Lightning Writing
One strategy that has been used to great success in our school is Lightning Writing. This is intended for students to increase writing efficiency, depth and is a really great end to the lesson for students to consolidate their learning, or at the beginning of a topic for a pretest. (with no effort in designing)
Students are given 2 minutes to write as much about a topic as possible. They are to continue to write for the whole two minutes, no matter what they are writing. They aren’t allowed to stop.
Students then count the following:
- Words: Number of Words
- Difficult words: Number of words with 3 or more syllables
- Technical Terms: Number of technical words.
Students are then given a second opportunity in which they are to select a goal to improve the rate of words, difficulty, or technical terms.
Students then get another two minutes to write, count the total, and determine the difference.
This is very good for increasing writing speed, complexity and increase use of terminology, which are essential for HSC success.