<p>I am going to take a deliberately contrary view here. Your son has an acceptable FIRST DRAFT that presents some good vocabulary and gets right to the point of Catcher in the Rye. What he really needs to do is learn to edit. That’s not the same thing as getting the thoughts down in the first place.</p>
<p>So how do you teach editing? One is by reading the piece aloud. Another is by running the piece by you (parent) for discussion of its flaws. He should also learn to go back to an essay and look at it again after 24 hours. That’s hard, because most HS kids procrastinate like mad.</p>
<p>Last year I had the (mis)fortune to read all 75 9th-grade writing evaluation essays (45 minute writing on a prompt given the day before (“major life experience”)) for a well-ranked public high school (one of the smaller ones in the district). Your son’s writing would put him nicely in the top 25%, if only because he does present an idea, follow it up, and uses decent vocabulary.</p>