Eleventh Grade: Guide your student in editing his papers.

I always advise homeschooling moms to use grading time wisely in all subjects. For example, in math, rather than grading your student’s math separately and giving him back a paper with a score on it, grade it with your student right by your side—and point out errors and use grading time as teaching time. (This will be some of the most valuable teaching time that you can ever find! What better way to learn than from our mistakes immediately.)

Some suggestions for editing with your student (for parents and teachers and homeschoolers) include

(1) Have your student read his paper aloud and both of you “listen” for errors.

(2) When helping him learn where to put in commas, especially if the missing comma can be heard with voice inflection, read the sentence in question aloud to your student, emphasizing where the comma goes, and have him tell you where he “hears” it should be.

(3) If the errors you are finding are paragraph break mistakes, read the portion to him that you believe should be one paragraph and ask him what that paragraph is about. Write that “topic” along the side of that portion. Read the next portion and ask him what that part is about. Continue doing this, drawing lines where a paragraph break should be (based on your and his discussion and dissecting of the text).

(4) If the error is that of subject-verb agreement, find the incorrect sentence and ask him what the subject of the sentence is. Then ask him what the verb is. Ask him if they agree. (Again, read them aloud {without the intervening material that might be stumping him} so that he can “hear” the error.)

(5) If he has not learned to find errors very well, consider using an editing program (like the book Editor in Chief) so that he can hone his editing skills in a manner that is “checkable” with the answer key. These skills really do carry over to a student’s own writing!

(6) If your student is fairly good at finding errors, but you still find many more than he does, make a note in the margin of each line or so that says the number of errors that are in that sentence. Let him look for errors one line at a time with your oversight.

(7) Finally, do not underestimate a student’s ability to learn from your edits on his paper. If you mark his errors then review them with him (“A comma should go before the ‘and’ because you have a complete sentence on the left and a complete sentence on the right”), he will gain great editing skills.

Note: Check out the Editor Duty assignments that are in each weekly Character Quality Language Arts sample for some editing passages (with the Answer Keys) for your student to practice with. There are also editing passages in the back of Meaningful Composition 11 I: Timed Essays and The Three P’s of Persuasion

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Eleventh Grade: Guide your student in editing his papers.

Editing papers is one of many students’ most hated tasks. However, if our kids are guided in how to do this from the early grades, it will not feel so overwhelming to them. This post has suggestions for teaching the high schooler (and junior high student) editing tricks that they can use right away…

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Tenth Grade: Work on whatever type of writing is needed for your student next.

Usually at this level, a student has decided whether or not he will go to college. For the student who is planning to go to college, the writing pressure is really on by tenth grade—because of the dreaded SAT/ACT Essay (and the verbal part in general).

It is obvious that a college-bound tenth grader needs to work on the SAT or ACT Essay and the portions of an SAT/ACT preparatory book that will help him with the verbal parts of these exams.

So what types of writing should a trades student or non-college-bound writer work on? It is sometimes thought that if a student isn’t going to college, he doesn’t need that much writing instruction. However, there is so much writing that an adult needs in order to be an adult! Regardless of future plans, we want all graduates in our care to know how to write business letters, persuasive essays (and how to spot poorly-supported ones online), how to write/create stories for their own children or for those who might work with children in the future; how to write/give instructions (for those who might have employees some day; for those who might be parents someday; and for those who might want to write out recipes or other instructional types of writing); and much more.

These types of writing require many of the skills that college-bound students need to learn: persuasive writing, quotation inclusion, story plot and character development, proper paragraph formation, etc. When I think of “consumer writing,” I think of recipe, instructional, story, blog, retelling (Bible lessons), devotional, research (original documentation and studies—not blog reading!), letter writing. And more! Detailed writing lessons are not only for the college-bound student!

Additionally, there is the possibility that the student might change his mind/occupation goals in the next couple of years. So there is no reason to stop writing!

Note: The trades type student will need to touch on many different types of writing projects (as opposed to spending a great deal of time on one or two types). Check out my first semester books up to and including Meaningful Composition 9 I. These books have various types of projects (and many “how to” lessons) as opposed to second semester books, which often focus on a certain type of writing. Go to here to see (and print/use) two week samples of my Meaningful Composition series.. Also, keep your eyes on my stores (Teachers Pay Teachers, CurrClick, Teacher’s Notebook, and our own store, Character Ink Press) as I put up various writing project downloads that are in my longer books.

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Tenth Grade: Work on whatever type of writing is needed for your student next.

In high school, writing demands should be based, in part, on what the student needs at that time. I often have students who are writing for me in class as well as writing college entrance letters, SAT essays, contests projects, and more. If at all possible, we should focus on the type of writing that the student needs next. These tips explain this further..

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Ninth Grade: Teach pre-writing skills that are needed for the type of writing your student is doing.

I cringe when I see a writing project that requires various skills without the lessons on those skills as well. (Check out our Meaningful Composition samples to see how skills should be taught with every writing lesson, especially involved skills such as quotations, dialogue, scene setting, researching, and citing sources.) This next tips explains this more fully…. Read more →

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Eighth Grade: Teach various types of writing.

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…. 

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Eighth Grade: Teach various types of writing.

Once a student who has had a lot of writing instruction reaches eighth grade, he has probably had a lot of experience in sentence types, paragraph breaks, and multi-paragraph writing. This is a good stage to delve into various writing types, if you have not already done so. That is, it is great for an eighth grader to learn the nuances of not only “general” writing—but also the specifics of report, essay, and story writing. And even within those broader types of compositions, to learn about personal essays vs. persuasive ones and quotations in research reports and short story descriptive type of writing vs. longer stories with all elements of story writing.

Learning various writing types has many benefits:

(1) It allows the student to try the various types and find out what he enjoys the most.

(2) The student will learn a variety of pre-writing, grammar, and usage skills (among other skills). Some writing types lean more heavily on quotation inclusion, for example. Others include more imagery and descriptive wording and sentences. Each type your student learns will increase his abilities in all of the skills that come with that type.

(3) It makes writing less boring. Hopefully, your junior high and high school student will be writing many papers. Writing a variety of types keeps boredom from setting in.

My long-term students often flip right over to the future units or future projects when they get their new books in Meaningful Composition (or new units in Character Quality Language Arts). They tell each other what is coming up and squeal with delight or moan with dread (while others squeal with delight). They look forward to different types of writing projects and anticipate their favorite kinds.

Note: Go here to see (and print/use) two week samples of my Meaningful Composition series. These samples have, for the most part, complete writing projects. Thus, you can see sample papers of most projects there. Note the various types and how each one has its own outlining type. Also, keep your eyes on my stores (Teachers Pay Teachers, CurrClick, Teacher’s Notebook, and Character Ink Press) as I put up various writing project downloads that are in my longer books.

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Seventh Grade: Teach your student to apply his grammar learning to writing.

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…..

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Seventh Grade: Teach your student to apply his grammar learning to writing.

Hopefully, this has been happening even earlier than seventh grade because seeing the “why’s” of learning something (“I need to learn prepositions so that I can spot prepositional phrases so that I can be sure that I have accurate subject-verb agreement” or “I need to learn how to punctuate double and triple adjectives so that I can write with them in my descriptive paper”) is extremely motivating to students.

One of my mantras is “Phonics is for reading and spelling. Grammar is for speaking and writing.” I try to teach my students from the beginning that every grammar concept that they learn is applicable (and needed) for writing.

One way you can do this is to create an ongoing checklist of sorts of each pertinent grammar skill (as he learns that concept in his grammar book) that your student can use in his writing. For example, after your student learns prepositional phrase openers, add this to his checklist for writing that week: “Add one prepositional phrase opener to your essay.”

Note: See one of my Checklist Challenges in my samples of Meaningful Composition here. This will give you an idea of how to create your own checklist—or you can print mine off and use it with your students.

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Sixth Grade: Use good writing models for your student to write from.

Using good writing models for students is an outstanding teaching tool—as long as you do not use given source writing only. Students need to use a model to write from, then write that same type of writing themselves. This week’s tip focuses on how I do that with my students….

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