Writing is one of the keys to effective communication. However, we often discover that students face difficulties in organizing their thoughts, conceptualizing ideas, and starting out essays. For most students, writing can be a nightmare that usually causes academic frustrations and mental anxieties.
David Anderson, an author at Ihatewritingessays review blog, says it is important for the key players in the academic world to provide a conducive learning environment that would help students to embrace essay writing not as a boring task they hate but as a stimulating activity that fosters imagination, self-expression, and creativity. In order to achieve this, teachers must be open to using active means of learning that would ignite the fire of critical thinking and passionate writing among students.
Project-based learning can help improve the writing skills of students through the following ways:
1. Finding the purpose and motivation to write
Most writing assignments are usually given without any prior explanation or conceptual discovery. Teachers or professors could easily instruct their students to write about a particular topic and submit the output on a certain day. This passive and traditional method can be very harmful to students who are not that naturally inclined to writing.
To correct this, project-based learning can be implemented during the distribution of writing tasks. The class can initially be introduced to a topic of interest through group discussion, film screening, or community immersion. This would build the foundation for a better understanding of the topic.
If the topic is about animal welfare, then students can be brought to an animal shelter where they could see the plight of the abused creatures. They could also interview animal rights advocates and adopt the same cause as well. This would help the students form a more compelling thesis statement and also give them a stronger motivation for writing. A purposeful writing can result in an immeasurable effectiveness in terms of developing their arguments.
2. Discovering other perspectives through collaboration
Writing may be a means of self-expression, but it can also be a way for students to improve their own outputs by incorporating the viewpoints of their team. Since project-based learning basically promotes collaboration and teamwork, then students can capitalize on such experience to reflect on their own writing style. They can also use the input from group discussions to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their own arguments.
Becoming open to the opinion of other people and accepting certain points for revision can help students enhance their writing potentials. Effective writers must be humble enough to accept constructive criticisms in order to improve their output.
3. Expanding the depth of arguments through research
Most writing assignments that are given in relation to projects require the application of ideas in real life situations. Because of this, they are exposed to different research methods that are not limited to reading textbooks and articles that are related to the given topic. In order to come up with more compelling stories and reflective discussions, then students are encouraged to combine different frameworks in the conduct of research.
Writing tasks that are given under project-based learning methods have meaningful purposes in contrast to superficial assignments in traditional settings. When students understand that their writing can potentially address certain issues or solve societal problems, then they are more willing to exert further effort in crafting persuasive essays, informative articles, or any other writing output.
4. Infusing their own personality and expressing their own voice in writing
Project-based learning methods result in the discovery of a student’s opinion on a particular matter. Writing without passion necessarily results in boring and ineffectual articles or reports.
When students are allowed to formulate their own inquiry regarding a particular topic, they are given a chance to follow their own methods and thereby create more personal views on the matter. Incorporating their own personality and voice could be very effective in developing their own writing style. There is no need to be limited by rigorous guidelines, thus they could enhance the output by being more imaginative, creative, and reflective in writing.
Project-based learning promotes the improvement of writing skills among students of different levels. By creating changes in the educational system and becoming more open to such learning styles, then we could expect to see better writers in the future.
Author’s Bio: Carol is very keen on teaching students new, effective ways of learning. When not freelancing and blogging on education-related matters, Carol enjoys travelling. She takes immense pleasure of visiting new countries.
