There are literally thousands of different ESL writing activities that you can use for any number of different purposes.  You can work on fluency, word order, grammar, and myriad other elements of writing, and there are a multitude of different activities for each of them.

What I'd like to quickly discuss today is how you can use a single computer to work on editing with an entire class.

Ideally this works best with shorter bits of writing - sentences and short paragraphs - that were writing by students.  This will work best in a class that has a projector for your computer.  If you don't have this, you will need to work in smaller groups around one machine.

What to do:

Before class: 

Type up  student samples into MS Word or similar software.  Be sure you type the students' work VERBATIM - include all errors of all kinds.  Be sure to follow whatever 'ethical' requirements you need to to respect student privacy.  It can be embarassing for some students to have their work put on display and then have a teacher point out all the problems with it.  So be respectful.  Remove identifing information from the writing, and for God's sake, don't use samples that will hurt or cause embarassment to your students.  That will cause more harm than good.

In Class

1. With the class you simply edit the writing on-screen.
2. Go step-by-step through the sample and make the edits and corrections.  *** SEE NOTE BELOW
3. As you do this, point out the problems and mistakes that related to what you have been studying in class.

NOTE:   For reference, editing is about changing ideas and logic and organization.  Correcting is about fixing errors.  Don't confuse the two!

Focus on the things that they should know but are not doing right.  Don't focus on the errors they've made in areas that they haven't studied yet.  Correct them, but don't focus on them.

That is it!  It is very simple, but works like crazy.  Students really enjoy this and can really see how text can be moved around to completely change and clarify meaning. 

Yes, you can do this on a chalkboard.  However it is MUCH easier to do on a computer, and it is much more visual.  It allows you to quickly make changes and undo them, or provide an alternative solution to the same writing problem.  You can move chunks of text around with ease, add colour and highlighting to point out particular issues.

As an extension of this, you can have students work together at a single computer to edit/correct a writing sample.

If you don't have office software look for my other post about free powerpoint - that service provides a full office suite for free online.  You can do this with a simple text editor (notepad, textpad), but a word processor allows you to do more in terms of visual cues.

If I get enough responses in the comment section below, I'll make a video sample showing you how it can be done.  So, leave a comment below.

Cheers,

Eric

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