In the early years of our country, it was not unusual for students to begin study at a college at the age of fourteen or fifteen well able to express themselves through writing. What techniques did early schools and tutors use to imbue their pupils with such fine writing skills? Teachers are often surprised to learn that the simple technique of copying great writing was the foundation of many early writing programs. It is easy to incorporate this method into your own writing curriculum.
Start by providing students with things worth copying. Make sure that they have access to great books of interest to them. Ask students to bring in their own favorites. Talk about what they like about their favorite books. Move into a discussion of what makes a great writer. Some points that might be brought up include good use of modifiers, making the reader feel like he or she can experience the book through his or her senses, and keeping things easy to read, and yet exciting and new. Discussion will vary depending on the age of the students, but any student who can enjoy a story should be able to think about what makes one story better than another.
Now tell the students that you would like them each to choose a part of a book, that they really like, to copy. For younger children, it might be a sentence or two. Older students can copy a paragraph or even a page. This is a great time for students to bring out their best handwriting. If the students like drawing, they might want to decorate their pages. Make sure the students proofread their work, checking to make sure that they used the right spellings, capitalization, and punctuation. This is a good time to talk about why capitalization and punctuation is a certain way in a grade appropriate manner. If your students have their own spelling lists, they might want to add any words they find difficult. Collect their work and check for mistakes. You do not want to reinforce incorrect writing.
With older students, you can take this exercise to another level. The next day, ask the students to remember what they wrote the previous day and to write it again, only this time expressing it in their own words. Then they can compare the two pieces noting similarities and differences. As students progress in their writing skills, they may start to write some things better than the original author.
The primary advantage of using copying to learn writing skills is that great writing skills are naturally reinforced. Students pick up sentence structure, grammar, and spelling quickly and effortlessly as they write passages from great books. Just make sure that students are aware that this is not their own work, and that it is wrong to copy the work of another without giving proper credit. Having the students mark each piece with the author and title of the original work is a great way to help them remember this.
Add copying to your writing curriculum, and students will strive to do as well as their favorite authors in their own writing projects. Enjoy the results that this simple technique will bring.
