How to Teach How to Write

[unmei_no_yume]

Ok guys, so I'm working with a 10th grader in an English honors class who's having some trouble with writing. Ok it's kind of a lot. The pseudo essays her teacher had her write were... not good. She seems to be able to grasp ideas ok but translating them into writing from abstract thoughts in her head don't seem to work out well. Apparently she

Comments

[aceofspades13]

I would tell her to write some short stories first, that should give her sort of a grasp on how to write detailed sentences. My english ap teacher in highschool made us do a three minute writing exercise at the beginning of class every day. She would give us a quote, or a pic, or a piece of music, and just tell us to write our thoughts down. It allows for detailed, spontaneous writing.

Uhm, for SAT prep, we're supposed to make our kids outline their essays, and bullet out main points. Dunno if that is helpful.

[unmei_no_yume]

Oooh I like that exercise - that will be good. It'll definitely help force her to be able to write her thoughts out in a more coherent way.

I'm definitely making her use bullet points. We're kind of doing it slow... first outlines w/ bullets then working those bullets into real sentences. And then putting them into paragraphs, etc. I think that with the way she does things, the outlines will allow her to organize things better and stufffs.

[kyokun703]

Sounds like someone needs a trip to Beard Papa's.

[unmei_no_yume]

Yeah no kidding! I saw a cream puff last night -they had plain, chocolate coating and strawberry at Nugget. It was HUGE and looked soooo good! But I was good and walked away (crying inside).

[shornrapunzel]

I don't know whether her parents are willing to spend extra textbook money, but this book http://www.amazon.com/They-Say-Matter-Academic-Writing/dp/0393924092/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235080037&sr=8-2 is pretty good for getting into argumentative writing, and I have used it for a freshman college level writing class with decent results. It models how to do a lot of things and has templates that the student can work with as a place to get started.
I tell my students who have trouble getting their thoughts down on paper to just write the way they speak. Maybe try asking her an essay question and then writing down what she says as she says it? That way you can see how her thoughts come out and whether they sound less like bullet points.

[unmei_no_yume]

I don't know, her mom seems really invested in helping her daughter get better. And I know that my student really wants to improve. I think maybe it will help me help her lol.

It seems like she can analyze things well enough and what not. I definitely think that it's in her head. She does seem better about vocalizing it rather than writing it. However, part of her problem is she's not super great at vocalizing either. She does have a tendency to write what she says but since her vocalized version is still not great and her writing is worse... it doesn't work =P But I am definitely trying to get her to think out loud and read out loud so she can hear herself.

[phoenixphire24]

UH...I so completely despise that 5 paragraph format they use to teach writing. It might be helpful for about 5 minutes, so people get the idea, but after that it's useless and seriously ruins student's ability to write outside of that crappy, crappy box. When I took lit in college and we swapped papers in discussion, I was amazed to find LIT AND ENGLISH majors still writing like that.

How is her critical thinking otherwise? Does she like/do well in science or math? I learned how to write much better after it was explained to me that you can write an essay like a pretend science paper. Basically, you have to come up with a hypothesis (thesis-opening paragraph) and use the rest of the paper to "prove" the hypothesis using "evidence" from the text as you would an experiment. Maybe if she's more science minded, this idea would help. I can tell you right now that if she can't learn how to critically think about stuff, analyze it, and write it out coherently, there's no way she's going to make it in law school.

[unmei_no_yume]

I think that's what I had to do pass the Subject A exam - 5 paragraph essay saying yes or no and why, lol. So lame.

She's supposed to be a super student and her problems are in writing and not the other courses so I'm assuming she does fine in them. That's a good idea though - maybe that will help get her in the right mindset. I do think that she gets the idea of what she needs to do and she can analyze things well enough (from what I've seen)... But unfortunately, like you (and Dan), I think this may be an inherent problem and maybe writing is just not something she can do. There's nothing really wrong with that... unless you want to be a lawyer >_< DOH!

[sarian19]

As for the editing and the complexity of the sentences I say make her read a paper out loud to you. She'll be able to hear the mistakes better and then you can press the tactic that Chels already mentioned. There's the added bonus of being able to say "you're way smarter than this essay."

[unmei_no_yume]

Oooh I like that "you're smarter than this essay" deal! Although I think she already knows she's smart since she's got that crazy 4.8 thing going... =P I definitely ask her to read stuff out loud to make her figure out what sounds wrong or how to fix it. It has helped but like I told Sharon, this may be an inherent inability to write. Apparently her mom had a really tough time and so did her sister. I dunno if it's in the genes but I dunno... What I'm surprised with is why she's having this problem NOW in 10th grade Honors. She had to have been writing well before but this is her first time really writing essays it sounds like. But she's in 10th grade! @_@