Writing – general

1. Before they start writing:

  • Always talk first.
  • Does your mentee know WHAT they are writing and WHO it is for?
  • Discuss the key vocabulary they need.
  • Help with ideas – use YouTube, pictures, your own examples.
  • Record ideas as bullet points or in a brainstorm:
    • – Spider grams are useful.
    • – Go for 5 main points and then brainstorm details for each point, interesting vocabulary and language features.
    • – Each point can make up one paragraph.
    • – Depending on your mentee’s level, you might scribe this, or get them to do it.

2. Writing:

  • First draft – just start, if worried in rough, and then edit it later!
  • You can provide sentence starters if this is needed.
  • Language needs: possibly identify key grammar at this point (worksheet or your own examples)
  • You may want to get your mentee to write the first paragraph with you and set the rest for homework.
  • Alternatively, write your own piece containing deliberate errors for your mentee to correct, while they are writing theirs.

3. Editing:

  • Identify mistakes (choose one or two areas to focus on which will help them to progress). Never use a red pen!
  • Use notes like p for punctuation, sp for spelling, ww – wrong word, or underline, to then get your mentee to say what they think is wrong.
  • Self-correction – after pointing out one area, e.g. full stops, ask them to find the rest themselves. Never try to correct everything in a piece of work – it is too demoralising!
  • Editing and redrafting (possibly for homework) – this is often a useful exercise as schools do not have time for it.

4. Final version:

  • PRAISE and reflect on what your mentee has learnt for next time.

Support our family

We are committed to building stronger communities and enabling people to challenge themselves and find ways out of isolation through our varied community projects. There are so many ways you can support our work and help us to deliver our services to even more people.

Stay in touch with our KLS newsletter

You are signing up to receive email newsletters from KLS. You can easily un-subscribe at anytime. For information about how we use your personal data and our commitment to protecting your privacy, please review our Privacy Policy.