Designing Lorri

Writing is so stressful for some people. Personally, I’ve been creative writing for fun since 4th grade and have never stopped. It is a little embarrassing at times to look back at my old work as I cringe at the lack of vocabulary and grammar knowledge–but let’s be honest here: everyone starts somewhere. Now that my younger siblings are in middle school, I’ve found that neither of them share the same appreciation for writing for various reasons. My sister has ADHD and Dyslexia and struggles to focus on what she needs to do to get her thoughts down, and my brother is extremely creative but discouraged by not knowing what to do and sheer laziness.

Not to be critical about any other educator’s strategies, but all the skills I’m going to point out today are things I learned back in 3rd and 4th grade that should have been presented then reinforced in middle school in order to lead into high-school quality work, but both siblings swear their teachers never mentioned these strategies in class. So before I go on a tirade about the public education system, Let me just jump into these writing tips for beginners that can help any age learn to be a better writer.

1. Create a Visual Aid
   1. Web diagram
   2. Hamburger chart
   3. Inverted Pyramid (for Journalism writing)
2. Read.
   1. The best writers read often. Even if you lack training on how to form a nice paragraph, the more you read the more you will gain the natural ability to write.
3. Don’t worry about spelling and grammar until you are done.
   1. Just get your thoughts down and stop stressing about the format.
   2. Spelling doesn’t matter until the final draft.
   3. Don’t distract yourself from freely expressing the idea.
4. Learn about the fabulous, innovative comma and perhaps the other punctuation marks.
   1. Let’s eat grandma.
   2. Let’s eat, grandma.
5. Make outlines.
   1. An outline is an easy tool to throw your ideas on in an organized manor. If you make your outline on the computer you can simply keep adding details until you’ve reached your goal. I’ll be writing a post soon highlighting more about helpful outlines.

There are so many helpful resources online. Pinterest is a great stop for parents and educators to find resources. Here are a few I’ve found below.

I hope these simple tips can help you or a writer you love get started on the journey to writing great essays and learning to love the art of writing.

Comment below if you have any writing questions!

Lorri x