Mindset plays a pivotal role in learning. Students who approach writing with confidence and enthusiasm are much more likely to persist through challenges than students who feel fearful and discouraged by it. Unfortunately, the latter category includes many students in our classrooms.

This year, let's nurture a positive mindset toward writing. But what classroom practices will help, and how can we measure progress?

Empowering Writers

To nurture a positive writing mindset in our students, we can incorporate some best practices into our classrooms.

• Invite students to write about topics of personal interest.
• Build choice into writing assignments.
• Immerse students in examples of good writing.
• Model effective reading and writing strategies.
• Balance freedom and structure (by teaching the writing process).
• Use minilessons to teach skills that writers can immediately apply.
• Focus your feedback on solutions, not problems.
• Be flexible about grammar and correctness.
• Make time for reflection.
• Point students to effective writing resources.

(Learn more about these best practices.)

Surveying Growth

To measure our students’ evolving mindsets, we can use entrance and exit surveys, like the ones that follow.

And and or may be little, but they are fierce: They connect ideas not only in writing but also in math and logic. For instance, Boolean algebra uses and and or to determine the logical relations of compound propositions. These little words also make computers work. Because of and and or, you can send an email, share a selfie, like a meme, and access your bank account.

In fact, recent studies suggest that we should do more to directly teach these and other conjunctions. If developing writers can't use them effectively, they will struggle to formulate and express ideas. And readers need help with connectors, too.

And, or, but, nor, for, yet, and so can empower writing in many ways:

• Connecting two or more words, phrases, or clauses
• Combining choppy sentences to create a smoother flow
• Elaborating simple sentences and ideas
• Expressing relationships between concepts
• Fixing comma splices and run-ons
• Signaling comparisons, contrasts, causes, and effects
• Creating cohesion
• Creating surprise

The following minilessons help students understand and use these little but fierce words.

It takes a special soul to want to teach teenagers. How often have you heard, "I'd never want to teach middle school!"?

I personally love that age. Teenagers haven't yet figured out who they are, so if I can teach them something that empowers them, they grab onto it and transform before my very eyes. They are so full of energy and potential that, given a meaningful direction, they will launch themselves toward a goal or endeavor.

Of course, without a meaningful direction, teenagers can also explode on the launchpad.

To develop as writers, students need to identify as writers. Instead, many students feel reluctant to write and discouraged by language in general. How can we engage such students, and how can we boost their confidence and belief as writers? This post explores eight teaching strategies for shifting the mindset of reluctant writers.

1. Make a personal connection.

Reluctant writers often feel like outsiders in writing classrooms. To create a welcoming environment, we need to show students that their presence is valued. Simply greeting students by name or asking how their day is going can go a long way to establishing trust. So can identifying and engaging with students’ interests outside of school. For instance, if a student is reading a Field & Stream magazine, we can ask about favorite experiences in nature and share our own. These seemingly small social connections establish bonds that make students more comfortable sharing ideas with us in writing.