I recently looked up top resolutions for the new year—and saw some interesting lists. They were the typical ones you would expect—lose weight, exercise, get out of debt, eat more healthfully, spend time with family, etc.
But what struck me most was the recurring use of the word MORE.
It is easy to get in a rut in teaching writing—and have students write the same types of writing over and over (often narrative or informational from a given source). This is especially true if your writing program focuses on one type only (as many of our second semester books do; that is why we recommend your student do one first semester book first before delving in to his favorite type of writing only). By eighth grade, we should be making sure that our students can write various types of writing well….
While my students often groan when they are told to mark the Checklist Challenge for that week’s homework assignment, they know (and I know) that it really does help. A student just told me this week that her sister had her scan and email her a copy of her Checklist Challenge to use in college—because she had used our CC for every writing project and knew how helpful it can be in revising writing…..
Triff. Not a word you hear just every day. But a word, nonetheless. Because I said it is! 🙂
Many years ago, early into my cottage class teaching of homeschoolers, I had favorite words/sayings that I made up to write on kids’ papers.
Two phrases really–
If a student got one of these marks on their paper that week, they knew that they had done a great job.
We say it all the time: “You can’t have that until you are responsible for what you do have!”
We quote movie lines: “With great power comes great responsibility” (Spiderman…or Voltaire, depending on who you read).
We spout parables and inspirational people: “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
And yet, we seldom actually do it in our parenting.
What is IT?
One of the biggest obstacles facing young writers is that we often do not teach them how to write. We have writing idea books galore. We study a topic in social studies or literature, and we tell our student to “write about it.” Even when we give a topic (“Write a paragraph about your dog”), a third grade student (okay, third grade boy!) will often say, “I don’t know what to write.”
