Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when...

Finding the right audience and making writing meaningful are two of the major challenges teachers face when designing writing activities. What affective strategies have you used that achieved these goals?

Imagine asking a ten-year old student to write about the impact of the economic collapse in the USA. This student will not have much to say and he/she will feel frustrated. Now imagine asking a 17-year-old student to write about his/her favorite toy. This student will not feel excited to write about this because it is not part of his/her reality anymore. Of course, these are extreme examples, but we do have to take into consideration many aspects such as students's age, background, reality and interests when designing writing activities.
Besides relating to students lives and realities writing acitivities should also cover three moments: pre writing, writing and post writing. In the first stage, we should activate students memories, feelings and senses providing them with the right tools to go to the second stage. These activities can be discussions, brainstorming, group negotiation, listening to songs... Personalizing is very important. Kids love to talk about themselves. They always come to class eager to tell us how their weekend was, if they got a new pet, watched a nice movie.... Why don't we take advantage of these moments? They can create a journal in English or a book about them: their biography! Post writing activities can be: acting out, interviewing the others about their writings, presenting their ideas... We can make writing become fun if it is meaningful and interesting to them!