<p>I must point out that so many are complaining about the validity of the SAT I writing section on another thread. However, it is apparent that our schools need to “beef up” their grammar and writing instruction based on what I am hearing on this thread. Good writing skills are so invaluable to success in most any field. I am all for the SAT I writing section and hope that parents and teachers will start noticing and doing something about our nation’s decline in writing skills.</p>
<p>Momof1,</p>
<p>Parents who want constructive criticism of the students’ work are out there. We pushed my S’s teacher to be more critical when he reviewed my son’s work, based on what we knew our junior high student was capable of…</p>
<p>When my freshman was in 7th grade his papers were much worse than your son’s. He made a big leap in 8th grade, but he’s still got a long way to go. My older son had a fantastic teacher in 9th grade. The average grade on the essay handed out the first week was a 60. He made every student rewrite those essays until they were A quality. By the end of the year every kid in that class could write a decent essay on the first round. I hope you find as good a teacher for your child. In the meantime, I’d ask your kid to read his essay out loud. That may help him hear the awkwardness.</p>
<p>If you can help your kid, here are some suggestions.
Ask your kid to read the essay aloud to you. As Mathmom suggests, it will help him hear the awkward phrasing. Many students use run-on sentences. Reading an essay aloud highlights this flaw. Other shortcomings include mixed tenses, lack of subject/verb correspondence. Also ask your student to make check spelling. The spell check will not necesarily catch some very common mistakes such as “their” for “there” “principle” for “principal” and so forth. </p>
<p>Ask questions. What is the point you are trying to convey? How does this relate to what has gone on before? to the point you want to make (lots of students introduce irrelevant information just because they read it in the course of doing the research); how does this flow from the previous sentence or paragraph? Where is your evidence for what you are claiming? Could the example be interpreted differently? Do you have some quotes you can use here?
Many colleges publish writing guides that high schools have used to help their own students. Google around for some (I think I saw something published by Cornell).</p>
<p>marite, one of my kids’ better english teachers had them use the unc.edu site—they had a nice writing guide, esp. for punctuation.</p>
<p>Well, I wonder why so many students can not write in a proper manner. Grammar instruction in most public schools has been completely forgotten in exchange for “writing down ones feelings” during English class. Personally, I believe that students need to be drilled from a young age about the basic tenets of grammar (one semester of grammar instruction does cut it). Subject-verb agreement, pronoun antecedent, collective nouns-these terms seem foreign to most students currently. </p>
<pre><code> OP, your son is not the one who failed in writing; inadequate grammar instruction thanks to your public school failed.
</code></pre>
<p>An important aspect of writing is the thesis sentence. So many poorly trained students will rashly write their thoughts down without any thought whatsoever to a thesis sentence. As a writer, clearly stating your argument or thought in the thesis statement followed by reasons, examples, and incidents to back up the thesis is indispensible to say the least.</p>
<pre><code> Sad, really. These high schoolers who are poor writers will really have a culture shock with those college essays.
</code></pre>
<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>
<p>There are several different skills needed to be a good writer. In my experience, practice and constant feedback are essential to improve writing.</p>
<p>Grammar: I wholeheartedly agree that grammar instruction is lacking in so many schools. I think it is important to have at home an excellent grammar text, so that when you work with your son, you can open the book and review with him the rules regarding any mistakes he makes. I found one very cheap at a used bookstore. It was an English composition and language high school or college text. These types of books are excellent resources just to have in the house as you would have a dictionary. </p>
<p>Organization: It is very important and often very difficult for kids to organize their thoughts. I think that unless there is some type of organization, it is hard to write coherently. Depending on the type of writing, a graphic organizer of some sort can be helpful. </p>
<p>Editing: It is very hard for those who don’t enjoy writing to review their own work, but it is helpful if you can remind your son that any writing should be edited before handing it in. Some teachers require drafts and many don’t, and I know it is not easy to prepare a first draft if it isn’t required. But it would be good if he can try to find his own errors first. And editing should address not just grammar but also organization, flow, vocabulary, etc.</p>
<p>I’ve never done this, but I wonder whether it would improve someone’s writing if they had to practice editing other’s work and going over the edits with someone who knows how to write. And I don’t mean simply the “peer editing” that is done in class. There is no guarantee that the other kids are better writers, they often don’t want to make too many corrections on a classmate’s paper, and even if they know something is wrong, they often can’t articulate the grammar rule or reason that something is incorrect. </p>
<p>I think these things would would be the minimun to make a decent writer. I’m not sure you can make a creative writer out of someone who just doesn’t have talent as a creative writer.</p>
<p>(I hope I don’t have any mistakes in what I have written.)</p>
<p>William Safire’s Rules for Writers</p>
<pre><code>* Remember to never split an infinitive.
- The passive voice should never be used.
- Do not put statements in the negative form.
- Verbs has got to agree with their subjects.
- Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
- If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
- A writer must not shift your point of view.
- And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
- Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!
- Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
- Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
- If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
- Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
- Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
- Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
- Always pick on the correct idiom.
- The adverb always follows the verb.
- Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.
- Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
- Avoid annoying alliteration.
- Don’t verb nouns.
- Don’t use no double negatives.
- Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.
- When dangling, watch your participles.
- Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.
- Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
- About those sentence fragments.
- Try to not ever split infinitives.
- Its important to use apostrophe’s correctly.
- Always read what you have written to see if you’ve any words out.
- Correct spelling is esential.
- Proofread you writing.
- Between you and I, case is important.
- Verbs has to agree with their antecedents.
</code></pre>
<p>From: <a href=“http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~wstarbuc/Writing/Safire.htm[/url]”>http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~wstarbuc/Writing/Safire.htm</a></p>
<p>DRJ:
I miss Safire.</p>
<p>My S is a math/science kid. He writes very short, terse papers that show some interesting insights. He reads very widely (some novels & all newspapers & many magazines). His English teachers are often disappointed because he does not write the way they expect (since he’s always scored very high on the verbal standardized exams – about 800). He communicates what he wants to but does not include anything “extra.”</p>
<p>He didn’t learn what a sentence was until he was in 5th grade–none of his prior teachers ever taught him. His spelling is awful, but when he types, he can use spell checker & manages pretty well. His grammar is excellent, mostly because, like Susan’s S, he has always heard & read correct grammar.</p>
<p>My D loves creative writing for her RPGs but agonizes over school papers. Her spelling is also pretty bad–seems most of their generation has this problem, starting with “inventive spelling.” Oh well, both kids get what needs doing done.</p>
<p>I’m not picking on you, HImom, but I have to say that one of the most surprising things I’ve learned on this board is the attitude of “oh well…” when it comes to the fact that so many kids can’t write or spell! So many of them do not have parents/family at home who can pick up the slack and model correct grammar, and are therefore everafter at a distinct disadvantage in life. It personally makes me furious that we let the geniuses who come up with things like “inventive spelling” off so easily, as we do the districts; we let them move on to their next fad, and do not hold them accountable.</p>
<p>HIMom that too could be a boy thing. I too have a son who’s an avid reader, high verbal scores, who is a great communicator, thinker, well versed and well read in a wide array of subjects.</p>
<p>At all those back to school nights, where the class’s essays were tacked to the board or strewn around a table, we could always pick out S’s…it was the shortest. Good to-the-point content but no fluff, stated his case and was out of there. It’s really not so bad.</p>
<p>To the op: If you’re lucky, you’ll get a hs English teacher who’ll whip him into shape. S was fortunate to have same teacher for grades 9 and 11, tough marker but his goal was to turn these kids into writers. I’m grateful to the man for his efforts, and for the results.</p>
<p>Daughter was not fortunate to be in honors-AP English. If you think it can be bad in the higher level classes, the teaching of writing in general CP courses is non-existent, just where it can be needed the most. She wrote the way she talked. With some good college courses she’s become an acceptable writer.</p>
<p>btw I too agree the op’s child’s paragraph isn’t too bad esp for a first draft. I’ve read far worse.</p>
<p>I’ve read far worse, too - particularly my youngest daughter’s first drafts :rolleyes:. I’ve often wondered how a child who is an avid reader and has grown up hearing proper grammar (or a fair approximation of it) could possibly WRITE like that! Really, if you read for several hours each day (even if it IS Stephen King), why can’t you tell when you are writing an incomplete sentence or changing tenses midstream?</p>
<p>Our school system’s writing curriculum bewilders me. There are all kinds of papers - critical lens papers, response papers, thesis papers, etc. (Whatever happened to book reports?) My d could tell you in detail about each of these, but she still has difficulty constructing a clear complex sentence. She has excellent insights, organizes paragraphs well, and advances her central argument with each sentence, but it’s a rare sentence that doesn’t contain at least one error. My husband pegged her as a big-picture person when she was still a baby, so perhaps I should be thankful that she writes as well as she does.</p>
<p>Elementary education probably gives writing short shrift, with so much pressure on to be certain that young kids are on grade level with reading and math skills. My oldest d is a wonderful writer, and I’ve always thought her 3rd grade teacher deserved most of the credit. She was called out of retirement to replace another teacher at the very last minute, and told the principal she’d only return if she could teach her own writing curriculum. Instead of the math-centric classroom other kids in the district experienced, my daughter was immersed in writing all day, every day. This is in distinct contrast to my youngest daughter’s experience in a 9th grade honors English class, in which four essays were assigned per marking period, and the teacher (now gone, fortunately) had the kids select ONE of them for her to grade!</p>
<p>I don’t honestly know how to turn anyone into a great speller. My kids are both able to communicate well in writing, but have entirely different styles. They have both had pretty good to exceptional teachers thru HS, but still can’t spell to save their lives (tho you can figure out what they’re saying & if they can type it, spell check is also extremely helpful to them). If the kids were having problems communicating in writing, I’d agree there is a problem & work on a solution. As it is, I’m just a little sad the have never mastered spelling & are unlikely to at this juncture.</p>
<p>There is some evidence that the ability to spell may have genetic influences: <a href=“A twin study of genetic influences on reading and spelling ability and disability - PubMed”>A twin study of genetic influences on reading and spelling ability and disability - PubMed;
but I can’t find anything more recent.</p>
<p>The most successful approach to spelling that I know of uses the “top words” approach, in which the most commonly used words are emphasized, rather than vocabulary and spelling being done together (which is a common approach). Knowing how to use your/you’re/yours, there/their/there’s/theirs, and it’s/its goes a long way toward solving common “spelling” problems, too. This is a list of the top 100 spelling errors: <a href=“http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html[/url]”>http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html</a></p>
<p>Odyssey,</p>
<p>The approach you suggested works wonderfully! Last year we gave our third graders a writing prompt and had them do an extemporaneous sample. We then had them score their paper 1-4 with 4 being the highest. These kids are used to doing well, so they naturally scored themselves 4. Then we put up a transparency of the anchor paper representing a 1 from the state benchmark test. A few students saw their own writing reflected in the sample. We went up through the anchor papers and by the time we got to a 4, everyone agreed that their writing needed a lot of work. </p>
<p>It was so much more powerful for them to come to the conclusion than for someone else to lecture to them. They can’t know what they don’t know! Once they knew better they worked their behinds off and all scored advanced on the state benchmark tests. </p>
<p>I know that y’all are talking about older kids, but I do believe that they need to start early, be explicitly taught and practice, practice, practice!!</p>
<p>Also, please support your local teacher who is trying to offer a rigorous course of study! </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Does anyone have any suggestions for helping kids with their writing. My oldest is a natural writer. I’m a little worried about the youngest (7th grade). I know the 8th grade english teacher will whip her into shape (she’s an excellent teacher. Kids start out hating her, but eventually love her and are grateful for what she taught them). However, I’d like her to improve her skills before 8th grade. What have other parents done?</p>
<p>I have sons, so they would never agree to this, but how about having your 7th grader start keeping a journal? It seems like that would be a simple way to encourage writing, and you may find that she starts to organize her thoughts better.</p>