Writing ingredients are the making of letters or symbols to form words with a pen, pencil or any writing tool to communicate or to pass information.
It is the production of any readable account or the production of letters in words or in symbols with any writing tool.
Writing is an exercise of the brain and the hand. It is the inscription of any message not in verbal form. The first stage of writing skill is handwriting.
Handwriting
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Handwriting is the use of man’s brain to create and put down the created message in letters on paper or chalkboard or any substance designed for writing.
Writing exercise in language studies deals with the formation and writing of words, sentences, paragraph and passages.
Writing leads to composition as reading leads to comprehension. Simple composition or essay develops pupils to writing long essays, dissertation, short and long stories, drama and poems. In advanced studies we have creative writing.
Creative writing
Creative writing is an area in language studies which develop pupils to write any genre of literature-prose drama and poetry.
Pupils develop their writing skill from hand writing where they practice copying form the chalk board.
This is stretched forward and strengthened by the pupil’s involvement or pupil’s practical exercise in dictation where they strengthen their knowledge of the spelling of words and the orthography in general.
Writing in sentence is developed into writing in paragraphs and further to writing in complete passages.
Composition writing
In composition lesson pupils are taught in the lower primary classes writing in sentences to describe or narrate or give the exposition of any product.
Composition aids the pupils thinking and writing. It develop their writing skill. In language studies pupils are to be taught writing of letters in their lower primary classes-primaries 1 and 2 they later engage in primary 3 writing sentences dictation and composition.
Objective of writing
- Pupils could acquire the skill of writing or any substance paper boards, slates and others.
- Pupils could be competent of writing words, phrases sentences and paragraph in the correct up-to-date orthography of the language involved.
- Pupils may be competent of developing and writing paragraph in a structural composition.
- Pupils may be able to discover their talents in writing skill and later develop in creative writing.
Purpose of writing
- For simple communication e.g. sending messages or passing information.
- To communicate ideas for immediate and for future consumption.
To communicate with either a nearby character or somebody abroad of far away from us, we can send our message by writing to somebody nearby with a faraway or abroad say a friend or relative in Britain or in U.S.A.
- To document facts for improvement.
- To keep one’s secret; it is used for proper accountability.
- Writing serves as a better reminder than other communication.
- Writing makes easy note taking and it is cheaper than other forms of recording such as tape-recording, Photostat and other modern ways of recording.
Skills of Writing
The following writing skills are to be encouraged in pupils
- Outlining
- Paragraphing
- Organizing
- Securing coherence
- Punctuating
- Thinking
Outlining
This is the breaking down of the subject matter into points which are arranged in order. The main ideas are got and they are developed with points which will later from the whole structure.
In outlining one has to put in mind that one idea is not superior to the other nor one point is greater than the other. This not withstanding one should watch out for which ideas should be developed first.
In a descriptive essay such as pupils should be taught how to think on relevant ideas and how to arrange them in a logical and sequential order pupils in primary classes iii and iv should usually write in sentences, one sentence developing one idea-should be led to arrange their sentences in sequential order.
They should be guided to develop their ideas with sentences in a logical and sequential order.
Pupils in primary classes v and vi should be encourage to write in paragraphs. This implies they are expected to write longer than pupils in lower primary classes and they are to describe their ideas with more than one sentence.
Paragraphing
A paragraph is a distinct facet of a letter or composition or any writing document. It could be a distinct facet of a page in a book. It is a group of sentence developing the same idea in composition.
Outlining caters for slicing the subject matter into ideas and the paragraph develops the ideas with points found in the sentences.
Paragraphing therefore is the making of distinct parts of a letter or composition or a piece of writing it is the ability to develop the parts of a whole writing with a number of sentences.
Organizing
This is the skill of writing which deals with order-lines. It is orderliness in essay writing or writing general.
One has to know the ideas he wants to develop and how to arrange them in order to ensure proper sequence of events or involvement one has to know the point and how to arrange the points to develop the ideas correctly and in order.
In essence one has to know what each paragraph contains; one must not repeat himself in the paragraphs.
What we have in paragraph one must be different from that of paragraph two and in the subsequent paragraphs, but they must be related. Students should be encouraged in the skill of organizing.
Coherence
Coherence is the link that occurs between one paragraph and the other. There must be a link between one paragraph and the other in any writing.
The whole writing must not be disjointed. There must be a topic sentence which links one paragraph with the previous paragraph, and which summarizes the content of the teacher to instill the skill or coherence in his pupils.
Punctuation
Punctuation is the observation of pauses in our writing or speaking punctuation is the skill of observing pauses accurately in our writing or speaking.
This observation of pauses is made with the use of punctuation marks which include the full stop or (period) (), the colon (:), the semi-colon (;) the comma (,) the exclamation mark, (!) the question mark (?), the dash (_), the hyphen (-) the parenthesis ({!}) and the quotation marks (“)
A teacher should make sure he instills the skill of punctuation in his pupils.
Thinking
Thinking is meditation. It is the use of the mind and the sense organ to find out points and develop the points on a given subject matter. It is a psychological phenomenon.
Physically a human-being must be health in order to be able to think well and accurately. His mind must be free of problems.
He should learn how to be patient enough to use his sense organs to think and dig out points and develop the points with interesting sentences or dialogue, conversation or utterances.
Pupils should be encouraged thinking and giving exercises that encourage them to think.