Entries Tagged 'Essays & Research Papers' ↓

May is here . . . which means it’s time once again for the annual Schoolhouse Expo, May 16-20, 2011. The fun and festivities start TODAY! Celebrating its first anniversary, the Schoolhouse Expo is a fantastic opportunity for you to hear homeschooling experts share on all sorts of topics near and dear to your heart. The 2011 Expo theme is “Homeschooling with Heart.”

New High School Track

In addition to regular sessions of general interest, there’s also a High School Track this year.

The high school track offers practical and informative sessions by speakers whose expertise lies in the area of higher education. Encourage your high school student to join in—the Expo has some great things in store! If you currently are teaching a middle school student, this track will also help prepare you to successfully homeschool through the high school years.

Kim Kautzer on Timed Essays

I’m looking forward to sharing a session called “Teaching the Timed Essay,” which will be of interest to both parents and high schoolers.

Invite your teen to sit in on the session as I give tips and suggestions for approaching this often-overwhelming side of high school writing.

How to Participate

If you have already purchased a ticket to the live event, you can join in on the workshop “Teaching the Timed Essay” Thursday, May 19 at 1 p.m. EDT/noon CDT/10 a.m. PDT.

Live tickets are sold out, but don’t despair if you missed out. You can buy an Expo to Go ticket, which gives you access to every workshop presentation—including accompanying PowerPoint slide shows—via MP3 download. You can hear each session at your convenience—over and over, if you like.

Expo to Go tickets are available here: www.schoolhouseexpo.com/?page_id=14

Visit the WriteShop Virtual Vendor Booth for some special offers and freebies: www.schoolhouseexpo.com/?page_id=4823

See you there!
~Kim

I recently overheard someone claim that teaching students to brainstorm is a futile exercise. “In the real world, no one actually brainstorms,” she said. “We just write.”

This statement surprised me, for it reminded me of taking a trip with little more than a vague notion of a plan (“I want to see the USA”). You can set off on your trek, but without a map, timetable, or sightseeing strategy, you’ll end up rabbit-trailing your way to your journey’s end.

While this may be fine for a bohemian, it can frustrate the traveler who really wants to visit a particular landmark but can’t find the turnoff; annoy her for missing some must-see points of interest because she lingered too long in a mediocre little town; and aggravate her when she finds herself going in circles. Worse, she could end up seeing nothing at all because she has absolutely no idea which way to go.

It’s fun to be spontaneous, but to get the most from a road trip, there’s nothing like an itinerary.

The Value of Brainstorming

Like a free-spirited traveler, a writer may have a general idea of where he wants to go. He may even know a point or two he wants to make along the way. But without a sense of direction, he too will miss important details, spend unnecessary time on a trivial side note, or spin his wheels in one rut or another.

One of the most valuable pre-writing tools for launching the writing process and avoiding other pitfalls is brainstorming.

Students often struggle with knowing how to move from a general topic to a written essay because that paralyzing blank page stands in the way. Brainstorming is a problem-solving process that helps you:

• Think freely and openly about your topic.
• Put pen to paper as you write whatever ideas come to mind.
• Explore possibilities and connections between ideas.
• Let new ideas form and shape old ones.
• Start to bring order and organization to your scattered thoughts.

Most importantly, brainstorming has no wrong answers. It allows you to think through your topic without fear of criticism or perfection.

3 Steps of the Brainstorming Process

• Free-listing: Free-listing helps you develop an initial page of ideas about the topic by writing absolutely anything—key words, phrases, examples, main points, subpoints, details, illustrations—that come to mind to jog your thoughts about your subject. Free-listing uses the heuristic inquiry, more commonly known as the 5 Ws (and an H)—who, what, when, where, why, how. Once this primary list is “complete,” note which of your ideas would qualify as main points or categories and which would be better suited as supporting details or examples.
• Mind-mapping: Next, filter your free-listing ideas through a semantic mind-map. A semantic mind-map is used to represent ideas, words, or thoughts that are connected to and organized around a central key word or concept. Mind-maps are designed to help create, visualize, classify, and structure ideas.
• Re-listing: Finally, organize your ideas according to the groups or clusters created by the semantic mind-map. Identify the central idea (main point) of the various clusters and list supporting details beneath and prioritize these clusters/main points into a logical order. Re-listing results in a rudimentary outline of your initial thoughts and ideas.

The brainstorming process reminds me of a coin-sorting machine. You start off with a jumbled, disorganized pile of coins (ideas). Nickels, dimes, quarters, pennies—there’s no rhyme or reason to their scattered placement on the kitchen table. This is your initial attempt at free-listing.

To start putting the coins in their appropriate place, you gather them up and put them into a coin-sorting machine (semantic mind-map). The machine divides the coins (ideas) by kind, just like the bubbles of a mind-map divide your ideas by category.

Finally, watch as your coins come out of the sorting machine in rows of quarters, dimes, and nickels neatly arranged (re-list). In this way, putting your ideas through a mind-map will help you rearrange them into newly organized lists that set the priorities for your paper.

Taking the Trip

You think about the gazillion places you want to visit; explore websites and sort through piles of travel brochures; plot out a route; and plan the details. Along the way you may take a detour or explore a new place, but you’ll never stray far from your original plan. Because you took time to brainstorm, your readers will enjoy the journey with you—and will thank you for being such an excellent guide!

Copyright 2011 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved. 

Writing across the curriculum is a phrase homeschoolers hear more and more. With many students struggling under the weight of their various courses and moms juggling lesson plans and schoolwork for their large families, your response may well be, “That’s nice. But can it simplify my life?” 

Two Birds with One Stone

Unfamiliar with the expression “writing across the curriculum”? Simply put, it means using writing assignments as a vehicle to help kids explore other areas of study.  

Those who use a writing program “as is” tend to teach writing as a separate subject, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. But if you’re teaching many children or you want to streamline your schedule, writing across the curriculum may be ideal for you. Rather than approach writing as a separate discipline, students apply generic writing lessons to subjects like history, literature, or science. Not only does it boost writing ability, it helps them better understand the content and specialized vocabulary of a particular subject. 

Writing across the curriculum increases knowledge of the subject matter while helping students develop critical thinking skills. To prepare for the assignment, they must do a bit of reading or research. As they take in the information, brainstorm, and write, they gain greater understanding of the topic. 

Second, it makes everyone’s life simpler. Instead of a “writing” assignment here and a history or literature composition there, the two can be easily combined. The result? Less writing for the kids and less grading and lesson planning for Mom. 

Getting Started

Descriptive Writing

Students can use writing across the curriculum to write descriptively by examining details of food, costumes, or objects from a culture they’re learning about. They can write about an oriole’s nest for science, a carved African antelope for geography, a coonskin cap for literature, or a Peruvian flute for music. 

If you don’t have the object on hand, a vivid photograph can serve as an acceptable substitute. DK Eyewitness Books make excellent choices because of their clear, intricate photos. 

Informative Writing

Consider a news article. Students can use the five Ws—who, what, when, where, why—to explore an incident they’re studying in another subject. What a great opportunity to learn more about an historical event, an archaeological find, or a scientific discovery and write an article about it. 

Other kinds of informative writing, such as biographies, news articles, or short reports, can also dovetail with current areas of study. That’s what writing across the curriculum is all about! 

Narrative Writing

Looking for more ways to write across the curriculum? Look no further than the personal narrative. Your student might choose to become Joan of Arc (history), Albert Einstein (science), the Apostle Paul (Bible), or George Frideric Handel (music). 

After reading about an especially exciting event in her subject’s life, the student must personalize the information to write a brief first-person narrative as if she herself were that individual: journaling with a twist!

Alternatively, she can “interview” the famous person and write a third-person narrative. Writing from a different point of view challenges critical thinking skills. 

Essay Writing

In junior high and high school, you can incorporate essay writing into just about every subject. It’s important for your teen to articulate an argument, write a defendable thesis statement, and support it with facts, logic, and examples. 

Essays can describe, define, persuade, or discuss cause and effect. Students can compare and contrast battles, Bible characters, or ideologies. They can write an exposé on the Virginia Company and its dealings with Jamestown, an opinion about whether the earth is round, or a letter to the editor complaining about the conditions in London factories during the Industrial Revolution. 

Projects and Activities

Look for projects and activities that involve writing but don’t necessarily result in formal compositions. Here’s one idea: ditch the traditional—and boring—book report (“This book is about…”) and ask your child to make a mobile by cutting shapes from sturdy paper. On the front, have him color pictures of significant characters or scenes from the book, and on the back, write a colorful description or brief character analysis. When finished, he can string each shape with yarn and dangle the papers from a wire hanger. Such an activity can be adapted to all ages. 

Your student’s talents and interests can also play a part in creating out-of-the-ordinary projects. Instead of explaining a process the traditional way, one clever student created an unusual instruction manual for a literature assignment based upon The Lord of the Rings: she explained how to make an Elven sword. Rather than use notebook paper or a computer printout, she copied her final draft onto parchment paper whose edges she had carefully burned. Then she embellished each page, writing runic characters with a calligraphy pen to create a beautiful project worth keeping and treasuring. 

Other Ideas

• Draw and label a diagram for science to explain photosynthesis, a volcano, or the water cycle. Include a short written explanation of the process. 
• Make a scrapbook of a historical period, famous person, or country (Renaissance, Vikings, Australia), or create one featuring art, music, or science. Depending on the nature of the scrapbook, elements could include daily life, journals, maps, timelines, sketches, flags, plant taxonomies, pressed leaves, photos, biographies, summaries, definitions, and news articles.
• Design a brochure about an historic location. Include drawings and brief descriptions about key events, people, and places.

  

Inside of "Come to California" brochure

Colonial newspaper advertisements

If “writing across the curriculum” has thus far been a mystery to you—one of those terms that everyone tosses around about but never actually defines—hopefully you now feel better equipped to give it a try with one or more of your children’s writing lessons. 

Some of you may decide to use each and every writing lesson for the purpose of writing across the curriculum. Others will only apply a couple of assignments in this manner. Regardless, everyone in your family will benefit. 

Copyright 2011 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved. 

. . . . .

If you’re a WriteShop I or II user, you’ll be excited to know there’s a Writing Across the Curriculum section in Appendix B to help you tie each WriteShop assignment into other subjects you’re studying. No projects here, but at least you can direct the lesson toward history or science and kill two birds with one stone! WriteShop Primary for your little ones also offers Writing Across the Curriculum ideas with each lesson.

You sit down to grade a stack of essays. As you read through one particular paper, it occurs to you that the information seems familiar—so familiar, in fact, that you recognize it as the text from an Internet article you yourself printed out in preparation for another writing class. When you look up the article and compare it with this student’s paper, you’re shocked to discover they are identical.

Defining Plagiarism

The term plagiarism might be relatively new to your students, but cheating is not. When it comes to writing, especially in a formal setting, these two words mean the same thing. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines plagiarism as:

1. Stealing and passing off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own.
2. Using (another’s production) without crediting the source.
3. Committing literary theft.
4. Presenting as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

Establishing a Policy

Whether you homeschool one student, tutor several, or teach creative writing or English classes, it’s wise to establish and distribute a policy on plagiarism. Here’s an example:

Plagiarism is the illegitimate use of another person’s words and/or ideas without giving appropriate credit to the original source. Such attempts to copy someone else’s work and call it your own is a very serious offense that will not be tolerated and will have significant consequences. All work done for this class must be your own original composition. When writing, you are required to properly cite any source you use—published or unpublished, from a book or from the Internet. Failure to do so will result in a zero grade for the assignment.

Reinforcing the Rules

Stand firm regarding plagiarism. In any other class setting—whether in a public or private high school, college, or even the workplace—plagiarizing an essay to the extent that our hypothetical student has done will result in an instant F on the assignment, disenrollment from the class, and/or institutional disciplinary measures.

Because most educational institutions have a zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism, submitting a plagiarized essay like this could, at best, result in a lower grade, or at worst, cost the student a scholarship or expulsion over something he may have thought was “no big deal.”

It’s so important to drill into your students that trying to save a few hours’ worth of work by cutting and pasting a two-page essay from the Internet is just not worth the consequences.

Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

~William Strunk, Elements of Style

Conciseness boils down to this: expressing as much as possible without using unnecessary words or details. Concise writing is brief and precise, but that doesn’t mean it has to be dull and dry. Help your children apply some of these tips for more concise writing.

1. Stay on track

Staying on topic is a surefire way to write concisely. When your student takes tangents and rabbit trails, he loses his focus and ends up with cumbersome, awkward, or disjointed writing. Help him create an outline before he begins writing so that he’s less likely to wander off the path. 

2.  Be precise

The more concrete the word choice, the clearer the writing. Your child can be wordy and say “the shaggy gray dog with the long hair hanging in his eyes,” or he can simply say “the gray sheepdog.”

3. Use plain English

Many students mistakenly think that big words impress. In truth, effective writing uses simple, straightforward language. While a handful of mature, well-placed vocabulary words can raise the level of a story or essay, using too many can make a piece of writing seem verbose, over the top, and just plain hard to read. Unless you’re writing for a scholarly audience, don’t overdo the vocabulary.

4. Avoid super-long sentences

To train children to be concise, attach a word limit or try restricting the number of paragraphs and sentences they can use. This will help them say what they need to say in the space allotted.

When kids are first learning to write descriptively and use a thesaurus, the pendulum can swing wildly from three-word sentences to 20 or 30-word sentences. It’s okay to give them the freedom to play with words; they’ll find their center over time. Just know that you may need to gently correct if their zeal begins creating log jams in their writing.

5.  Don’t be redundant

Redundancy refers to extra words or phrases that should be cut out. Your student’s ability to write concisely will always trump filling a page with unnecessary text.

It’s not uncommon for beginning writers to repeat themselves. But such repetition bogs down the writing and makes the reader work too hard. Here are two ways to eliminate redundancy:

• Adding concrete details, facts, or examples instead of rehashing the same point.
• Slashing unnecessary words and phrases. Remember: when two words will do the trick, why use a dozen? Encourage your student to read each sentence and paragraph to see if he can cut out any words. His point will be clearer, stronger, and easier to identify.

Another question from the WriteShop mailbag . . .

Q: Can you help? I’d like to learn how to use Write Shop II with topics from my high schooler’s history studies. For example, I’d like to give her an assignment such as: “Write a 3 paragraph paper on Gregory The Great.”

A: You will be glad to learn that you can use almost all WriteShop lessons to write about things you’re studying in history.

Writing Across the Curriculum

To write about history, you have several choices. First, take a look at Appendix B of your Teacher’s Manual, specifically TM pp. B-4 to B-7. This section, called “Writing Across the Curriculum,” gives you all sorts of ideas for using each WriteShop assignment as a springboard for writing about other subjects such as history or art (the WriteShop II ideas begin on TM p. B-6).

This way, you could give your daughter important practice writing the short report from Lesson 19, having her write a biography instead of an animal report. She could certainly write about Gregory the Great or any other figure from history. This important assignment is the first WriteShop lesson that teaches how to organize a longer composition.

History-based Essays

The remaining essay section (Lessons 25-30) will then teach a new set of skills: beginning with Lesson 25, your student will write short essays that give her opinion, compare or contrast, and describe or define. Each one of these essays can be used with history lessons.

In addition to the suggestions on TM p. B-7, you can also find loads of recommended topics and essay ideas on TM pp. B-21 to B-25. For example, here are some ways you could use Gregory the Great as a subject for some of the upcoming essay assignments:

• On TM p. B-23, one of the suggestions says: “Discuss the significance of a famous battle.” You could tweak this topic to say: “Discuss the significance of the reign of Gregory the Great.” 
• Also on TM p. B-23, instead of describing “what made George Washington a great president,” you might suggest: “Discuss three major accomplishments of Gregory the Great.”
• On TM p. B-25, one of the suggestions says: “Compare or contrast two presidents (scientists, explorers).” Instead, have her compare Pope Gregory I with Pope Leo I.

Once you’ve completed the lessons, it would be wise to continue re-assigning essays from Lessons 25-30 on a regular basis to keep your daughter in practice. So, once she’s used up her lesson-specific checklists, you can provide her with photocopies of the all-purpose essay checklists on pp. C-3 to C-6 (Teacher’s Manual Appendix C). With these checklists, you will be able to give your own parameters for each assignment’s length, enabling you to teach longer essays if you so desire.

.  .  .  .  . 

WriteShop I and WriteShop II have a proven track record! Using the program will help prepare your teens for advanced high school and college writing. For beginning and average writers in 7th-10th grades, consider WriteShop I. For students in grades 8-11 who need a bit more challenge, take a look at WriteShop II.

Discovering interesting topics is a critical component of the essay-planning process. However, a good topic is not enough to guarantee a successful paper. The goal of the initial prewriting stage is not to come up with a subject or a topic, per se, but to identify a controlling idea that will help guide and shape the student’s essay and direct her brainstorming efforts.

Why Write a Thesis Statement?

An essay focuses on a particular concept, idea, or scenario and tries to say something unique about it. It shouldn’t be a sprawling report of all possible facts and details. Instead, essay writing is about choosing and analyzing the most important elements necessary for advancing a particular position. Therefore, the thesis statement for an essay represents a condensed and carefully thought-out argument that will define, guide, and set the tone for the entirety of your student’s paper.

What Is a Thesis Statement?

A thesis statement presents, in one or two sentences, the central, controlling argument of an essay. It explicitly identifies the purpose of the paper and/or previews its main ideas. Everything your student writes throughout the essay should in some way reinforce this primary claim. A good thesis statement should:

1. Concisely present the central idea of the essay.
2. Guide the direction of the paper and establish priorities
3. Take a definitive stand that justifies the case your student is about to make.
4. Articulate a specific, arguable point with which people could logically disagree. It helps to ask what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about the topic. If the student is presenting a claim or statement that no one would argue against, then he’s not saying anything worth reading. 
   • Uncontestable claim: The world would be a better place without war.
   • Contestable claim: Christians should not participate violently in war.
   • Uncontestable claim: Domestic terrorism is on the rise in the United States.
   • Contestable claim: The rise of domestic terrorism reflects an increased disillusionment with the United States government.
5. Effectively answer the prompt or question (if given).
6. Be thoughtfully and deliberately worded.
7. Avoid vague generalizations.
8. Use clear and concrete language.
9. Pass the “So what?” test of significance. A good thesis should be substantial and important, so ask, “Who cares?” or “What difference does it make?” 
   • Insubstantial claim: Students at ABC University have school spirit.
   • Substantial claim: The strong sense of community at ABC University is evident in its students’ commitment to campus functions and organizations. This challenges the prevailing characterization of Generation X as apathetic, uninvolved, and lazy.

Could you imagine a student telling his professor: “Can I have another week? My sister was hogging the computer.” or “Sorry I missed the test yesterday—I was too tired—but I can make it up later this afternoon.” We can all laugh at how ridiculous this sounds, but chances are, you yourselves have caved to these very requests!

But We’re Homeschooling!

For homeschoolers, it’s easy to let deadlines slide. The sense of urgency just doesn’t exist at home as it does in the public or private school setting. Homeschooling brings with it a false sense of security that says, “We have time…what’s the rush…he’s only 14…that’s why we’re homeschooling,” and so on. As a result, many homeschooling parents either don’t give due dates at all, don’t adhere to them if they do, or don’t impose consequences for late assignments.

Do you want your student to succeed in college? Of course you do! Then you need to realize that in the real world, such permissiveness will never fly.

Create a System for Keeping Track

You need a system for posting and keeping track of deadlines. The best method is to post a large monthly calendar in a prominent spot (in your school area, on the fridge). Even if you use a lesson plan book and give your student daily assignments, it is so helpful to be able to step back and see—at a glance—clearly marked essay or project deadlines and test dates.

A calendar of this nature gives your teen a quick daily review of the panorama of impending deadlines. This prevents the dreaded “due date creep,” where it suddenly dawns on a procrastinating student that he has a test, an essay, and a science project all due in the next day or two.

It also encourages the student to pace himself more carefully when working on big projects, including spreading out the work over several days or weeks, and starting the project early enough to finish without having to pull an all-nighter. A college-course syllabus is sure to include one or more long-term assignments, so developing the habit of scheduling and pacing will prepare him well for handling multiple deadlines that typify college work.

.  .  .  .  .

College prep 101: Learning to meet deadlines

College prep 101: Creating a quiet workspace

College prep 101: Limiting social networking

College prep 101: Teaching responsible study habits

Your teen lives in the modern world. Between phone calls, texting, email, instant messages, Facebook, and any other number of social networking opportunities that distract her, she has to learn to establish boundaries for herself in order to get any work done at all.

Do Not Disturb

When she’s hammering out a paper or other project, there should be none of this electronic interruption until she’s finished, and for good reason. Setting aside these distractions is sort of like hanging an e-version of the “do not disturb” sign. And now I’m going to become very unpopular with your teen—and so will you, if you take my advice!

Unplug the Internet cable during her computer time and turn off her cell phone, if she has one.

Yes, unplug. This will make it impossible to go online or get interrupted by a text message while she’s working on an essay or report. If she needs to do research online, have her separate the research process from the writing process. Let her work online . . . and then simply unplug the cable when her research is complete.

What’s the Big Deal?

When your student tries to work at the computer while chatting with friends via instant message and e-mail, she loses the ability to focus and concentrate. As a result, the quality of her work suffers. In addition, she’ll require more time to finish the project. For one, the interruptions themselves take time. But more importantly, these breaks—no matter how short in duration—require her to keep refocusing when she finally returns to the task at hand.

I regularly experience this myself. I have two tasks open on the desktop, my email open on the laptop, and a barrage of projects stacked on my work surface. When I flit back and forth among them like a restless butterfly, I often close out my day feeling like I got absolutely nothing accomplished. Instead, I end up with myriad loose ends dangling everywhere and just as much on my to-do list as when I woke up.

But when I commit myself to one project at a time, visit my inbox a few times a day instead of several times an hour, and steer clear of both Facebook and the phone during those designated working hours, I am so much more productive as I pick off a whole bunch of little tasks (or take a nice chunk out of a bigger project). The sense of accomplishment is huge for me—and your teen can experience this too.

Goodbye to Multitasking

Making electronic access difficult (or impossible) forces your student to pour all her concentration and effort into her writing. This ability to separate work from play is of the utmost importance at college where she won’t have your help making such wise choices. In your “home training center,” once your teen figures out how much easier it is to write a paper in an uninterrupted chunk of time, she’ll may never go back to multi-tasking again!

That’s it for now—I’m off to take a dose of my own medicine.

Please do not disturb.

.  .  .  .  .

College prep 101: Learning to meet deadlines

College prep 101: Creating a quiet workspace

With a few focused efforts, your teen’s essays and research papers will rise to the challenge.

Use transition words.

Transition words help papers read more smoothly by providing logical organization. They also connect important thoughts or provide transitions between opposing ideas. Students often get into trouble moving from idea to idea. Without transitions, they’ll lose their reader, who will have trouble following the writer’s line of thought.

Transition words act as signals to alert the reader. Words like in addition and furthermore tell the reader that a point is about to be expanded or explained. On the other hand and conversely suggest that the writer will explore an opposite idea. Therefore and finally signal that a train of thought is coming to an end.

Reading through the paper paragraph-by-paragraph makes a good test of fluency. If each paragraph makes sense on its own, the writer probably made wise use of transitions. If not, she can look for ways to add a transition word or sentence to introduce new ideas.

Transitional words and phrases

Don’t plagiarize.

Plagiarism, copying another person’s written work and calling it your own, is the same as stealing. What has been stolen is the author’s unique way of formulating ideas into his own words. Teach your student the proper way to credit the sources she uses in her research paper or essay.

Plagiarism.org 

Focus on clarity and simplicity.

It’s not uncommon for young writers to try to impress their instructors by overwriting. This can take the form of using too many big words, piling on too much (or unnecessary) detail, or taking rabbit trails. The content of a research paper or essay must always, always point back to and support the thesis statement. If it fails to do so, eliminate it.

Word Choice

For more essay and term paper tips, also see 4 tips for stronger papers.