Developing writing skills in teenagers: creative approaches and exercises

English teachers have so many skills to develop and knowledge to share. Fortunately, we’re supported by great textbooks that guide us through this process. 

It’s common knowledge that language teaching involves both systems (grammar, vocabulary) and skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening). But it’s not just about delivering information — it’s about helping our students apply effective strategies as they put their learning into practice.

This applies to all English learners.

Now, after this short reflection on the essence of teaching, I’d like to start with a few warm-up questions (answer honestly!):

Number 4 was unexpected, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s often true. Ask any teacher who’s worked with teens for a while — they’ll likely say writing is one of the hardest skills to teach. 

Many students aren’t enthusiastic about planning, thinking deeply, and putting their thoughts on paper. And it’s not because they don’t know how. You’ve already taught them that!

Let’s think about why this happens.

They’re becoming more independent while still being told what to do (like studying). It’s no surprise they might respond to pressure with disinterest — and writing is often the first thing to get rejected.

Why writing?

Solution 1

Be flexible with deadlines. 

Before teaching a writing lesson, reflect on:

Be clear about your expectations, but show empathy. Let students know you value their time and will provide personalized feedback. If needed, allow some flexibility for late submissions — but plan ahead for it.

If needed, let some students hand in their text later. Show them that you’re willing to compromise, and they will appreciate that.

Solution 2

Don’t be afraid to do all the modifications needed based on the needs of your students while following the curriculum at the same time.

Of course, we must teach essential formats like:

These are exam-focused, but writing is more than test prep. It’s a life skill. Emphasize this so students understand the value of writing beyond school. Even if they don’t see any point in learning how to write reports or CVs now, they’ll probably need it in the future. 

So, we need to keep balance between engaging them and teaching some important skills and things.

Solution 3

Relevance. 

At the stage of planning your writing lesson, some teachers prefer starting from the very end: the task itself. And there is a pain of many educators: the topics. 

Even though textbook authors are willing to keep up with trends and youth interests, it is still impossible to cover everything teens like because they follow trends. And they are changing.

Even when following a curriculum, you can tweak topics to suit your learners. They need to understand how they can use it on the spot without thinking about the future. Let’s take a look at the following:

Instead of asking students to write a formal complaint about a faulty product (which they rarely do in real life), have them write a complaint to a teacher about an incorrect grade or a request to fix profile information. 

Same structure — more relatable context.

The point here is that absolutely fine to cater students’ need and interests.

Solution 4

Keep it frequent.

Writing shouldn’t only appear at the end of a unit. Build writing into everyday learning with mini-tasks that target subskills like:

It would be even better if you can transform into a routine and a part of the lessons (like warm up, follow up after the speaking or feedback after the lesson).

Here are some ideas that can help to build this routine:

For example, try out PADLET, which has a variety of ready-to-use boards. Make like a forum to ask for advice, or a storyboard where they express their creative ideas. 

From my experience, it worked pretty well with some number of students, because they really loved writing fictional stories and they were happy to share their ideas. And others were commenting and asking questions so it turned out to be a great idea.

Choose the topic word, and ask your students to brainstorm some ideas related to it. Then, write the word vertically and students will get to write a word, phrase or sentence starting with the letter of this word. 

Of course, it should be connected. By doing this, your learners will revise some vocabulary or grammar and get used to developing their ideas and thoughts.

Our lessons are full of different feedback. Look at it as an opportunity to practice some critical thinking and writing skills. 

For example, after speaking activity, ask your students to write a few sentences about their partners (it can be written on the shared document or board). This short text can be passed over and others can add or try to correct some mistakes and facts.

Also, it’s a great idea to have a post-lesson feedback in the written form as well, like exit tickets or the 3-2-1 technique. Make sure your students are willing to write sincerely about their feelings about the lessons and to ask some questions afterwards.

It’s essential to know how to plan and record their own doing during the day or a week. It can be part of a warm or a part of an at-home writing. Ask your students to start taking notes about their plans for a day or week. 

They can add how they felt and how it could be done better.

It will teach some planning and can help to unwind and practice mindfulness as well.

There is a brilliant idea to write a short letter or message to your future selves. But, if we talk about regular practice, you can try to start some lessons with a short written message to yourselves in the end of the lesson. 

For example, you discussed and presented a plan for the lesson. After this, you can ask them to think what will change after the lesson will be over: what skills or knowledge will they learn, how will they feel etc. 

In the end, they can compare their states from the different timeline of the lesson. 

It can be much fun!

Solution 5

Very obvious one: right and detailed feedback on the writing.

Students of the new generation are used to instant feedback in the game or social media. If you postpone the writing checking, or you don’t show them that you care about what and how they write, there is a chance that you’ll lose them forever in terms of writing. 

They won’t be interested even if you prepare a super engaging and up-to-date writing lesson. Show them that you care, and they will try to get this feedback.

Above, I shared my views on how can we possibly deal with the challenges that will definitely arise while teaching and practicing writing with our teen students.

But this is not the end of my story here. I’d like to share some wonderful and practical findings that I tested on my students and which worked nicely. 

So, I prepared the bucket of writing tasks ideas that can engage students or give you some inspiration to create something personalized.

Thread writing

TIP. Use Padlet for that, because there is comment section available with the like/dislike feature.

Finish my story

AI prompts writing

I hope my ideas and insights will help you to overcome at least some part of the difficulties that we all experience while getting our teens to write. 

Try, test and choose the most suitable for you.

And don’t forget about the most valuable thing in teaching teens: talk to them and discuss things together, because they love it and appreciate it!