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"Use this site to write, learn to write, take writing classes, learn about our campus writing center, and access resources for writing teachers. ToolsLearn to Write. View our extensive collection of instructional resources for writers, including writing guides, writing activities, and writing links. FeedbackGet Feedback on Your Writing. Learn how you can get help and feedback on your writing. SitesVisit Related Sites. Visit other Web sites that support the teaching and learning of writing. ToolsWork on Your Writing. Learn how the Writing Studio's tools - blogs, wikis, ePortfolios, bibliography, among others - can help you work on a writing project. ClassesView Your Writing Studio Classes. More than 5,000 classes have been created to support writers. Is your school using the Studio? TeachingTeach Writing. Learn how the Writing Studio and our other teaching resources can help you and your students. Writing CenterVisit CSU's Campus Writing Center. Visit our campus writing center, located in beautiful Eddy Hall, Room 6 (in the basement along the north side of the building). Our writing consultants will provide feedback on your drafts and help you with your writing and research strategies."

This software helps learners develop their basic paragraph writing skills. Students learn how to write an effective paragraph -- developed by reason, detail, sequence, example, and cause and effect. The full version of the software provides 15 interactive writing activities on a variety of topics. Choosing from a menu of topics, students are guided to generate ideas, write a topic sentence, body of a paragraph, and a conclusion. Each interactive activity includes the following steps: pre-writing, writing, organizing, revising, rewriting, and publishing. The software is a great tool for assessment and self-assessment, for individual practice, and may be especially useful in classes where a teacher is not able to provide personal attention to individual student. -- From Lena Shvidko The focus on process in writing is important, from pre-writing to developing an idea. Would probably be appropriate for both young and adult learners.

"The ESL Writing Online Workshop is an online multimedia program designed to guide non-native speakers of English through each stage of the pre-writing, while-writing, and post-writing processes: 1) Getting Ready to Write, 2) Developing Your Ideas, 3) Revising Your Work, and 4) Editing and Polishing. This online resource is designed for community college students and adult learners. "ESL-WOW is hosted at Excelsior College. it is part of the Excelsior College Online Writing Lab (OWL). Please email info@eslwow.org for more information. " This is a great site for ESL writers at the college/academic level and has supporting videos for each step in the writing process.

"Visual Writing Prompts is a great source for engaging writing prompts. You can browse their collection of writing prompts by genre, grade, or subject area. The prompts are written directly on each image. "While it's a great source of writing prompts already, it is a site in-progress. They are in the process of adding additional information to each prompt. The prompts that have already been completed include a prompt explanation, an explanation of any relevant vocabulary and language, and a convenient one-click download button." I always used a set of images, culled over years of browsing magazines and newpapers, as writing prompts for various types of writing. This site has the prompts built-in, which can be an advantage for the busy teacher, or a disadvantage if you don't want to find something that precisely fits your assignment goals. You can also have students create their own portfolio of images and prompts to share with other writers. T/H to Nick LaFave.

"Poetry writing is an excellent practice for strengthening one's writing skills. Through poetry writing, we gain command of language, cultivate a robust vocabulary, master literary devices, and learn to work in imagery. And that's just a small sampling of how poetry improves basic writing skills." Articles discusses the emotional and intellectual benefits of reading and writing poetry.

The targeted audience of this website are teachers of academic writing courses and college students, but it can also be used by advanced ESL learners to improve their academic writing skills. The website provides rich information on academic writing including types of academic writing (i.e. book reports, annotated bibliography, academic proposals, admission letters), academic writing techniques (i.e. paraphrasing, summarizing), style and editing, using sources, researching techniques, and some common ESL writing issues. Most sections are supported by PDF versions that teachers can use as handouts. -- From Lena Shvidko

"Essay Punch takes users through the process of writing an essay. From pre-set writing prompts users learn to develop an idea and write their descriptive, informative and persuasive essays. "The site provides online interactive exercises that guide users step by step through pre-writing, writing, organizing, editing, rewriting, and publishing." Essay Punch offers a free "demo" walk thru of writing an essay (gathering info, etc.) -- and then 9 more lessons for a fee. -- by Nancy Overman

The targeted audience of this website are teachers and intermediate and advanced ESL students. This rich website has a variety of resources for writing students, covering the following topics (to name a few): - General writing process - Grammar, punctuation, and spelling - Rhetoric - ESL resources - Business writing and resume - Subject specific writing - Creative writing - Research, citation, and documentation FROM Lena Shvidko The grand-daddy of all OWLs -- extremely comprehensive, both for composition and writing, and grammar, email etiquette, proofreading, etc., and includes advice for ESL/EFL writers.

"The key to IELTS Writing Task 2 success is to give the examiner exactly what they want and nothing else. "Below you will find everything you need to achieve a high score in IELTS Writing Task 2. "It includes: 5 Step Approach Video Writing Task 2 Tips Essential Skills Sentence-by-Sentence Structures Common Topics Full Lessons On All Question Types. Grammar Sample Answers Correction Service Easy to Understand Infographic" This lesson is oriented toward passing the IELTS Writing Exam, but it is a useful set of exercises and activities, including a video, for anyone learning how to write an academic essay

Besides stimulating creativity, creative writing enhances learning and the intellect. I've found using creative writing in "regular" essay writing classes helps students feel free to use more colorful, metaphoric language to describe processes or emphasize the points they were making. ESL students have told me they didn't think English could be an expressive language until I helped them use to write poetry.

These writing prompts are ingenious and will give your writing class a little spice. Also a link to Writer's Boot Camp. "Need an idea to help you get started writing? You'll find hundreds of fun writing prompts here - perfect for beginning a new novel or short story, or simply giving your writing muscle a workout." For more adult or upper level high school (ages 16-18).

"Dyslexia is a learning difficulty which affects the ability to adopt the automatic reflexes needed to read and write. Several studies have sought to identify the source of the problems encountered by individuals with dyslexia when they read. Little attention, however, has been paid to the mechanisms involved in writing. Sonia Kandel, Professor at the GIPSA-Lab of the Université Grenoble Alpes (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes/Grenoble INP) and her team [1] decided to look at the purely motor aspects of writing in children diagnosed with dyslexia. Their results show that orthographic processing in children with dyslexia is so laborious that it can modify or impair writing skills, despite the absence of dysgraphia in these children. The findings of this study are published in the November 2017 edition of Cognitive Neuropsychology." A serious problem that can influence aspects of language learning.

Clever writing games, writing exercises, poetry guide, and ways to publish writing. Nice site to get students interesting and keep them writing. And possibly to introduce writers they may never have heard of.

Nice ideas, and a downloadable sheet to get a free teaching aid: "At one time or another, most of us suffer from writer's block and have a terrible time coming up with story ideas. We stare at a blank page, unable to come up with clever story starters or generate ideas for stories to write. In a way it traps us and keeps us from doing the one thing we want to do most when we sit down with a paper and pen in hand or in front of a computer: write. The more time we waste and are unable to come up with ideas for writing stories, the more we get discouraged. That's why we have something to help kick-start your muse.In this free online download, you get two weeks worth of top-notch writing prompts designed to spark your mind and help you flex your creative muscles. From fiction prompts to poem starters to short stories ideas, you'll be able to generate creative story ideas based on a sentence or two of direction."

Writers may not need any of these tools, but your students might find them helpful in learning to write better. The list includes MyBlogU, which is a social, crowd-sourcing way to write by asking help of others and helping them in their writing projects. Might be interesting as a way to get further language practice. AtomicWriter helps identify audience through some clever AI. Bunkr app is a presentation program with some interesting capabilities, and so on.

"WritingFix: For Teachers, Students & Writers interactive prompts, lessons, and resources for writing classrooms Since 2001, the Northern Nevada Writing Project has proudly sponsored this free-to-use website, which aims to "fix" those teachers who don't believe that writing instruction can be both fun to plan and easy to differentiate. If you explore our website's pages, you will find prompts, lessons, and resources that were created and shared--and then posted here--during workshops and in-service classes sponsored by the NNWP. The Nevada teachers who participate in these professional development opportunities discover ways to be passionate about teaching writing, and here we share the very best, hoping that our passion is contagious to the teachers across the globe who have discovered what we've proudly posted here. Our Mentor Text Bibliography can help you directly link to lessons and prompts based on books you might already own. "

"This study aims at investigating the efficiency of web quests in enhancing the 8th graders' descriptive writing. The 8th graders in the Lebanese public schools in general usually demonstrate poor writing skills. Consequently, they don't show motivation to write in English. The subjects of the study are one control group (n=22) and one experimental group (n=23) enrolled in grade eight in a public school in Beirut and whose ages range from thirteen to fifteen years old. The purpose of the study is to examine whether or not the web quest helps 8th graders achieve unity and coherence in writing descriptive paragraphs and to examine if the motivation towards writing is increased after using the web quest."

A great lesson plan for writing collaboratively. Students extract memento and write them on large cards/pieces of paper. They then create the poem by placing the cards on the floor or table. The teacher (or students) select a topic that the quotations should reflect. It makes students thing about the real meanings within the text. Students discuss their found quotations as they write them. The 5 min. video shows students discussing and coming to realizations as they collect and collaborate. Great speaking, writing, reading activity.

"Many students are struggling with writing assignments, and spend huge amounts of time trying to squeeze words on paper. Even if it's not the case and students just want to improve their writing skills, some writing help services for students may be worth checking out. Includes tutoring services, skill-building exercises, and services for K-12.

" StoryJumper is a free, online storybook maker. With awesome resources for teachers, StoryJumper provides an easy way for to empower students to make their own storybooks. Students write the story and illustrate them with artwork from StoryJumper, or by uploading their own images. Student books can be shared online for free, or purchased in paperback or hardcover format. It's a great way to inspire a passion for writing." The teacher starts by creating a class so that students can enter the site and write privately. Students must be over 13 to participate. The teacher can also set up a collaboration option to create group books.