Give students a list of common transitions. While you won't be able to provide students with a comprehensive list of all transitions, you can give them lists of some of the most common ones. Present students with lists arranged by transition function, creating a section for transitions that show similarity, such as "also" and "likewise," and ones that show time relation, such as "afterwards" and "immediately."
Identify these transitions in professional writing. After familiarizing students with these basic transitions, give them professionally written pieces, such as newspaper articles, along with highlighters. Ask them to read through the pieces and highlight any transitional words they come across.
Discuss how these transitions help improve the writing. Ask your students how the presence of transitions in these professional pieces improves the quality of the written product. Have students read the pieces, skipping the highlighted transitions, so they can better see the impact these transitions have.
Add transitions to pre-existing written works. Pull out stories or essays students wrote prior to learning about transitions, and have them revise them, inserting transitions where appropriate.
Compose new pieces containing set numbers of the transitions listed. Ask students to select five to ten transitions from the lists provided and write pieces containing these set numbers of transitions. Post the finished products.