of effect size (largest to smallest) based on several recent meta-analyses of existing studies

Explicit strategy instruction helps students.

That said, authors of the survey view the overall amount of class time spent on research-backed strategies to be insufficient: for instance, about 3 minutes out of every 50 minute English class period would be devoted to one of the most support strategies—explicit writing strategy instruction.

Teachers should  illustrate  each strategy and facilitate students’ independent use of each strategy over time. For instance, a pre-writing activity like brainstorming might be initially presented to the students: the teacher can explain what the strategy is, why writers do it, and present a model of the practice to students. Then, the teacher would have students practice brainstorming in small groups, with occasional teacher guidance. After that, students would brainstorm on their own, while the teacher would provide occasional support. Finally, the teacher would encourage students to use brainstorming completely independently (revisiting aspects of the strategy if needed). ​

Self-regulation strategies can improve outcomes.

The most popular self-regulation strategy is the  SRSD  (self-regulation and strategy development) model. This integrates both explicit strategy instruction and self-regulation strategies into a classroom context. Teachers don’t just introduce a strategy—they track student progress towards mastery in using the strategy over time, aiming to motivate students and build self-confidence. The SRSD approach uses mnemonics, graphic organizers, and other scaffolds, in addition to developing prior knowledge about specific writing genres as students are taught them. Evidence  suggests  that the program is one of the most effective classroom programs, but outcome measures stop short of long trajectories (stopping at six months).

Process Writing improves student outcomes. Process writing involves getting students involved in pre-writing, organizing, drafting, revising, re-drafting, and editing their papers. It’s about engaging students in a relatively long-term writing process involving multiple drafts, rounds of peer and/or teacher feedback, and a finalized product. It’s also  helpful  to have students explain why they made their edits.

Process writing seems to be a key part of many successful writing interventions (such as SRSD), but the evidence on the efficacy of process writing alone is somewhat contradictory.

Most meta-analyses that evaluate process writing as a separate category of intervention find that process writing is a best practice and has substantial effect sizes. This effect, however,  seems modulated  by professional development — when teachers are not taught how to use process writing approaches effectively, the benefit disappears. A  meta-analysis  that focused solely on process writing found modest effects for students of average ability, but no significant effects on writing outcomes for struggling writers, which contrasts with qualitative research suggesting the benefits of process writing for struggling writers in particular. Many of the studies in the process-writing-specific meta-analysis also had weak study designs making the claim that process writing doesn’t help struggling writers at best preliminary.

Feedback Drives Achievement.

For feedback to be effective, students must be motivated to use feedback to improve and they must know how to use the feedback effectively. The first is a challenge of classroom culture. The second is a challenge of student knowledge.

Surveys   suggest  that many students feel like they don’t have enough guidance on what to do with the feedback they receive. One  study  at the undergraduate level suggests that the main factor influencing whether students implemented changes based on feedback was whether the problem described by the feedback was understood. Problem understanding increased when teachers identified where the problem was, proposed some solutions, and gave a summary of the students’ work.

Even generic automated feedback to scientific arguments  can improve  students subsequent arguments (e.g., feedback that reads something like “You haven’t provided enough evidence for your argument. You should add more evidence.” The effects, however, were most pronounced for students that had high scores to begin with, suggesting that receptiveness to feedback may also be playing a role.

One of the values of outside feedback (from either peers or teachers) is that students are  more likely  to make deeper, meaning-related changes in response to outside feedback than they are when making individual revisions.

Peer Collaboration Can Make A Difference.

Peer feedback offers  several proposed benefits . Students often perceive peer feedback as more understandable (and therefore, more actionable) than teacher feedback. Students  often feel  that teacher feedback is insufficient or unhelpful, and, in higher education at least, students report that peers provide more (and more helpful) feedback. Peer feedback is also a way of providing more overall feedback to students (on early or intermediate drafts of a piece of writing, for instance), as it requires less teacher time. Some reports even suggest that peer feedback encourages students to redouble their efforts because of the social pressure to do well on the assignment.

There are, however, also some challenges to peer feedback. Peers can offer valuable feedback, but it’s not quite up to the standards of expert feedback. For instance, in a  study  where peers used a predefined assessment guideline, peer and expert feedback was structurally comparable, although peers suggested fewer changes, gave more positive judgments and gave less evidential support for their negative judgments.

Another challenge is to develop a classroom culture where feedback is perceived to be helpful and non-threatening. In  one study , English Language Learners report liking peer feedback, but also being concerned about hurting their partners feelings or lacking enough knowledge to be helpful. In that study, students preferred online forms of feedback over face-to-face feedback.

Teaching students  how to give  valuable feedback is a critical step. Not only does this make the peer feedback more valuable for the writer, but it also helps the peer reviewer develop their own revision skills. For instance, a teacher might give peer reviewers some questions to guide their revision process. Questions like: Is the piece suitable for the intended audience—does it use the right tone, the right kinds of vocabulary words and text complexity? Is the overall structure of the argument clear? Etc.

In some cases, learning to provide peer feedback seems to have more benefits to students than receiving feedback. In a  study  from 2009, one group of students gave feedback on written work throughout the semester while the other group received feedback. Both groups improved over the course of the semester, but the givers improved more than the receivers when they had no prior experience in giving peer feedback.

Foundational skills and knowledge enable students to engage deeply with the material.

Students also  need to know  genre-specific writing structures and topic-specific vocabulary. For instance, young children have a  better understanding  of the narrative genre compared to other genres of writing (argumentative writing, scientific reports, poems). When students don’t know enough about the genre expectations, they can’t produce work that’s recognizably within the genre (e.g., when asked for a science report or an argument, they  might produce  something that’s more like a story).

Genre learning is something that continues throughout careers and  later schooling  (e.g., imagine learning about the “business case” genre, the “legal memo” genre or the “economic theory paper” genre); it’s part of the overall development of meta-cognitive knowledge. Explicitness about genre expectations also helps marginalized groups (who  may not be as familiar  with the genres they’re asked to produce) participate more fully.

Word processing lets students edit and revise more easily.

The commonly accepted explanation is that word processing makes editing and organizing a paper easier, and so encourages revision.

Although seventy-five percent of teachers report having students turn in their final draft through a computer, less than half of students use word processing for drafting, editing, and collaborating on written work. This is particularly notable given the presumed mechanism behind the advantage of using word processors over paper-and-pencil to draft and edit: word processors make editing and re-organizing far easier.

More Frequent Practice. Perhaps the simplest intervention that seems to improve writing outcomes is  more practice  (especially given the evidence on the little amount of practice that students typically get at long-form writing). Establishing writing routines (for example, having students  write  for fifteen minutes more a day than they currently do) and ensuring that the writing tasks are interesting to students — that the writing has some larger relevance or purpose — seem like  important keys  to having students write more.

Multiple drafts improve essay quality.

Writing can also improve reading..

Researchers have proposed  several explanations  for the deep relationship between reading and writing. They both involve common processes. Spelling, for example, helps students read and write. Sentence-combining helps students write complex sentences and comprehend more complex sentences. The writer also has to re-organize what she’s read, leading to deeper reflection of the material. And finally, writing provides insight into what a writer might be thinking, which helps students interpret written work.

Evaluations of programs that integrate reading and writing programs  show  positive writing outcomes. These programs typically involve professional development and peer collaboration on reading and writing assignments. Part of the explanation may be that reading helps students  anticipate  what readers may believe as they write. Reading texts that students will write about also increases their prior knowledge of the issues.

Grammar instruction is important but not that helpful for more advanced writers.

Research on common practices among exceptional writing teachers largely  complement or confirm  the best practices listed above. Exceptional teachers:

• Are excited about teaching writing, making it clear to students that they enjoy the subject and enjoy teaching the subject.
• Publish student work by sharing it with others, displaying it on walls, or publishing it in collections.
• Encourage students to try hard and attribute success to effort (a component of the SRSD approach).
• Reinforce classroom routines that help students progress along the writing process (peer editing, co-writing, revising, etc.) (a component of process writing and peer writing)
• Have high but realistic expectations (a component of the SRSD approach).
• Adapt writing assignments to student needs and interests.
• Use activities that encourage deep processing (critiquing ideas about their papers) as opposed to shallow processing (filling out a worksheet that can be filled out mindlessly).
• Encourage students to do as much as possible on their own. (a component of the SRSD approach)

Still, Some Open Questions About Learning to Write

For instance, at what age should students  begin  formulating structured arguments (either through discussion, as preparation for later writing assignments, or in writing itself)? Under certain contexts, even young children  can reason  well, which suggests that  early, more comprehensive practice  could substantially improve student reasoning in the long term. But there are also developmental considerations. There’s relatively little evidence on this question.

What’s the proper role of writing rubrics? Rubrics can help students set goals and perceive differences between their work and an ideal piece of writing. But such rubrics can become formulaic substitutes for deep engagement with the issues.

How should argument-structuring scaffolds be used? There’s little doubt that argument diagrams  can  help students formulate counter-arguments and rebuttals, and that they help lower-ability students in particular. Whether the benefits of such scaffolds extend beyond the assignments that use the scaffolding, however, is an open question: in some transfer tasks, students who have been using argument diagrams  don’t write  any better arguments than those who haven’t. They can, however, also  limit  reformulations and of the argument by making the issue seem “black and white” as opposed to “gray” and promote linear, less open approaches, particularly for higher ability students. How to fade these scaffolds over the long trajectory of student development is largely unexplored.

How should we be evaluating written argumentation skills? Researchers have used a variety of methods to distinguish “good” essays from “bad” essays, but the diversity of measurement approaches makes it challenging to compare studies. Articulating counter-arguments has been a major focus, but so have measures of elaboration and organizational structure. In some cases, it’s difficult to tell what aspect of the essays have improved because the descriptions are simply too vague.

What are interesting cases and authentic contexts for students in different classroom settings? A big hurdle for teaching written argumentation seems to be engagement. Students who feel that the writing has some larger purpose (and have some relevant experience) produce stronger written arguments, and presumably become better arguers because of it. But, as far as I can tell, there is no collection of vetted cases across the variety of classroom situations (and levels of prior knowledge) that teachers encounter.

Successful writing intervention programs involve extensive professional development, but what kinds of professional development is best, and how should successful professional development programs be scaled?

Are there other complexities to teaching students with learning disabilities that haven’t surfaced because of lack of research? The research on teaching writing to students with learning disabilities is particularly sparse. A relatively recent review of the research (2009)  found  only 9 studies that met their inclusion criteria for a total of 31 students.

​- Ulrich Boser

8 thoughts on “How To Teach Writing To Anyone”

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UC Blue Ash College » Student Information » Student Services Directory » Academic Support Labs » Writing & Study Skills Center

Writing & Study Skills Center

Welcome to the Writing and Study Skills Center! We offer  individual and group tutoring sessions to help students build the foundational skills they need to thrive in college and beyond. Our professional tutors can help you build strategies to become a better writer, reader, and student. All of our tutoring is free to UC Blue Ash students. To chat with a tutor, schedule a live session, or send in your work for feedback, please see below!

Two Ways to Get in Touch

Meet with us for feedback.

Meet with a tutor in-person or on Zoom to talk about your writing and study skills questions. Drop into the WSSC, located in Muntz 112K, or book your appointment using TutorTrac.

For information on how to book an appointment using TutorTrac, please see below. For questions, please contact  [email protected] .

Submit your work for feedback

Send your work directly to our team to get feedback. We're able to comment on papers of six double-spaced pages or fewer. If you're working on something longer than six pages, we invite you to submit a shortened section or to schedule an appointment with a tutor.

One of our tutors will read your submission and provide written, audio, and/or video feedback to you via email within 24-48 hours (weekend turnaround times may be longer).

Mission Statement

The Writing and Study Skills Center at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College empowers UCBA students across the disciplines to develop as writers, strategize their success, talk about texts, and connect to community. Our caring and experienced staff collaborate with students through individualized, student-centered, goal-driven and reflective sessions that are grounded in multi-disciplinary scholarship.

Values Statement

In our holistic approach to learning, we value open-mindedness, creative self-expression, collaboration, community, and reflection.

Writing Services

• Individual tutoring sessions that provide one hour of tutoring combined with critical reflection on the skills being practiced.
• We can help at any stage in the writing process to develop a student's writing skills and critical thinking in all disciplines.

Reading Services

• Individual tutoring sessions provide one hour of one-on-one work with a tutor to help build critical reading strategies geared toward helping students comprehend college-level texts in all disciplines.
• Sessions can help students build reading comprehension, critical thinking skills, and vocabulary.
• We can develop individualized reading programs for independent study.
• We provide language and reading support for non-native speakers of English.

Study Skills Services

• Individual tutoring sessions provide one-on-one or small group study skills tutoring in most academic subjects.
• Interactive workshops on topics such as time management, organization, taking notes, improving memory/concentration, managing stress/test anxiety, problem solving, among others.
• Test review service to help students improve their test-taking skills.

Writing and Study Skills Center Hours

About our staff, ali edwards.

Academic Tutor

Muntz Hall 112K

513-558-9446

[email protected]

Ali Edwards graduated with honors in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from the University of Cincinnati, where she spent her time enthralled in language and communication studies of all kinds. She holds academic minors in both English and Communication and Certificates in both Creative Writing and Copyediting & Publishing. Fostering her great love of the creative arts and education, Ali has worked with students and writers in an array of disciplines. She loves working with students of all competencies and most enjoys helping writers capture their unique vision onto the page. 

She has performed professionally as a singer, songwriter, and actress for over 20 years and is currently lending her writing and performing talents to fronting the band Ruby Vileos, who released their 4 th  album,  Nothing Between Us , in July of 2023. Her poetry can be found in UCBA’s  Blue Ash Review  and UC’s  Short Vine .

In her spare time Ali loves sunshine, writing, painting, drawing, plant-whispering, learning new things, swimming in the ocean, and most of all spending time with her family, friends.

Charles Gabel

[email protected]

Charles Gabel is a writer from Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned a B.A. in Classical Civilization from Loyola University Chicago and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Boise State University, where he focused in poetry. He then worked for several years at the Cincinnati Public Library before coming to UCBA. At the Writing Center, Charles is especially excited to see creativity in all forms of writing.

Jordan Hubrich

[email protected]

Jordan Hubrich holds a B.A. in English and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, both from the University of Kentucky. In addition to being a fiction writer, she has taught Writing & Rhetoric courses at the University of Kentucky and worked at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, where she led educational programs and helped create conservation-focused content and curricula. For her, writing is an important means of communication as well as a practice that can help us make sense of the world. She loves to work with students throughout their own unique writing and educational journeys.

Breen Reardon

[email protected]

Breen Reardon  first began thinking about English education as a career many years ago as an undergraduate peer tutor at Youngstown State University. After a 33-year teaching career, the last 27 of which were spent at Sycamore High School in Cincinnati, he is excited to return to a tutoring position at the Writing and Study Skills Center at UCBA. Breen has an B.A. in English Education and an M.A. in English, and in addition to his high school teaching career has taught undergraduate English classes at Ohio University and Miami University. He believes that writing is thinking and that everyone is a writer!

Eric Van Hoose

Writing and Study Skills Center Manager, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English

[email protected]

Eric Van Hoose  earned a bachelor's degree in English at UC, a master's in literature at Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in creative writing back here at UC. He loves storytelling of all kinds, especially fiction. His favorite thing about tutoring is working closely with students as they find their voices and discover new ways to share their ideas with the world.

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Eric Van Hoose Writing and Study Skills Center Manager Muntz Hall 112K 513-558-9446 [email protected]

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Creative Writing

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• Subjects: Creative Writing, Writing, Writing-Expository
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By Will Orwig and Daniel Schacter

Creativity in the Age of AI (generated by DALL-E)

What makes for a compelling story? Do computers have the capacity to be creative? These are evocative questions, especially with the recent explosion of interest in the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI); however, there has been surprisingly little scientific research to address them. We tried to fill this gap by studying creative expression in the context of story writing. We conducted several studies comparing short stories written by humans and Large Language Models (LLMs). Specifically, we looked at GPT-3 and GPT-4, which are two of the most powerful LLMs that have fueled the recent fascination with the capabilities and limits of AI. In our experiments, both humans and the LLMs were prompted with three-word cues and instructed to write a five sentence creative story that includes and elaborates upon those cues. The stories were then rated by both humans and AI on a scale from 1 (very uncreative) to 5 (very creative).

We found that a broad range of ideas, or increased “semantic diversity,” as well as the presence of perceptual details, resulted in stories that were rated as more original and imaginative. This was true for stories written by humans and those generated by AI. Furthermore, AI ratings of creativity were largely consistent with those provided by humans. Stories written by human participants and LLMs did not differ in terms of their creative quality, suggesting that current AI systems can replicate aspects of human creativity. Such findings can potentially reshape our fundamental beliefs about creativity and raise the possibility that LLMs could function as collaborative partners in crafting engaging narratives. They also provide new insights into what makes a compelling story and hint at potential applications for these AI tools in creative industries. In short, our study suggests that the integration of human imagination with AI capabilities represents a new frontier in storytelling, challenging traditional views of the creative process.

Will Orwig is a PhD candidate in the Psychology Department at Harvard University. Daniel Schacter is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.

Learn more in the original research article: The Language of Creativity: Evidence from Humans and Large Language Models. Orwig, W., Edenbaum, E.R., Greene, J.D. and Schacter, D.L. J Creat Behav. 2024 Jan 11

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The Practice of Creative Writing

Psychology in Everyday Life

A guide for students fourth edition | ©2021 heather sellers.

ISBN:9781319321161

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Be bold. Write well. Have fun.

When it comes to writing, The Practice of Creative Writing has a simple message: you can do this, and it’s worthwhile to try. Designed for students in the introductory course, The Practice of Creative Writing teaches writers how to trust their own voice, experiment with form, and develop a writing process that allows them to spend more productive time at the desk.   Rather than locking into one genre early, writers are encouraged to work among and in between genres and to focus on creating a writing practice that privileges close observation, patience, and techniques of pattern, energy, and shape. Heather Sellers, who writes in multiple genres herself, has developed a lively, welcoming, student-centered approach that teaches creative concentration, close reading, and generating pages. She provides opportunities to be playful and to experiment at the same time that she teaches students the importance of discipline, form, and craft. Heather Sellers is a certified online instructor, and The Practice of Creative Writing is designed to be used in traditional face-to-face classrooms or in online education. Each chapter begins with objectives for that module. Prompts and writing practices are carefully sequenced. Every chapter ends with both genre-specific writing projects alongside hybrid and experimental prompts. The readings included in this new edition invite students to experience an even wider range of innovative and new literatures.  A new chapter on creative ways to approach revision as a shaping practice engaged throughout the writing process helps students work harder on their writing.

New to This Edition

"The Practice of Creative Writing stands out as an inspiring, engaging, and useful text for beginning creative writers. Heather Sellers manages to introduce core concepts and literary techniques with an emphasis on practice that is integral to building a multi-genre course without being overly prescriptive. Instructors can choose from a variety of contemporary literature selections and provide students with the models, writing prompts, and exercises that help them grow as creative writers." — Kathleen McCoy, Adirondack CC, Queensbury "The Practice of Creative Writing by Heather Sellers is the most useful creative writing textbook on the market. It addresses student writers in an amiable, colloquial way and makes complex ideas about writing craft simple and approachable. The book is an enthusiastic invitation to students to engage the exciting, infinite possibilities of the art of creative writing." — Scott Ward, Eckerd College "This text helps students think outside the boxes of genre to instead focus on the building blocks of creativity and the nuances of form and technique. By teaching writers to analyze literature as a careful balance of image, tension, energy, pattern, and insight, they can in turn understand how to employ the same elements in their own work in order to engage and move their readers." — Dr. Courtney Huse Wika, Black Hills State University "Sellers text is very student friendly. It successfully helps the beginning creative writer into the writing field by making solid comparisons to other art fields they may be familiar with and utilize. It talks about writing in practical terms while not dazzling readers with literary terms for the sake of labelling." — Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria College, Buffalo "This is my go-to text in intro to CW. Ive adopted it; Ive recommended it. Its a perfect balance of wit, humility, and intellect. Behind the words, you sense a real person--a writer--not a corporate shadow. Heather Sellers walks readers through the intricacies of creative writing with a lovely balance of humor and rigor." — Jeffrey Newberry, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College "I really think this is an incredibly adroit text in that the writer writes with her audience well in mind. This responsiveness spans many aspects of the book, its structure, its content, its voice and style, even down to paragraph structure. There are many repetitions in the chapter sections and this great; when students don’t know how to read for main ideas, the repetitions aid in reinforcing their learning. The volume begins with students’ reading a graphic comic, something with which they are familiar, and then moves to approaching literary texts, something with which they are less familiar. It draws many analogies using music, again, something that students both know and care about. On these rhetorical levels, this is probably the best introduction to creative writing I’ve even read and used, and I’ve been teaching creative writing for 26 years." — Scott Ward, Eckerd College "The literary selections are outstanding, representing a multicultural array of authors with contemporary relevance, high interest, and a mix of well-known and lesser known writers." — Kathleen McCoy, Adirondack CC, Queensbury "I generally dont use or like textbooks, but this textbook caught my eye. This is largely because the author approaches creative writing like a practicing artist might, coaching students towards their best and deepest selves, offering surprising insights and exercises, building their close-reading muscles, encouraging honest and specific images and sentences. I love this about the book, and this is what distinguishes it for me." — Maria Brandt, Monroe CC "The Practice of Creative Writing stands out from other creative writing textbooks because it focuses on critical craft principles - such as the use of sensory detail, writing to communicate tension and insight, and revision practices - over a rigid focus on form or progressing through forms. It allows the instructor the freedom to pair the textbook with as few or as many forms as they want to assign in their creative writing classes." — Martha Webber, Cal State Fullerton "This is a creative writing textbook written by an accomplished and articulate WRITER, who understands the writing process and uses a teachable, effective approach for introducing students to writing in multiple genres." — Patricia Francisco, Hamline University, St. Paul "Heather has selected an awesome collection of creative works that exemplify a variety of forms. A number of these shorter/quicker forms (e.g., flash fiction), are great for getting novice creative writers acclimated to the depth and temperature of the water." — Bill Gary, Kentucky Community & Technical College System "This book takes a "personal trainer" approach to the practice of writing. It is a gentle, encouraging voice in the writers ear." — Robert Cowser, St. Lawrence University

Fourth Edition | ©2021

Heather Sellers

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Fourth Edition | 2021

Table of Contents

Heather Sellers is professor of English in the graduate and undergraduate writing programs at the University of South Florida, where she was honored with a university-wide teaching award. She offers courses for creative writers in hybrid and experimental writing, fiction, memoir, essays, and poetry as well as a course for teachers of creative writing. Born and raised in Orlando, Florida, she earned her PhD in English/Creative Writing at Florida State University. She has taught at New York University, the University of Texas–San Antonio, St. Lawrence University, and for almost two decades, Hope College, where she was elected Professor of the Year. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Fiction and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers award for her short story collection Georgia Under Water, she has published widely in a variety of genres. Her work appears in the New York Times; The Pushcart Prize anthology; The Best American Essays; O, the Oprah Magazine; Good Housekeeping; Reader’s Digest; Parade; Real Simple; On the Seawall; Adroit; Longreads; Creative Nonfiction; and frequently in The Sun Magazine. Her memoir You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know: A True Story of Family, Face Blindness, and Forgiveness was a Michigan Notable Book of the Year and Editor’s Choice at The New York Times Book Review. Other publications include Drinking Girls and Their Dresses: Poems; and Spike and Cubby’s Ice Cream Island Adventure, a children’s book. She lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Her website is heathersellers.com .

Fourth Edition | 2021

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Related Titles

Chapter 9: Shape

Author Talk

Heather Sellers on why she wrote The Practice of Creative Writing: A Guide for Students

Heather Sellers, An Online Course Is Like a Poem

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Heather Sellers, Practice of Creative Writing

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The University of Tulsa acquires Fab Lab Tulsa

The University of Tulsa has announced the acquisition of Fab Lab Tulsa, which provides access to digital fabrication tools and resources throughout the community through membership and programming. The move is part of TU’s ongoing efforts to promote innovation and aligns with the university’s global reputation in engineering, computer science, and the creative arts. “We […]

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Unique organizational studies program offers expansive opportunities

At roughly 75 majors, organizational studies is one of the largest majors in The University of Tulsa’s Kendall College of Arts & Sciences. From social sciences, media, and arts to business administration, the program provides students a wide range of knowledge and skills, rather than limiting them to a single discipline. But as a so-called […]

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From field work to the classroom, Grau mentors women in energy

Anne Grau has been involved in geology for three decades – working for energy leaders such as EOG Resources and Total Energies – and definitely knows what it’s like to be the only woman in the room. “Being a woman in the oil and gas industry often meant I was one woman in 200 at […]

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TU Law celebrates alumna Sara Hill’s historic confirmation to federal bench

The University of Tulsa’s College of Law congratulates alumna Sara Hill (JD ’03) as she becomes the first Native American woman to serve as a federal judge in Oklahoma. This historic appointment marks a significant milestone in the state’s legal landscape. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to confirm Hill, who fills a vacant […]

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More than 60 years of James Joyce Quarterly

Legend has it that Thomas Staley, former provost of The University of Tulsa, founded the James Joyce Quarterly, fondly known as JJQ, in his garage. Or was it his kitchen table? That was more than 60 years ago, and since then the journal has become an internationally esteemed publication known for its publishing of critical […]

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The Department of English and Creative Writing has a long tradition of excellence in teaching and research, combining academic rigor with a commitment to encouraging and guiding our students. Our faculty specializes in critical exploration of British, American, and Irish literature from the Middle Ages to the present, and you will gain rich training across wide-ranging forms and genres: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and performance-based work.

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Get in [ edit ]

By boat [ edit ].

During summer there are boats from Kazan , Samara and other destinations on the Volga River.

By train [ edit ]

The train takes you here from Moscow (from Kazanskaya train station) in approximately 16 hours or from Volgograd in about 20 hours. Ulyanovsk Main Station is located 6 km from the city center.

Get around [ edit ]

Ulyanovsk has an extensive public transportation network that includes buses, trolleys, and trams. It is very affordable, but congested and may be quite confusing. You won't find any route maps or schedules, neither at bus stops nor in buses. Fee collectors usually don't speak English. Express buses and semi-private van routes are more comfortable and more expensive. Taxis are not expensive, and that's your best bet if you want to get somewhere (relatively) quickly, in (relative) comfort (almost all cars are old Russian ladas or over 10 year old non-Russian cars), and without much hassle. They are also most likely to have English speaking drivers (one in 1000) and superloud Russian pop music.

Getting between the banks of the Volga is a problem. There is a two lane bridge connecting the banks and it's nearly always congested, so if you're unlucky, it can take a couple of hours. Most locals avoid going over the bridge if they can. A four-lane bridge was planned to relieve these problems.

See [ edit ]

As the home town of Lenin, it's worth visiting the Lenin Memorial Centre and Gardens and museums based in his former houses. There is also a museum dedicated to the poet 'Goncharov' and the war memorial at the end of the main street 'Ulitsa Goncharova' offers breathtaking views over the Volga.

Do [ edit ]

In winter, try cross-country skiing along the Sviaga river, in summer take a boat ride over the reservoir.

Buy [ edit ]

The city's main shopping centre 'Tsum' is basic to say the least but does offer some basic shopping.

Eat [ edit ]

• Shpinat , Ulitsa Kirova, 79 ( in Rakurs Hotel ), ☏ +7 842 258-53-41 . An upscale restaurant with small portions but big on presentation if that appeals to you. ( updated Feb 2021 )
• Gonzo , Ulitsa Goncharova, 48+7 842 244-44-22 ( across from Hilton Garden Inn ), ☏ +7 842 244-44-22 . Lots of tasty Russian dishes, particularly heavy on meat. ( updated Feb 2021 )
• Veprevo Koleno , Ulitsa Federatsii, 11 , ☏ +7 951 094-51-15 . featuring Czech food and beer. ( updated Feb 2021 )
• Gallery Restaurant , Ulitsa Goncharova, 25 ( inside Radisson Hotel ), ☏ +7 8422 41-74-71 . 09:30-02:00 . Buffet breakfast, lunch, and dinner featuring Russian and international items.  
• Lobby Bar , ul. Goncharova 25, ground floor ( inside Radisson Hotel ). 09:30-02:00 . Quick bites.  

Go next [ edit ]

The capital of Tatarstan , Kazan , is a stunning city just 7 hours train ride from Ulyanovsk.

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CVN Ulyanovsk 2.0

By Fubar512

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About This File

CVN Ulyanovsk

This model represents the Soviet Project 1143.7 CVN Ulyanovsk, as it probably would have appeared had the project had been carried through to completion.

I won't go into the actual history of the ship, as it's just as easy for anyone so inclined to perform an online search and dig up all the relevant details on the vessel.

This model was designed and optimized for SF2:NA, and that means Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8. At the very least it requires the latest SF2 series patch for its systems and DX10 visual effects to work properly.

To install this package, simply place the folders located inside the .RAR archive into the mod folder of whichever SF2 title you desire the ship to appear in.

Additional work may be required on your part to ensure that the ship's TEWS RWR symbol (SkyWatch) is added to the RWR list of any aircraft so equipped. Instructions on how to do this, can be found on the SF2 knowledge base, courtesy of EricJ:

http://combatace.com/topic/44441-making-a-custom-tga-for-tews-radar-warning-recievers/

Sound effects will also require editing of the soundlist.ini file in order to work.

I’ve included a modified soundlist.ini file, for those who do not have it extracted.

Warning: Be careful if you already have an existing custom soundlist.ini file, as it will be overwritten . In that case, simply add the following lines (shown below), taking care to follow the existing numbering sequence (the soundlist.ini will reside in your flight folder). Use the supplied soundlist.ini as a guide.

SoundFileXXX=Underway

SoundFileXXX=ReductionGear

SoundFileXXX=CIWS

Priority=Normal

3DSound=TRUE

DopplerEffect=TRUE

Looped=TRUE

NumBuffers=2

MaxDist=250.000000

MinDist=10.000000

InsideConeAngle=360

OutsideConeAngle=360

ConeOutsideVolume=100

[ReductionGear]

Priority=NORMAL

NumBuffers=4

MaxDist=2000.000000

Priority= Normal

DopplerEffect=FALSE

MinDist=50.000000

Known issues:

1) The supplied SA-N-11 Kortik SAMs are not precisely scaled, so they were placed in the center of each Kashtan's missile tube cluster. They also do not have a defined booster stage in their model file, so don't expect booster separation. Also, the actual SA-N-11 is guided by an optical tracking system in real life. Again, this is not supported by the series, so they were given high counter-measure rejection and probability of intercept values, to compensate.

2) As of the present date (October 7 2012) Third Wire does not support a PROPER VLS system on a vessel that's also equipped with mutiple SAM types, on slewable mounts. To put it simply, one can have a working VLS system and nothing else, or one can have working Kashtans. I chose the latter option, though the nodes and missiles are supplied if this situation were to change in the future.

3) Third Wire has not made provisions for a working "ski-jump", so virtual bow catapults are used instead, and aircraft thus launched will appear to fly through the bow ramp.

Ulyanovsk model, SA-N-9 model, and Textures for both, by Julhelm

SA-N-11 missile model and textures, based on the SA-19 by Gabilon.

Sound & Visual effects, and all data.ini work, by Fubar512

Testing by Dave, Wrench, Brain32 and Crusader.

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