Are you looking for strategies to teach students to organize writing activities? If so, keep reading.

1. At the top of a piece of paper, write five or six sentences out of sequence about a story the learner has read. Get the learner to cut the sentences apart and paste them in the proper order at the bottom of the paper.

2. Inspect the learner’s work regularly to make sure that the learner is organizing the writing learning experience appropriately.

3. Provide the learner a group of related words (e.g., author, read, love, bestseller, etc.) and have them write a properly organized paragraph that includes each word.

4. Provide the learner several short sentences and have them combine them to make one longer finished sentence (e.g., “The cat is big. The cat is brown. the cat is mine.” becomes “The big, brown cat is mine.”).

5. Get the learner to arrange a sequence of statements on a topic in an appropriate order so that they make sense in a paragraph.

6. Get the learner to begin to practice organizational writing skills by writing simple sentences with subjects and verbs. Get the learner to then expand the sentences by adding adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases.

7. Get the learner to create stories about topics that are of interest. The learner is more likely to be successful if they are writing about something of interest.

8. Get the learner to create an outline or skeleton of what they are going to write. From the outline, the learner can then practice organizational skills in writing.

9. Get the learner to develop organizational skills in writing simple sentences. As the learner shows success, slowly increase the complexity of sentence structure required and move on to paragraphs, short stories, etc.

10. Get the learner to read a short story and then list the activities of the story. From that list, have the learner construct a paragraph using the correct sequence of activities.

11. Minimize distracting stimuli by placing the learner in a study carrel or “office” when engaged in writing learning activities. This should be used as a way to lessen distractions, not as a punishment.

12. Get the learner to read their own written work aloud to help them find errors in organization.

13. Give practice organizing writing learning activities using an app or a handheld educational device that gives the learner instant feedback.

14. Get the learner to write a paragraph describing the activities of a daily comic strip.

15. Using a written essay that the learner has not seen, cut the paragraphs apart and ask them to reconstruct the essay by putting the paragraphs in an appropriate order.

16. Get the learner to write step-by-step instructions (e.g., steps in making a cake) so they can practice sequencing activities.

17. Assist the learner to brainstorm ideas about a topic and then show them how to put these ideas into outline form by combining some ideas and discarding others.

18. Consider using one of the apps on one of our best writing apps lists:

The Tech Edvocate’s List of 31 Grammar & Writing Apps, Tools & Resources

Ten Apps to Help Students Develop Writing Skills

10 of the Best Grammar and Writing Apps for Elementary School Students

11 of the Best Grammar and Writing Apps for High School Students

10 of the Best Grammar and Writing Apps for Middle School Students