Beyond the Paragraph: Teaching Writing in Middle School with Structure
If you're tired of guessing how to teach writing in middle school, you're in the right place. Robin Mellom is a veteran ELA teacher and published author of over ten children’s books with Disney, HarperCollins, and Houghton Mifflin. She brings the clarity and structure you've been craving without the gimmicks.
Hosted by Robin Mellom, author, middle school teacher, and creator of the Structured Writer’s Workshop™, each episode delivers practical, classroom-tested strategies that work in grades 4–8.
Learn how to implement evidence-based writing routines, like CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning), build lasting writing habits, and engage students in meaningful work that actually sticks.
Best of all, they will learn how to write like the pros!
Beyond the Paragraph: Teaching Writing in Middle School with Structure
How To Get Kids to WANT to Write Teaching Writing in Grades 3-8 Ep. 29
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How do I get students to actually want to write? It's the question every ELA teacher and homeschool parent runs into, and it's where I start this brand-new 5-Minute Flash Training series for summer.
Here's the heart of it: most writing instruction assigns writing instead of teaching it. We hand kids the finished cake and say "now you make one." In this quick training I share why desire to write matters more than we admit, and why confidence and stamina have to come before the essays, the paragraphs, and the short constructed responses. Build those two things first, and everything else gets easier.
This is the foundation of my Structured Writers Workshop, the method I built after years of learning from my own editors as a published children's author. Throughout this series I'll keep coming back to confidence and stamina, daily warm-ups, voice, and the specific order I teach writing skills in.
New to the Structured Writing method? Take the free crash course.
The full-year writing and grammar curriculum for grades 3 through 8 is now complete.
Thoughts? Questions? Send me a text message!
➡️ Learn more about the FULL Structured Writing training PD
📆 Grab my yearlong writing planner for free (it includes my eBook!)
🎥 Watch the teaching strategies in action on YouTube
📝 Read the latest blog posts for writing tips & ideas
HAVE A QUESTION? Email me at robin@structuredwritingteacher.com