Write W.A.V.E. Media Blogging as Part of Your Student's Writing Curriculum

Teaching Kids to Write for the Web Using Write W.A.V.E. Media

by Lyn Lomasi, Write W.A.V.E. Media Staff

Image © Lyn Lomasi; All Rights Reserved

Looking for something different and useful to add to your student's writing curriculum? What about web writing? More specifically, how about using guest blogging at Write W.A.V.E. Media (WWM) as part of that instruction? There are no age requirements for posting on these sites, only certain access restrictions (an adult account is required for those under 13, due to usage rules related to hosting and creation tools). There are also several sites within the network, covering just about any topic. This can be adapted into a traditional classroom curriculum or for homeschooled students. As a seasoned homeschool parent and a long-time web writer, I've done this with my own children in various ways.

Getting Started

In the beginning, give your student a chance to get familiar with how the process works. Most importantly, allow him or her to learn how the publishing system works. The first submissions should simply be whatever the student feels like writing. This could be poems, articles, or even school papers. Let him or her feel comfortable with using the sites, learning a few things, and gaining a readership. Also, remember to allow for some of this in between assignments as well. Keep the experience fun and not just a chore.

Potential Earnings

Many ad and affiliate companies require an account holder to be 18 or older. However, it can still be a learning experience and will help ensure they are knowledgeable when they do qualify for payments. You also might choose to sign up for one or more of these and simply transfer any earnings to your student. If your student chooses to publish in other places around the web or to publish books (or sell products or services) that can be linked to from their posts at Write W.A.V.E. Media, links to those might also help them earn. Also, reprints of content are sometimes purchased by clients. In this case, we always give the writer 100% profit from their own content (minus any processing fees by PayPal).

Teaching Web Writing Using Write W.A.V.E. Media

There are many great tips on web writing at the Write W.A.V.E. Media blog, as well as the Article Writer For Hire blog. The WWM forum and the WWM Facebook group also might be useful. Let your students read up on those and implement the lessons into their writing. A very useful tool to combine with lessons learned from those sources is the Yahoo! Style Guide. We also provide submission guidelines and other instructions. Gauge the success of your student's web writing skills by constantly examining their work to see which techniques are applied.

Benefits of Web Writing Skills

No matter the career choice of your students, web writing skills can be a plus. These lessons can be useful in college, as well as in the workforce. Web writing can be used in marketing, journalism, business ownership, business management, editing, and much more. Pretty much any business or company should have a website and web writing skills can be useful in creating and maintaining it.

Grading Based on Performance and Quality

When grading your student on lessons learned, look at both quality and performance. Are the pieces written well? Grade web writing similar to other school papers as far as grammar and spelling. But don't forget the various aspects of internet text, such as SEO and ad alignment. Have they followed our submission guidelines or are they at risk of getting their content edited or removed? Are they getting decent page views on WWM? Is there mostly positive or negative feedback? How much interaction are they getting? What are the readers saying? Is their content being shared by others?