Challenges to Student Writing

1. Teacher has some control over
   
   1. Student and teacher motivation is lacking (laziness)
      
   2. Students don't care
      
   3. Long term projects are hard
      
   4. Students offtask (esp for long projects)
      
   5. Students don't have realistic ideas about writing quality
      
   6. Problems with intros and conclusions
      
   7. Vocabularly (student's don't have it)
      
   8. spelling (even if they have word check)
      
   9. Audience: if it is just for the teacher, kids don't care
      
   10. Lack of knowledge / literacy skill (what does a word mean, how do they say what they want to say)
       
   11. Cheating / copying and pasting
       
   12. Relevance: how do we make it relevant to kids
       
   13. It's all communication: how to you communicate?
       
   14. Kids that won't go to college: esp Seniors, why do I need to know to write?
       
   15. Grading: takes so much time
       
   16. Student Insecurity about writing
       
   17. Don't just teach writing in grade where it is tested
       
   18. 4th grade TAAS essays are better in some cases to high school
       
   19. After the test is over, kids think school is over
       
2. Teacher has no control over
   
   1. Non English speakers
      
   2. Knowledge and skills kids come to class with (prior knowledge / skills)
      
      1. Lack of background knowledge (even by 9th grade, kids can't write good paragraphs)
         
   3. Lots of curriculum to cover (esp 8th grade history)
      
   4. Time and scheduling
      
   5. Levels of Ability (different)
      
   6. Ability to write seems to be lost between grades
      
   7. Brain chemicals in teenage mind
      

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