Being afraid to write is common among adult learners. This fear and uncertainty can best be addressed by first making sure the learner feels respected, safe, and valued. It's important to develop a good rapport with the learner and maintain a nonjudgmental attitude. Your learner's fear of writing may not go away quickly, so it’s important to be patient and encouraging on an ongoing basis.

Another suggestion is to teach your learner these strategies to help him/her become more comfortable with writing:

• Start small by using half sheets of paper instead of full sheets for learner writing and asking your learner to write only a sentence or two. Very beginning writers may just write a few words or phrases.
• Ignore mistakes in spelling, grammar, and punctuation and focus only on your learner’s ideas and what he/she is writing about.

​Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating Responding to Writing.

Click here to watch a tutor roundtable on Responding to Writing.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner select spelling words and practice them in many ways

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner practice spelling

You can also try these strategies to reduce your learner's fear of writing through routine writing activities:

• Write with your learner to serve as a model for good writing and the writing process.

• Do a regular “ quick write ”, a short, timed writing. It might be helpful to choose a word to write about. Words from nature (rain, ocean, snow) can be fun to quick write about.

• Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the Quick Write Strategy.

• Begin a “ dialogue journal ” in which you and your learner write back and forth to each other about events in your lives.

• Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrate using a Dialog Journal.

• Encourage your learner to keep a private journal where s/he can write about his/her thoughts and feelings and events in his/her life. Click here to see a form that can help reluctant or new writers begin to journal.

English Language Learner Notes:

English language learners should only be asked to write about things they are very familiar with and know the English words for.
Click here to watch a video of a tutor and tutor trainer demonstrating five fun, low-stress strategies to encourage reluctant writers to write.

 

An excellent strategy for helping learners who are reluctant writers is to use a Language Experience Activity (LEA). A LEA is an activity in which you write down a story as your learner dictates it. Your learner then reads the story back to you. The story can be something that happened to your learner, information about a hobby your learner has, something your learner has accomplished or an event your learner has attended. In other words the story can be about anything your learner wants. You write the story in exactly the words your learner uses with no changes in grammar or sentence structure. In addition to the story becoming the text for word recognition and comprehension activities, the text also serves as a model of writing. You can talk about and model the process of writing a story/personal narrative while writing the Language Experience Story with your learner. As your learner becomes more comfortable with the process, s/he can take over the writing. Until then, s/he can copy the story you’ve written as a simple writing practice activity. You can watch a tutor and learner writing a langauge experience story in this video You can watch a tutor and a learner writing a language experience story and practicing related activities in this video.   In the resources below there is a video and an article about overcoming the fear of writing. View/read and discuss one or both with your student.

 

Many adult students are reluctant to write because they believe they don’t have anything to say. A good way to help your student get ideas to write about is to encourage your student to write about something in his/her own life. Advice often given to authors is to “write what you know” and something we all know about is ourselves.

 

Another suggestion is to teach your learner strategies to help him/her know what to write about:

• Have your learner use events, people, or interests from his/her life to write about.
• Discuss with your learner what s/he will write before it is written.
• Choose a "wordless picture book and have your student write the words for the story it tells.

For English Language Learners: Be sure to choose wordless picture books and writing prompts that show images that your learner will understand and feel comfortable with.

• Respond in writing to a picture after a discussion about what is happening in the picture.

For English Language Learners: Be sure to choose pictures that your learner will understand and feel comfortable with.
Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating using graphic organizers.
Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating pre-writing strategies.

• Use sentence starters for basic writers
  
• Use story starters for longer pieces of writing.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating story starters.

 

An excellent strategy for helping your learner discover what to write about is called Writing Territories. This strategy was developed by Nancie Atwell and is described in her book In the Middle. A person’s writing territories is a list of ideas from his/her life that can turn into a piece of writing. This list can have names of people, places, or pets, funny or sad events in your learner’s life, hopes, dreams, or problems. The list of writing territories can be added to at any time and will be an ongoing source of ideas for your learner to write about.

To help your learner develop his/her writing territories, you could develop your own list as a model for your learner. An example of a list of writing territories can be found here

 

Have you ever had a learner ask you a question like this: “Why do I need to learn to write an essay when I’m working as a cook?” This learning plan has some suggestions on how to answer your learner and how to make learning to write more meaningful to him/her.

If your learner is planning to take a high school equivalency test like the GED, HiSET, or TASC, s/he will be required to write an essay, a short piece of writing on one subject, usually presenting the author's own views, as part of that exam. But telling your learner that s/he has to learn to write an essay, so s/he can pass a test might not be a satisfying answer for you or your learner.

And if your learner doesn’t have to learn to write an essay, what then? There are some ways to get your learner more interested in writing.

 

If your learner doesn’t need to learn to write an essay, help him/her learn to write the kinds of things that are necessary for the career s/he is interested in or for the job s/he has now. Using the learner from the example who is a cook, you could help this learner find out what kind of writing tasks cooks need to do and then practice that kind of writing with your learner.

If your learner needs to write an essay to pass a high school equivalency exam, help him/her choose topics s/he is interested in writing about. The high school equivalency essays usually take the form of an argument and there are websites that present both sides of issues that your learner may be interested in writing about.

Another suggestion is for your learner to write essays about the career s/he is interested in. Using the example of the learner who wants to be a cook, this learner could explore that career and write about different aspects of it. For example, reading about cooks in different kinds of restaurants, then writing an argument about whether it’s better to cook in a family restaurant or in a hotel restaurant. This learner could also write an essay about what it takes to transition from a cook to a chef, including the benefits and challenges.

In either case, you can also help your learner practice writing things that would be practical in his/her life like notes to his/her child’s teacher or messages to friends and family members. For English language learners, learning to write practical things is especially important. Since many of these kinds of writing take place on the computer, you could introduce your learner to keyboarding and electronic communication when you and your learner think s/he is ready.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of emailing a child’s teacher.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing a script to prepare for a call to a doctor’s office.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing a to do list.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing emergency contact information.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing a thank you note.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of filling out a form.

 

No matter what reading level your learner is at, writing instruction should be a part of your tutoring sessions. Reading and writing are very closely related and research* shows that practice in one can improve the other. In school, young children learn to write as they learn to read at the earliest grades, so there is no need to wait to have your learner do some writing.
 
*Graham, S. & Hebert, M. (2010). Writing to Read: Evidence for how writing can improve reading. Carnegie Corp: New York 

Some suggestions for getting started:

• Start small with one or two sentences or phrases.
• When working with beginning ESL students, start with words that your learner already knows and uses in speaking English.
• Practice with things your learner has to write in his/her life, like thank you notes, notes to a child’s teacher, or a shopping list.
• If your learner is a proficient English speaker and knows his/her letter sounds, show him/her how to spell by sounding out words and to draw a line for any letter s/he doesn’t know.
• If your learner is not a proficient English speaker, you can transcribe the word that s/he says aloud and then your learner can copy that word onto his/her paper either immediately, or later when s/he is revising.
• Make a portable word wall with a foam core board or a poster board of words your learner uses frequently in his/her writing to help with spelling. You can also encourage your learner to keep a personal spelling dictionary. This can be a small notebook in which your learner writes the correct spelling of the words s/he struggles with. 
• Be encouraging and don’t worry about mistakes in spelling, grammar and punctuation. 
• Use a Language Experience Activity to model the writing process for your learner. A LEA is an activity in which you write down a story as your learner dictates it. Your learner then reads the story back to you. The story can be something that happened to your learner, information about a hobby your learner has, something your learner has accomplished or an event your learner has attended. In other words, the story can be about anything your learner wants. You write the story in exactly the words your learner uses with no changes in grammar or sentence structure. In addition to the story becoming the text for word recognition and comprehension activities, the text also serves as a model of writing. You can talk about and model the process of writing a story/personal narrative while writing the Language Experience Story with your learner. As your learner becomes more comfortable with the process, s/he can take over the writing. Until then, s/he can copy the story you’ve written as a simple writing practice activity. Click here to watch a tutor writing a language experience story in this video.

Click here to watch a tutor and learner writing a language experience story and practicing related activities in this video.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of emailing a child’s teacher.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing a script to prepare for a call to a doctor’s office.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing a to do list.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing emergency contact information.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing a thank you note.

 

Using a dialogue journal with your learner is another fun approach to helping your learner grow as a writer. A dialogue journal is a great way to:

• Model good writing


• Get to know your learner better


• Help your learner get more comfortable with writing


• Help your learner improve his/her reading

A dialogue journal is a notebook or journal where you and your learner write to each other. In other words, it’s a written conversation just between you and your learner.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating Using a Journal of Good Things. 
 
Either you or your learner can write the first entry in the dialogue journal. If your learner writes the first entry, it can be about anything s/he wants. For example, something that happened to her/him that day, a problem s/he is having, or something new s/he learned. If you write the first entry, you can show your learner what a dialogue journal entry looks like and give your learner an entry to respond to.
 
For a beginning ESL writer, the journal entry may only be a few words but it is still writing practice and can be a place to start talking with your learner about what s/he wants to write.
 
Before the next tutoring session, either you or your learner will write a response, depending on who wrote the first entry. When you respond to what your learner wrote in the journal, you can model correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and more. Continue writing back and forth this way for as long as you and your learner want.
 
Keep in mind that you do not correct your learner’s journal entries but that you do look for and comment on progress. Writing with your learner in a dialogue journal is meant to build your learner’s confidence in writing in a completely positive way, so this is not the time to discuss errors and corrections.

Some other tips for your responses to your learner:

• restate something s/he has written incorrectly to model the correct way


• ask questions about what s/he has written


• answer questions s/he has asked


• share your own related experiences

 

The most important thing to consider when you’re assessing your learner’s writing level is how successfully s/he can convey his/her message in writing. Is the meaning immediately clear, even to a reader unfamiliar with the topic? Are the ideas expressed in a logical, sequential manner with a flow that makes them easy to understand? If your learner needs to improve how s/he communicates the message, it’s helpful to ask him/her to talk about his/her ideas before writing them. Most learners (except for some English language learners with limited speaking and listening skills) find it easier to say something than to write it. Encourage your learner to use this three-step strategy when writing.

• Take some time to think about what you want to write.

• Say what you want to write aloud. Tell your tutor your ideas like you’re telling a story or thinking aloud. If your tutor isn’t available, tell a friend, co-worker or family member who can help you. If you’re alone, talk to yourself!

• Write what you just said, exactly the way you said it. Your writing will sound more natural when it sounds like how you talk.

If you ask your learner to follow this three step strategy, you’ll most likely find your learner is able to produce better writing then if s/he just thinks and writes, or just writes without first thinking about the message s/he wants to convey. Spending more time in planning/pre-writing activities such as brainstorming and using graphic organizers like mind maps or outlines to organize ideas can also help your learner communicate his/her message in writing.

The Mechanics of Writing
A different question is how to assess the mechanics of your learner’s writing. Does s/he need to work on his/her grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization or sentence structure? Can your learner write an essay or a paragraph or just a few sentences? Does your learner have trouble with subject/verb agreement, run-on sentences or sentence fragments? Look for error patterns, like misspelling the same word over and over or writing sentences without a subject or a verb and focus on correcting them. If you try to correct every error in a piece of writing, it will be overwhelming and dispiriting for your learner. Choose a particular area that needs work, such as writing a strong topic sentence in a paragraph, and practice that skill until your learner has mastered it.

 

Evaluating Writing

An important thing to remember when assessing your learner’s writing is that you never want to compare his/her writing to other people’s writing. You’ll always evaluate it by comparing his/her early attempts to later attempts. Is his/her writing improving in the areas of weakness over time? Can your learner now write complete and complex sentences when s/he used only to be able to write simple sentences or even just sentence fragments or phrases? Has your learner’s spelling and grammar improved since you’ve been working together on writing? It can be easy to lose sight of the progress your learner has made in writing. Let’s look at some tools that can help you and your learner keep track of which areas s/he has improved in and which still need work.  

Writing Rubrics

Writing rubrics can help both you and your learner assess your learner’s writing. They can also help your learner become a more independent writer. Writing rubrics clearly state what is expected of the writer in terms of a variety of skills. Different levels of proficiency are explicitly defined so you and your learner can evaluate what level the writing is at compared with the gold standard for each writing skill. Some rubrics are very basic and spare and some are very advanced and detailed. It’s important to choose a writing rubric that is appropriate for your learner’s skill level and the kinds of writing s/he is doing. If you can’t find a rubric that works for you both, you can design your own.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner using a writing rubric to assess a piece of learner's writing while revising it.

Editing Checklists

You and your learner can also use editing checklists to assess your learner’s writing. Editing is one of the last phases of the writing process so it focuses on polishing or putting the finishing touches on a piece of writing. Like writing rubrics, editing checklists can help your learner become a more self-sufficient writer. When doing a final review of a piece of writing, your learner can use an editing checklist to see if s/he remembered to follow the conventions of good writing.

 

Portfolios

Portfolios are an excellent way to compare your learner’s early attempts at writing to later ones. Portfolios are collections of representative samples of a learner’s work from the first day of tutoring until the last. They show growth and improvement over time so they’re great tools to help you track and celebrate progress.

Some people use folders or binders to store examples of a learner’s work, such as a copy of a story or a note to a family member. Some people use digital devices to store electronic copies, photos or recordings of a learner’s work. For example, you could scan a handwritten text and make it a pdf that can be saved or type up the text and save it to your computer. You might save a one-paragraph text your learner wrote and a three-paragraph essay s/he wrote six months later after practicing essay writing. You won’t save every piece of writing your learner creates in a portfolio. You and your learner will decide which pieces demonstrate a skill you’re working on and hope to improve.

Click here to see an example of an electronic portfolio documenting the milestones of a pre-nursing student.

Click here to see a video of a tutor and learner using a writing portfolio to assess learner's progress in writing.

 

Yes! You should definitely incorporate some kind of writing into every tutoring session. And, if you and your learner have agreed that s/he is able to do some home practice that extends and reinforces what you’ve done in your lesson, you should include writing in those activities as well. We know that the best way to improve writing skills is to write. The more practice learners get with writing, the easier writing will become for them. With plenty of opportunities to write during fun and useful writing lessons, what was once a daunting, or even downright scary, task will become a routine habit that your learner will approach without hesitation.

Incorporating writing into every lesson doesn’t have to be a nuisance or chore for you or your learner. There are lots of ways to make it fun and easy and useful. Here are several you might want to try:

• Write a message on a social media site or in an email or text.


• Write a note to put in a family member’s lunch bag to put a smile on his/her face.


• Write down one thing you’re grateful for each day.


• Write a thank you note to a friend or neighbor.


• Write a message in a greeting card or create a handmade card.


• Write emergency contact information to put on your refrigerator.

The kind and amount of writing your learner works on will depend on your learner’s current level of writing skills and his/her needs, goals and interests. Once your learner gets into the habit of practicing some type of writing every time you meet, it will seem very natural and practical.

 

Reading and Writing

Because reading and writing reinforce each other and practice in one helps improve the other, you can plan writing activities that will support your reading activities and vice versa. For English language learners, speaking and listening practice should also be part of the mix since all four skills reinforce each other and go together very naturally in lessons.

For example, if you and your learner read a story or an article, you can discuss it (this is excellent listening and speaking practice for English language learners) and then your learner can write about it. If your learner is new to writing, s/he can write only a sentence or two related to the reading during your lesson. Then s/he could copy the sentences or type them up or add one or two sentences to them for home practice. If your learner is a more experienced writer, s/he can write a paragraph in response to what you’ve read. For home practice s/he can revise what s/he’s written based on your feedback or add a second paragraph. If you’re working with an advanced learner, s/he can write a three or five paragraph essay in reaction to the reading. During home practice, your learner could expand or revise the essay based on your discussion of the reading. This is especially useful if your learner wants to pass a high school equivalency test or some other exam that requires writing an essay.  

Real Life Writing

For learners of every level, and especially for English language learners, it’s especially helpful to incorporate into each lesson a writing activity that can be used immediately for a real purpose. For example, if your learner is a low level writer, s/he could practice writing his/her children’s names, his/her address and phone number, a to-do or shopping list or a phone message, either as part of your lesson or as home practice for you to discuss during your next lesson. If your learner is an intermediate level writer, s/he could write an email to a co-worker or a text to a friend or a list of questions for his/her doctor. If you’re working with a higher-level writer, s/he could practice writing a memo for work or a letter to a landlord or out of town family member. Once again, during home practice your learner could revise or expand upon what s/he wrote during your lesson.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrating the everyday writing activity of writing a to do list.

Journal Writing

Journals are a great way to encourage learners of all writing abilities to write every lesson. The length and complexity of the entry will vary depending on their skill level. There are lots of different ways to engage in journal writing but they all provide the opportunity for your learner to write without receiving any corrections to his/her writing.

Click here to watch a video of a tutor and learner demonstrate using a Journal of Good Things.