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The Checklist Challenge (CC), a challenging checklist of editing tasks, is included in ninety percent of the assignments in all one hundred of my books. It is taught extensively in the first couple lessons in each first semester Meaningful Composition book for grades 4 through 9 (and books 2 and 3 have lessons scattered throughout them). There are even downloads teaching nothing but how to complete this amazing editing tool (I really love the CC!).

But it has recently come to my attention that teachers really want help in scoring it. I mean, is a colorful paper enough? What about every box checked off? How about great adjectives and adverbs sprinkled throughout?

So, I have created a video that will at least get you started in how to grade your student’s CC—how to teach them to code it thoroughly, what a completed CC paper looks like, how to cross check the chart (and its check boxes for each task) with the student’s paper, how to total a score up, and much more.

I hope this video helps you see how you can quickly and efficiently score your student’s CC—and how the CC can be used as an incredible writing improvement tool at all grade levels.

How to Grade the Checklist Challenge

Love and hope,

The post How to Grade the Checklist Challenge appeared first on Character Ink.

Classes are underway for the second semester for both Character Ink Cottage Classes and Donna’s Live Online Writing Classes (yay!). I had so much fun with a couple of students in a book that I haven’t taught from for a while that I thought I would give my readers the lesson and video of the class—AND give you a chance to win a copy of the book I am using! Yep–someone will win a free copy of the spiral-bound, print version of Meaningful Composition 9 II: High School Creative Writing simply by watching the teaching video in this post and commenting below that you watched the whole video–and what you learned or liked about it! 🙂 (Homework!)

Here are the deets:

1) Download and print this document here to follow along with the lesson that goes with this video (watch it with your students!).

2) Watch the video of the class.

3) Comment at the end of the blog post what you learned or what you liked about the video by May 31st.

4) Watch the blog for the winner!

If you like learning about descriptive writing, punctuating double and triple adjectives, dividing paragraphs in a one-scene story, using the best words for the job, and more, you will love today’s video! If you need help in teaching outlining, prewriting skills, and more, this lesson will help you. If you’re just curious about my online teaching, watch this video!

P.S. Don’t forget to comment below to be entered to win the drawing on May 31st!

The post Live Teaching Video & REAL Book Give Away! (Free Lesson Download Included!) appeared first on Character Ink.

I recently had a student miss an important class session in my sequence of teaching the 3 P’s of Persuasive Writing, so I recorded the review for him. When I finished recording it, I thought it would make a good review for parents and teachers who are teaching in these areas (and for those who would like to see what goes on in my advanced writing classes). So….here you go!

Watch the teaching video and follow along with the downloadable portions provided. It really is fun to learn how to take your POSITION, design your POINTS, and gather your PROOFS! 🙂

Click here to download the lesson PDF!

P.S. We are planning next year’s classes. Contact me to learn more or to find out which classes (live and online) will be perfect for your students! 260-433-4365.

The post 3 P’s of Persuasive Writing Review Session Video (With Free Download!) appeared first on Character Ink.

In my experience, students either love story writing or hate it. They either have ideas floating around in their heads, waiting for the next story writing unit–or they feel that they have no ideas and hope for a stomach bug that week! This is one reason I use the Directed Writing Approach in my books–so that each step of each type of paper is laid out incrementally.

One common problem that students have when story writing is telling “first this happened; then this happened; after this, that happened; later on, this happened” by students. What could be an exciting, action-packed story becomes a narrative/retelling–or worse yet, an essay. Have you ever wondered how to help students from the start with this rambling problem?

Well, I have a lot of ideas for story writing

• Naming/titling each scene or paragraph from the beginning so that the student knows ahead of time what they want to include;
• Having students list the primary goal right off the bat so that the entire time they are writing, they are heading towards that goal;
• Laying out believable obstacles that must be conquered or succumbed to or overcome;
• Teaching being, helping, and linking verbs in a systematic way so that students can avoid using them and use action-driven verbs instead;
• Teaching quotation and dialogue writing incrementally throughout the school year so that the student’s dialogue sings;
• And much more

(These elements are included incrementally in my creative writing books. Check out their full-length sample lessons here: MC 5 II, MC 7 II, MC 9 II as well as in many of the Write On books!)

But the first way that I ensure that students do not have a list of events strung together in their stories actually starts with the lesson itself: The characters, setting, obstacles, goals, and dialogue expectations MUST match the assigned length of the story.

The reason kids string together events one sentence after another in their “story writing” is because they were often not taught to NARROW, NARROW, NARROW according to how much space/time they have.

Click or tap to download lesson!

Follow along with this story writing video (and free downloadable lesson) that contains a TWO PARAGRAPH story to see how this is done. (Yes, two paragraph stories are harder to write than longer ones!)

Let me know what you think! Happy writing—and teaching!

The post Short Story Character With Limited Senses – Video & Free Download! appeared first on Character Ink.

I have the privilege of doing something this semester that I only get to do every once in a while–teach a private or small group of students who have taken many classes with us before how to write a BIG research paper. Most students who start out with us in elementary school of taking CQLA (Character Quality Language Arts) classes follow a protocol similar to this:

1) CQLA A and B for first four years or so (depending on when they begin)

2) CQLA C for two years

3) MC 10 I: High School Essays

4) MC 10 II: Four Research Reports

5) Speech and debate

6) Literature with Joshua (formerly)

7) CLEP English with Joshua (formerly)

Every once in a while we get a student who wants the challenge of going beyond MC 10 II’s research reports and doing the BIG ONE!

• 32-50 paragraphs
• 8-12 sentences per paragraph
• 10-15 total sources
• A parenthetical (MLA Style) citation for each piece of information in the paper
• 10-15 quotes in the paper
• Massive Checklist Challenge for the entire project

It is a one-semester (16 weeks or so) undertaking that is not for the faint of heart. It sounds daunting, but the students who sign up for this special arrangement have already learned all of the pieces incrementally with me in the previous years–many years. And I spread the project out for them weekly over the entire semester, so it truly comes in bite-sized chunks.

I thought I would share our first meeting via video with you (and the chapter that goes with this video–warning: it’s long if you’re downloading/printing!) so that you can see how to approach such a big project.

Click here or on the page below to download this chapter!

Here are some tips if you decide to “try this at home”!

1) Be sure that the student has learned all of the skills that will be used in this endeavor.

Yes, I am teaching these skills again, but it is never a good idea to bring too many new skills together in huge project. The girls have had all of the elements of the research report in previous classes/my previous books. Now we will review those as we get to each skill needed for the BIG ONE! (See my steps for an easier research report here)

2) Watch out for your division of work.

I look at the entire project and the time that we have to complete it and divide up all of the elements. I assured the students that it will be broken down for them–and that they will get bite-sized chunks that are doable. It’s stressful for students to have assignments that are too “loose” (ie. research for four weeks). They need to learn HOW to put all of the steps and elements in place, and it is up to us to divide the work up in manageable pieces.

3) Break the entire paper down into sections and paragraphs with them.

You will notice in the video how much I emphasized breaking the paper down into six, eight, or ten sections with paragraphs beneath those. I do this in all of my books–teaching students to see each “section” as its own mini report as opposed to looking at the entire thirty-two paragraphs and wondering where to start.

4) Teach a simplified research method.

Years ago, in an attempt to simplify a task that was very challenging for me in high school, I came up with the “Overview Source Method” and the “Color-Coding Method” for research report writing. I love teaching this to students as I am giving them something that they can take into college and beyond. (Read my snow day/research catch up story from my high school days here)

(I still use it in book writing and blog writing!) I am giving them something that I truly wish I had, had when I was their age. It works amazingly well! (Here’s my Overview Source Method)

5) Keep close tabs on their progress.

Don’t make assumptions about where you think they are–or that they are where you think they should be! This is big, hard stuff. They need our guidance every step of the way. We can see a problem that they might overlook and fix it for them before it gets out of control or they get too far down in the process and have to go back and redo weeks of work.

I hope you will print off the free download lesson and follow along as I introduce this challenging task to a couple of awesome students!

(Oh, and text or call me if you want to put in your request for a certain live, online Meaningful Composition class for next year! And see why MC books work here!)

Check out how I teach Opening and Closing Paragraphs for Research Reports!

P.S. What are your biggest challenges in teaching research writing? How can I help you?

The post BIG Research Paper Introduction (Video and Download!) appeared first on Character Ink.

We had some definite advantages to raising children and homeschooling during “the stone age”! 🙂 For one thing, we didn’t have many choices of activities, so it was much easier to stay home and build good study habits, household work schedules, and family time. (Obviously, it can still be done today, but we were forced to stay home more in general.) Secondly, we were blissfully unaware of the demanding academics of today. We didn’t know that our kids needed to know everything that is now required to graduate and go to college. We didn’t do labs, advanced math, and other more strenuous academic pursuits with our first born at all. (I’m not saying this was good–I’m just saying it gave us more of a precious commodity that everyone longs for today–time.)

This “stay-at-home, do-your-work, learn-to-get-along-with-the-friends-you-have-here (siblings!)” way of living was actually pretty sweet. We had long, wonderful days together, and I will carry those warm memories with me throughout the rest of my life. (Sorry, I tend to wax nostalgic over days gone by quite often lately!)

With those long days at home came some things I am forever grateful for–in addition to the closeness of our kids and warm memories. The time and necessity of developing habits.

Time to develop them because we were often home all together doing school and household things twelve hours a day while Ray was at work. Necessity because we were often home all together doing school and household things twelve hours a day while Ray was at work. 🙂

Now that I’m all grown up and an entrepreneur working from home, helping parents, sharing health, teaching other students besides my own, and still mentoring grown children (and babysitting grandkids each week), I am so aware of the power of habits in my own life.

With seven children grown, ages 19 to 35, many still in various levels of college and post grad school as well as some with their own businesses and growing families, I am aware (and grateful) fo the time and necessity that we had to help build habits into their lives.

(Want my take on applying all of my productivity tips to homeschooling and entrepreneurship? Check out my productivity video series at Donna Reish blog.)

Below are some links to books I use and love. I am an affiliate for Amazon.com. If you click on the links below I will earn a small commission. Thank you for your support of this blog!

One of my favorite books on the topic of habit building is The Power of Habit

But for time saving purposes, I recommend an amazing TedX talk on this subject. It emphasizes the importance of teaching habit, self-control, and self-regulation to our children. I think you will benefit greatly from it whether you are a parent, homeschooler, or educator. Take a look here:

Here are some resources/posts that can help you in building habits in your children in the new year!

Attaching Important Things To Your Schedule

Love-Hate Relationships With Homeschooling Schedules

How to Build Chores Into Your Daily Schedule

Age Appropriate Printable Chore Posters

Independent Work Lists for Junior High and High School

How to Use Independent Work Lists for Elementary Children

Video: Using Check Lists for Student’s Independent Work

The post The Importance of Building Habits Into Our Children appeared first on Character Ink.

The post Steps for Basic Research Report Writing (Free Lesson & Video Included!) appeared first on Character Ink.

I was fortunate to teach my senior high school class of young high school boys how to write an Expository Essay. Since a couple of the boys were sick, I did a Facebook live so that those students could watch it at home and go through their book as I taught. So… I thought I would share it on here and give you some essay teaching tips for young high school students.

Watch the video here!

1. If you are new to teaching writing, I highly recommend starting with essay writing.

The range of difficulty and “fun” in essays can’t be beat. An essay can be fun (three reasons someone is a good super hero), hobby related (three best pies to make for holidays), personal (your three favorite vacation foods), straightforward (three colors of a rainbow), more formal (three quotations), or research-based (three reasons smoking should be banned in public buildings). It requires fewer advanced skills than story writing or research report writing.

Check out a two week sample from one of my intermediate essay books, Meaningful Composition 6 II.

2. If your high schooler has never written five paragraph essays before, I recommend that you start out with what we call our three topics and three paragraphs for the body (P’soB).

This is a simplified way of teaching students how to write multiple paragraphs when they are not used to it. In this approach, the student writes about three different things, such as three different favorite foods or three different beaches or three favorite novels etc. The beauty of this approach is that a student does not have to think about so much information for three paragraphs. He can simply plan out information for one paragraph of 6 to 8 sentences about one topic. He moves onto the next paragraph, and it is about a completely different topic. We use this method extensively in our junior high writing books to teach students how to move into multi-paragraph writing painlessly.

Check out a two-week sample from my upper level high school essay book, Meaningful Composition 10:I.

3. Always have the student outline before he writes.

My books provide outlining spaces, topic of paragraph lines, link sentence lines, etc., to ensure that the student has all of the elements that are needed in an outline. Even without these, however, you can still ensure a complete paragraph by insisting that a student outline his paragraph thoroughly before he writes.

4. Do not expect a student to include too many unusual or “in-progress skills” and one essay.

For example, rather than saying research for this essay, you can simply say “put one piece of research information in each paragraph” rather than expecting a student to include unlimited quotations. If he is still in the quotation process, have him simply add one quotation and be sure that, that week’s lesson includes quotation writing as a skill building lesson.

Don’t assign a project with a formal tone if he doesn’t know the difference between first person, second person, and third person. Don’t expect research based persuasive quotations, if he hasn’t learned how to research thoroughly or include quotations. In every project, a student should know how to do the skills that are expected of him in that type of writing.

(Have you gotten your free Write On downloadable book yet? There is one freebie for each level: Beginning Elementary, Upper Elementary, Junior High, Beginning High School, and Upper High School.)

5. Don’t make the essay writing process too open ended.

One of the reasons why students have so much trouble in writing is because we simply give them writing topics. I know because when I first began writing curriculum in language arts and composition, I had a bookshelf full of writing prompts or writing idea books. We have to understand the difference between telling a student to write something and teaching a student how to write that. We need to be sure that he understands the parameters–how many paragraphs, what each paragraph should contain, whether he is doing an opening or closing, whether the opening or closing had to be a specific style, what person he’s writing in, the tone of the paper, and much more. Writing idea books and writing prompts do not give a student the tools needed to learn how to write.

P.S. What are your essay-teaching problems? I would love to help you solve them by writing a blog post about that topic!

Love and hope,

The post Beginning High School Essay Writing (Live Teaching Video Included!) appeared first on Character Ink.

Teaching MLA Research Reports is not for the faint of heart. After ten years of writing books with this method, I have worked and reworked the systems until I have some that students truly understand and can follow. They are interactive. They are visual. And they work.

Check it out in this week’s lesson from one of my Four Research Reports class. Download the sample pages. Follow along. Get your highlighters ready! 🙂

Click here to download the lesson!

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