Teaching Writing without (BUYING) a Writing Curriculum
Just Write! Practice Makes Perfect
Finding a writing curriculum can be difficult and expensive. But it doesn't have to be. Actually, as long as you have an English usage manual or two, you don't need a writing curriculum at all. You simply need to practice writing! Repeated experience writing and editing your writing is the best way to improve your skill. And that requires no fancy curriculum or textbooks --just time to write. Caveat -- some families really do need a writing curriculum. Read Do I Really Need a Writing Curric...

Tackling Rhetorical Analysis Questions
Rhetorical Analysis: a Key Skill for Higher Level Writing
Rhetorical analysis is a core component of college level writing and also of the college prep curriculum. The premise of rhetorical analysis is this: In order to write well, you need to think like a writer -- and how better to do that than to study the work of both accomplished and not so accomplished writers? It's not enough to describe the arguments or the theme of a piece of writing; you also need to study the writer's decision making process. One example is word choice. You might ask you...

Writing Ideas: A lesson and some resources
Seed, Bud, Bloom: A simple and easy way to help students become more vivid writers.
A simple way to help students expand and improve their writing is to write a seed sentence on the board. For example: The child ate lunch. This is a seed sentence because you can't tell much about the child or about the lunch. Tell your student or students that our goal is to make the sentence bloom. You can either provide a pre-written example of a bud sentence or have the student or students help expand the sentence. I like to focus on the different parts of the sentence - Can we use mo...

Middle School Writing Prompts
The Best Middle School Writing Prompts
These middle school writing prompts will give your middle school students many essay writing ideas. These writing prompts are for students in 6th through 8th grade and are organized by the various writing styles. Whether you are a Language Arts teacher or a homeschooling parent, you will find these middle school writing prompts to be very helpful in teaching your student to become a stronger writer. Image: koratmember / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Said Words
Alternatives for Said
The following is a list of words I have compiled that can be used to replace the word "said". Don't be too hasty to dismiss the word "said" from your creative writing. It's still a strong, useful and very flexible word. But if you are in need of an descriptive alternative then you've found the right place.

How to Write an Effective Essay or Academic Paper
So you have to write a paper for school...
A well written academic paper is a beautiful thing. Not just because it gets you a good grade, but because in the process of researching and writing the paper, you have the opportunity to learn about something new. When you know how to write an effective essay, it is a really enlightening, and even enjoyable process. In this article, I will walk you step by step through the entire writing process, including preparing to write the paper, choosing a topic, organizing, using quotes effectively, ...

Soul Food Cafe Subscription Groups
Why Subscribe?
The Soul Food Cafe has been providing free creative stimuli since 1999. It has provided forums and blogs, a safe, managed environment for writers and artists to publish their work. Over the years community members have been published in special features on the site and have had the opportunity to self publish on multi user blogs. Currently members of the Soul Food Cafe are welcome to publish on the Pythian Games. When they do publish members notify the Soul Food Group and this assures them o...

Writing Tips
Stephen King On Writing
In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B and finally point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.