Entries Tagged 'jr. high' ↓

We parents give an awful lot of thought to what our children will do once we’re done homeschooling. Will they go to college or university? Take a vocational track? Enter the ministry? Will they become scientists or mortgage lenders? Clerical workers or nurses? Entrepreneurs or educators?

One thing seems clear: No matter the profession, studies show it’s more important than ever that your teen develop good writing skills if he or she hopes to get—and keep—a job.

Writing: A Ticket to Work . . . or a Ticket Out

According to a 2004 survey polling 120 American corporations (whose payrolls include nearly 8 million people), an employee’s writing skills can either hinder or advance him in the company.

The survey may be a few years old, but its ramifications remain relevant in 2010. Here are some of the survey’s findings:

• People who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion.
• Two-thirds of salaried employees in large American companies have some writing responsibility. “All employees must have writing ability,” said one human resource director.
• Eighty percent or more of the companies in the service and finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sectors, the corporations with the greatest employment growth potential, assess writing during hiring. “Applicants who provide poorly written letters wouldn’t likely get an interview,” commented one insurance executive.
• Half of all companies take writing into account when making promotion decisions.
• More than 40 percent of responding firms offer or require training for salaried employees with writing deficiencies. Based on the survey responses, it appears that remedying deficiencies in writing may cost American firms as much as $3.1 billion annually. “We’re likely to send out 200–300 people annually for skills-upgrade courses like ‘business writing’ or ‘technical writing,’” said one respondent.

You can read the entire report here.

Focus on Key Writing Skills

What does this mean for your child? Simply, it doesn’t matter whether or not she’s college-bound. If she expects to succeed in the workplace, she’ll need to demonstrate better-than-average writing skills.

So make sure you’re focusing on basic but key writing skills throughout junior high and high school to adequately prepare her. Minimally, by the time your teen graduates from high school, she should know how to:

• Write a clear, well-organized essay.
• Write a business letter.
• Use correct grammar.
• Use proper punctuation, such as correct use of quotation marks and apostrophes.
• Use good sentence structure, including avoiding run-on sentences and sentence fragments.
• Avoid using slang and shortcuts common to texting and instant messaging.
• Properly site sources (avoiding plagiarism).
• Self-edit and proofread her own writing.

Helpful Resources

If you’re looking for a place to start or need a few supplemental resources, check out some of these links and products:

• WriteShop - Solid composition and essay skills for junior high & high school
• How to Write a Business Letter
• Editor in Chief  – Practice with editing and proofreading skills
• OWL at Purdue - Proofreading and self-editing tips
• The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation - Practice, reinforce, or teach grammar and punctuation skills
• How to Cite Your Sources - A great resource!

A Quick Word about Copywork

I’d like to suggest a new way to incorporate copywork into your schooling. In a future blog article, I’ll take time to extol the virtues of copywork, which I think is valuable for pre-writers to 14-year-olds (or thereabouts). But in a nutshell, copying:

• Teaches children a number of foundational writing, grammar, spelling, and punctuation skills.
• Helps them pay attention to detail.
• Offers penmanship practice.
• Introduces them to passages of quality literature.

That’s the Reader’s Digest version! For the time being, you can find a more detailed explanation here: An Introduction to Copywork

A Personalized Recipe Box

OK, so are you ready for a super-fun copywork activity for the junior chefs in your family? Your children won’t be delving into literature, but this little exercise does help fulfill the first three points above.

When I was eleven, I started my own recipe collection in my seventh-grade home economics class—pancakes, Dutchess Spice Cake, and caramel toast were three of my first cards—and I’ve been collecting recipes ever since!

Your children can embark on this journey too. Here’s how:

1. Buy them a set of cute recipe cards, or print some out on card stock. There are tons of free printables available in patterns to suit both boys and girls.
2. Sit them down with your own recipes and cookbooks, using sticky notes to mark your children’s personal favorites as well as special family recipes. Make sure to include several simple recipes they can prepare themselves.
3. Provide pens or pencils and let the copying begin.

Younger, slower, or reluctant writers should have a time limit—perhaps five to ten minutes, depending on the child, but in general, keep this exercise to 20 minutes or less. Motivated writers will have so much fun that they may use this “writing” time as an excuse to avoid other schoolwork, so they’ll benefit from a timer as well.

As your children’s assortment of recipe cards grows, reward them with recipe dividers and a personalized file box to hold their collection.

They’ll treasure it someday, just as I treasure mine!

Writing includes three main elements: content, style, and mechanics. The content, of course, is the heart of the composition—the story, main message, or thesis. Style is the way the writer communicates the content through word choice, sentence variation, etc. Mechanics includes all those tricky little rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling that govern how the words actually appear on paper.

Mechanical Errors Make the Most Noise

When it comes to giving our children feedback on their papers, many of us are in a muddle. Sometimes the “noise” of a zillion grammatical errors drowns out the content as we zoom in on each misspelled word and sentence fragment. But is that the place to start? What should be our focus? You’ve probably asked yourself these very questions:

• Isn’t mechanics an important part of writing?
• Should I allow inventive spelling, or insist that every word is spelled properly?
• Should I focus on the main content, or should I address grammar and punctuation errors too?
• How do I help my kids fine-tune their writing if I don’t point out all the mistakes?

It’s Like Walking a Tightrope

Just as we can correctly—or incorrectly—judge a person’s character based on outward appearance, it’s easy to judge a piece of writing by the mechanical errors we see. We don’t mean for them to interfere with our enjoyment of the content, but typically, they do.

The whole editing thing is like walking a tightrope, isn’t it? We don’t want to discourage our children from spilling their ideas onto paper, for the freedom of doing so sparks in them a love for writing. But for fear of dousing that fire, some of us sway too far to the left and never utter a word about grammar or spelling.

And tipping too far to the right are the parents who are so caught up in the glare of dangling participles and grave misspellings that we run amok with our red pens—and completely miss the heart of the child’s writing.

We really can address content, style, and mechanics without throwing our tenderhearted kiddos to the lions. The trick to finding the balance is remaining as objective as possible and cushioning our suggestions with praise.

For the rough draft, focus mainly on content. Do ideas make sense? Do they flow well? Is there enough information and/or detail? Then, once the story or essay or paragraph is organized and more rounded out, we can deal with any grammar, spelling, and punctuation issues that remain.

Photo by Joar E.M. Klette. Used by permission. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

When it comes to chores, character training, and schoolwork, you can’t always be the nice guy, the friend. Nope. You’ve got to be the parent, which means it falls to you to judge and evaluate your kids’ work. But if you don’t evaluate with wisdom and purpose, you can unwittingly set them up for today’s Stumbling Block to Writing.

Stumbling Block #8

Problem: Students feel criticized when parents evaluate their writing.

Solution: Use editing and grading tools that encourage objectivity and consistency.

Worry about criticism from Mom or Dad is a huge issue for your child. She doesn’t want disapproval; yet if her paper isn’t perfect, she fears facing judgment. Since kids often see their writing as an extension of themselves, they feel personally affronted when they see marks on their formerly unspoiled pages. Their feelings can be summed up like this: If you criticize my writing, you criticize me.

Well, clearly, in spite of your child’s hypersensitivities, you still have to evaluate, edit, and grade. So what’s the solution?

Be Objective and Consistent

Nothing makes the editing and grading chore easier and more pleasant than objective tools that equip you for the task. An equipped parent is a confident parent! Your student can sense your confidence. She knows you’ll be consistent, and she won’t worry that you’ll be capricious or unpredictable with your remarks and suggestions. This kind of objectivity and consistency builds a lot of trust.

It’s as simple as using a good editing checklist that pinpoints particular things you can watch for in each paper. Now your student can see that your comments are not based on whim or mood, but on specific lesson expectations she accomplished—or failed to meet.

As you review your student’s writing project, this impartial checklist will allow you to comment on the work in a way that helps her feel less criticized. Ultimately, when editing and grading become consistent and purposeful rather than arbitrary or illogical, you’ll see a big change in her attitude—and yours!

For specific ideas, check out editing tips for the faint of heart.

Give Plenty of Praise

Dish out generous servings of praise and positive comments along with your helpful suggestions. Show your student that you notice her efforts; then make gentle suggestions that encourage improved writing without bruising her sensitive spirit. And when you give a final grade, laud her with sincere praise. Show that you notice things she did well and correctly. Remember: if you use an objective grading rubric, you’ll know what these things are!

Watch for the next article in our 10 Stumbling Blocks to Writing series: Stumbling Block #9 – What’s the Point? 

Share a comment: What objections do you face when you edit or grade your children’s writing assignments? 

Leaving a comment at any Stumbling Blocks article enters you into a drawing for a $25 WriteShop gift certificate. You can earn up to eleven chances in the drawing by commenting on all eleven articles. There’s still time to comment on any previous post!

2009 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

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Are you looking for a writing curriculum that provides you with specific editing and grading rubrics? If so, you’ll appreciate WriteShop I for your 6th – 10th graders and WriteShop II for 8th – 11th graders. Lesson-specific checklists build confidence by ensuring that you only hold students responsible for the writing skills they’ve learned.   

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

In our series on 10 Stumbling Blocks to Writing, last week we looked at the problem of laziness. But laziness has a close cousin in the obstacle we’ll explore today: procrastination.

Stumbling Block #7

Problem: The procrastinator waits till the last minute to write her paper.

Solution: Break up assignments over time and provide accountability for your student.

The Pressure of Procrastination

If it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done.  ~Author Unknown

When we feel overwhelmed, we tend to put off distasteful tasks—or those that seem big and scary—such as cleaning the garage or preparing for a big party. Claiming we work best under pressure, we shop, bake, clean, and decorate in a last-minute frenzy. As time rushes forward and the deadline looms, we sweep piles of laundry and schoolwork into drawers and closets, abandon the balloons and streamers, and purchase a hastily chosen gift card because we never got around to buying a present.

“Procrastinators generally don’t do well under pressure,” says Joseph Ferrari, associate professor of psychology at Chicago’s DePaul University. The idea that time pressure improves performance is a myth. In truth, procrastination can result in:

• Health and sleep problems.
• Anxiety and panic as tasks pile up.
• Poor performance and inefficiency.
• Guilt.

As William James aptly put it, “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”

Five Steps Toward Overcoming Procrastination

The best way to get something done is to begin.  ~Author Unknown

Putting off a writing assignment till the last minute can lead to a rushed and sloppy paper hastily written just before it’s due. It may also leave your child feeling too pressured or anxious to do a good job. As with the lazy student, the procrastinator needs a strategy. Try these suggestions to help your child make wiser use of her time. 

1. Work on adopting a “do it first” attitude.

Tackling unpleasant or disagreeable tasks earlier in the day—when your student is fresh and alert—often means greater progress in shorter time. 

2. Establish a deadline for the writing project.

When you don’t give a cut-off date, you imply that your child can put the task off indefinitely. Set a date and stick to it.

3. Divide the assignment into smaller chunks.

While a deadline is important, it doesn’t ensure that your student will pace herself. So in addition to assigning a distant due date for the whole composition or report, give more frequent due dates for parts of the project. For a short composition, assign brainstorming, rough draft, self-editing, second draft, parent editing, and a final draft. For a report or term paper, you’ll also want to see topic ideas, note cards, outlines, etc.

The writing process, by its very nature, is a series of steps. However, the procrastinator is prone to completely skip steps (or else cram several steps into one last-ditch writing session). Assignments spread over several days or weeks—with mini due dates scheduled along the way—help train her to spread out her work and not save it all till the last minute. A schedule or plan that outlines each step makes the best defense against procrastination.

4. Don’t neglect to follow up.

Your student needs to allow drafts to rest between writing sessions. But since she tends to wait till the last minute, she typically leaves no time for revising or refining. Make sure that you hold her accountable along the way with checklists and deadlines, and check her work regularly to keep her on task.

As the parent and teacher, you’re responsible to ensure that your child is doing the work and sticking to her deadlines. We homeschoolers can get lax about this. If you say “I’ll check over your work later,” but fail to do so, you continue to perpetuate the problem of procrastination. By not checking up on your student or asking to see her assignments, you unfortunately model the very behavior you seek to correct.

5. Set up task-appropriate rewards.

Come up with ways to reward your student’s steps of progress. Completing her brainstorming on time or writing her rough draft may earn her some computer or TV time. Finishing a task ahead of the due date could merit even more time to spend with her friends, read for pleasure, or work on her hobbies.

Do you ever feel like YOU are your child’s main stumbling block? If so, you won’t want to miss next week’s article, which addresses parental criticism. Check it out and soak up the encouragement!

Share a comment: Does your child procrastinate? What is one new thing you can do toward changing his or her behavior?

Leaving a comment at any Stumbling Blocks article enters you into a drawing for a $25 WriteShop gift certificate. You can earn up to eleven chances in the drawing by commenting on all eleven articles!

2009 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

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WriteShop  provides schedules and checklists that give direction to a procrastinator. Parent supervision is also a key element of the program. Train your little ones early using WriteShop Primary. For older students, choosing WriteShop I and II will help you equip and inspire successful writers!

Welcome back to our series on 10 Stumbling Blocks to Writing. Each week, you’ll gain more and more ideas for helping your reluctant or struggling writer leap over those hurdles that make writing challenging. If you’re new to the series, Stumbling Block #4 took a look at how limited writing vocabulary can hinder your student. Today we’ll explore:

Stumbling Block #5

Problem: Perfectionism and self-criticism often lead to writer’s block.

Solution: (1) Prime the pump with more writing and (2) write an unpolished rough draft.

The Curse of Writer’s Block

Writer’s block. The phrase itself is enough to banish every creative thought from your child’s head. When he’s in a stare-down with a blank page—and the page is winning—it’s easy to believe he’s the only one who ever wrestles with getting a thought on paper.

It should comfort him to know that everyone suffers from writer’s block at some point. Even famed novelist Ernest Hemingway admitted that the most frightening thing he’d ever encountered was a blank sheet of paper!

Though many stumbling blocks litter the road to writing success, perfectionism—personal pressure to “get it right the first time”—is the mother of them all, and the key contributor to writer’s block.

Face it. Most children—yours included—loathe the writing process. They want to write a paper once at best, and they want you to love it. There’s no room in their world for the nuisance of proofreading, editing, or revising. For many of these kids, then, the first draft has to be perfect in their eyes.

Of course, the irony is that they’re imperfect individuals who believe that whatever they put on paper will never be good enough. So they don’t write at all. “People have writer’s block not because they can’t write, but because they despair of writing eloquently,” says author Anna Quindlen.

Writing Tips for the Perfectionist

1. Write, write, write

As counterintuitive as it sounds, the more you write . . . well, the more you write! It’s very much like priming a pump: it takes water to produce water. So how can you encourage your child to flex his writing muscles? One way is through a simple exercise called free writing. Author, homeschooler, and writing teacher Dianne Dachyshyn uses free writing to ease the grip of writer’s block:

“The first time you ask children to do this, they will stare incredulously and grumble. They will be hard pressed to meet the time requirement of three minutes. However, after a regular discipline of free writing, they will begin to enjoy this time and it is amazing what they can produce. I often have to force them to stop at the end of ten minutes.”

To learn Dianne’s simple method, read the entire article here.

2. “Don’t get it right, just get it written.” –James Thurber

Believe it or not, one of the best solutions for a perfectionist is writing a rough draft. Writing, after all, is a debugging process. First, your child writes something sloppy. This is the practice draft—the imperfect, flawed rough draft. Later, he goes back and fine tunes it. That’s why I love to call the rough draft a “sloppy copy”! Starting sloppy deals a blow to the blank page as the student puts forth ideas and gets into the writing flow. As author and poet Margaret Atwood so aptly put it: “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”

3. Learn to let go

Enjoying the process—any process—is one of the toughest hurdles for a perfectionist! I’m not going to say it’s easy, but it is achievable—bit by bit—as he learns to let go of the things that weigh him down.

Let go of pressure. Writing can be fixed. James Michener once said, “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” Even if you’re a famous author, early drafts just won’t measure up. This should come as welcome news to your young perfectionist! As sorely tempted as he may be to crumple up his efforts and keep starting over, encourage him to  just get it written. Later, like every other author of great or small renown, he can work on revising until he’s satisfied. After all, writing is a process, not a one-time event!

Let go of precision. Creativity is a messy ordeal. Why does your student think it’s fine to make a mess when painting or working with wood or clay, but not when writing? The creative process isn’t always neat, tidy, and measured, and it’s certainly not perfect. Assure him it’s okay if his thoughts spill out in a bit of a jumble, and it’s to be expected that he or his teacher will add marks to the paper during editing. Cleanup begins during the revising process.

Let go of perfection. Finish the draft. Though it’s tempting for your student to try to correct everything as he goes, have him finish his rough draft without wrestling with every word, phase, and sentence. That’s what revising is for! And don’t forget to show your enthusiasm and approval when he finishes his assignment. Success breeds more success, and when your child feels successful, he’ll be much less reluctant next time!

Sometimes your kids are perfectionists, true? And this can indeed hold them back from doing their best by seizing them with fear . . . but not always. Sometimes, well . . . they’re just plain lazy! That brings us to Stumbling Block #6: Laziness, which is the topic of next week’s article in the Stumbling Blocks series.

Share a comment: How does your child exhibit perfectionism where his or her writing is concerned?

Leaving a comment at any Stumbling Blocks article enters you into a drawing for a $25 WriteShop gift certificate. Increase your chances of winning by commenting on all eleven articles! 2009© Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

. . . . .

WriteShop builds the steps of the writing process into each level of the program, helping your perfectionists recognize the purpose and value of writing and revising. Train your little ones early using WriteShop Primary. For older students, choosing WriteShop I and II will help you equip and inspire successful writers!

Last year at this time, I showed you how to create a Thanksgiving acrostic poem. Here’s a variation that helps your kids focus on reasons to be thankful.

When you’re scrambling around the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day and the children are underfoot, set them down at the kitchen table with this activity.

Directions

Write the words I AM THANKFUL vertically on a sheet of lined paper. Using each of the letters, make an acrostic

1. Each line can be one word, a phrase, or a sentence. There’s no right or wrong, as you can see from the examples below.
2. If children are having trouble thinking of words, use tools like magazines, catalogs, a thesaurus, or word lists to prompt ideas.
3. Poems can be left-aligned or centered.
4. Afterwards, illustrate your acrostics or decorate the page with photos cut from a magazine.

Gratitude

I want to thank God for

A ll His wonderful blessings, like His
M ercy and grace and compassion. For simple things like

T ea with toast. For big things like
H ope in a dark world. For
A warm, cozy home filled with love. For
N ine fun cousins! For
K eeping me safe. For
F riends that are closer than brothers. I want to always lift
U p praise to You with a thankful heart, knowing how much You
L ove me.

A Thankful Heart

I am thankful for . . .

A ll my clothes and toys . . .
M y mom, dad, and brothers . . .

T rue friends . . .
H ome and health . . .
A back yard to run and play . . .
N ana and Papa . . .
K nowing God loves me . . .
F ood on our table . . .
U ncles, aunts, and cousins . . .
L iving in a free country.

I Am Thankful

I am thankful for

A pples and pears
M y red hair

T oys
H ot dogs
A irplanes and cars
N ew crayons
K ittens and puppies
F lowers and stars
U nited States of America
L egos

Photo of praying girl courtesy of StockXchng.com

Last week we talked about skills and tools a student can use to make his writing more interesting. As we continue this series on 10 Stumbling Blocks to Writing, today’s focus turns to a very common writing issue.

Stumbling Block #3

Problem: Lack of motivation.

Solution: Provide a wide variety of writing experiences as well as flexibility of topic choices.

Offer a Varied Writing Diet

Uninteresting or irrelevant topics often produce unmotivated students. One solution? Give your child greater options. Don’t limit him to one kind of writing, like essays or factual reports. Instead, vary his writing diet so he feels more motivated to write!

• Offer experiences with descriptive, informative, and narrative writing. Let him describe people, places, foods, and objects.
• To dabble in expository writing, encourage him to explain a process, write short reports or biographies, or write news articles.
• Teach him to write narratives from varying points of view or in a different voice or tense.

Allow Freedom to Choose Topics

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, try give your less-than-motivated student a bit more flexibility of topic choices. Nothing stifles creativity like saying, “You MUST write about this.”

I’m not saying your student should run the show. After all, you’re still the teacher! But if you’re teaching a particular kind of writing, such as describing a place, you can give freedom of choice—anything from a baseball stadium to a tea room, from a mountain wilderness to a busy street corner—while remaining within the lesson’s framework. It’s the best of both worlds when you establish some parameters but offer freedom too. When your child feels more “ownership” of the subject matter, you’ll find he’s much more likely to invest himself in the writing.

Tie Writing to Other Subjects

Also, incorporate writing across the curriculum whenever possible. Instead of teaching writing as a separate subject, writing across the curriculum lets you dovetail writing instruction with your study of history, literature, art, music . . . the opportunities are endless.

Write with Delight

And consider delight-directed learning, which allows your student to explore a favorite topic—hobby, sport, historical period, whatever his passion—and write about it in many ways:

• Using vivid description
• Explaining a process (“how-to” composition)
• Writing stories and narratives
• Writing essays and reports
• Developing news articles

The beauty of delight-directed learning? Each writing project focuses on a different aspect of your child’s topic of interest, whether it’s Legos, gardening, horses, or antique guns. You may grow tired of reading essays, stories, and reports about Tiger Woods, choosing a golf club, the history of golf, and “My First Hole in One,” but if it means your student is writing . . . well, rejoice!

To see if limited writing vocabulary is an issue for your student, check out Stumbling Block #4.

2009 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

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If your writing curriculum limits your student’s writing experiences or stifles topic choices, you might want to take a look at WriteShop I for your 6th – 10th grader. Each lesson provides the framework for a particular kind of writing but gives the student options to pick his own topic.

Golf ball photo courtesy of Stock.Xchng.

Welcome back to our series on 10 Stumbling Blocks to Writing! Last week we looked at ways to increase your student’s confidence. What’s today’s hurdle?

Stumbling Block #2

Problem: Lack of skills and tools to make writing fresh and interesting.

Solution: Introduce pre-writing exercises, brainstorming worksheets, and checklists.

Whether you’re sewing, gardening, working with wood, or fixing an engine, you can’t do the job properly without certain skills and tools. The same can be said for writing—and I’m not just talking about paper, pens, and a laptop. Let’s look at some practical principles you can apply to begin equipping your children for success!

Pre-writing Activities

One of the easiest ways to build writing skills is to have some fun! Pre-writing exercises and writing games act as enjoyable warm-ups to get creative juices flowing, build vocabulary, and strengthen sentence development. Games you make up, like sentence-building or concrete writing games, make perfect pre-writing exercises. And don’t discount the value of purchased word games. Scattergories and Apples to Apples come to mind as two great writing warm-up games our family loves to play. Along with old friends like Scrabble and Boggle, they make ideal family Christmas gifts. Your kids will have no idea they’re learning!

Brainstorming Worksheets

Before your student writes the first word of her composition, she’ll improve her chances for success by brainstorming. Like pre-writing, brainstorming is a skill that stimulates thinking in general. However, it also acts as a springboard for writing about a particular subject. When a student brainstorms:

• It gets her ideas flowing so she has something to say.
• It helps her overcome writer’s block.
• It prepares her for writing as she develops a plan and gains direction.
• It helps her organize her thoughts.

To further promote thinking skills, you’ll want to teach a variety of brainstorming techniques. Whatever the topic, suggest a brainstorming method—mind map, list, or outline, for instance—that’s best for the kind of composition your student is writing. For example:

• She might brainstorm for a how-to composition by listing the steps of the process.
• If she’s writing a descriptive paragraph, she should carefully study the subject for interesting details and record her observations.
• For a narrative, she’ll want to sequence the events.
• A Venn diagram is especially useful for compare/contrast essay.

There are many ways to brainstorm, but worksheets and graphic organizers are tools that often smooth the way for reluctant writers. If you are using a program like WriteShop I or II, you’ll find brainstorming worksheets already prepared for each writing assignment (see an example here). Alternatively, a quick Google search will yield a variety of brainstorming tools available on the web.

But brainstorming isn’t just for your junior high or high schooler! You can begin teaching this skill in kindergarten, either on your own or with a helpful curriculum like WriteShop Primary. Starting your children when they’re young can help prevent the debilitating case of writer’s block that often plagues older students.

Checklists

A good checklist serves as a guide to help your student identify her own errors in content, style, and mechanics so she can improve and enliven her writing. For instance, if the checklist reminds her to use synonyms instead of repeating main words, she’ll be forced to find more interesting words. This simple tool can help her hone a valuable skill she’ll use all her life. (In a few weeks I’ll be talking about checklists in greater detail when we take a look at Stumbling Block #6: Laziness.) 

Other Skills and Tools

In addition to checklists and brainstorming sheets, there are other tools that help breathe new life into writing. For example, skill-building exercises can give a student instruction and practice in new writing skills like choosing titles, writing topic sentences, citing sources, or using sentence variations.

I’m sure grammar is part of your language arts curriculum, but how it can revive writing may be a complete mystery to you. I’d like to suggest that when you require your student to use newly learned grammar concepts in her compositions, the grammar actually makes more sense. So rather than teach grammar in a vacuum, teach it as it applies to writing. That’s where the rubber meets the road!

Writing isn’t an exact science, but you can certainly apply proven principles to promote stronger writers in your home. It’s my prayer that you’ll begin to notice a difference in both attitude and output as you put some of these tips into practice.

Next week we’ll look at Stumbling Block #3: Lack of motivation. You won’t want to miss that one!

2009 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

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Do you wish your writing curriculum offered more pre-writing activities and brainstorming ideas? Then take a look at WriteShop I for your 6th – 10th grader. You’ll love the writing games and brainstorming worksheets that equip and inspire successful writers!  

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng.

A word bank is a place where a student can keep written words he’s learned or collected so that he can refer to them as needed. Useful for students of all ages, word banks serve several purposes:

• A storage place for writing ideas when the child is writing about a particular topic. He can gather from a word bank of themed words to create a story or poem.
• A vocabulary-development tool.
• A spelling resource he can go to during writing or editing.
• Inspiration!

Using Holiday-themed Word Banks

With fall in the air and Thanksgiving just around the corner, now’s the time to encourage your children to write seasonal and holiday-themed stories, poems, reports, and acrostics. As fun as this sounds, when your kiddos (old or young!) can’t think of what to write about, they often freeze in frustration. 

Helping them draw from a rich word bank that’s chock-full of seasonal ideas can spark and motivate even the most reluctant writer. Here are two word banks perfect for this favorite time of year!

Autumn Word Bank

autumn, fall, season, September, October, November, leaves, colors, brown, gold, yellow, red, orange, black, gray, smoke, bonfire, burning leaves, crunching, jumping, tossing, raking, leaf pile, path, trail, hike, meander, woods, forest, orchard, tree, maple, oak, branches, corn maze, cornstalks, Indian corn, squirrel, chipmunk, blue jay, brisk, chill, cold, icy, frost, breath, pumpkin patch, hay, bale, pumpkin carving, nuts, chestnuts, cinnamon, pumpkins, apples, spicy, cider, hot cocoa, coffee, soup, stew, chili, fire, warm, roaring, crackling, inviting, cozy, crisp, blustery, welcoming, sights, sounds, smells, deep blue sky, clouds, rain, wind, storm, breeze, flannel, denim, corduroy, wool, fleece

Thanksgiving Word Bank

holiday, Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, Mayflower, Plymouth, Indians, memories, grandparents, family, friends, football, dinner, ham, turkey, gravy, corn, pumpkin pie, crust, coffee, cream, sausage, stuffing, muffins, cornbread, rolls, potatoes, yams, green beans, vegetables, apples, cranberries, flaky, whipped, mashed, creamy, buttery, candied, sweet, rich, savory, golden, glazed, crisp, baking, roasting, cooking, steaming, serving, helping, sharing, table, platter, china, silver, tablecloth, lace, linen, candles, cornucopia, gourds, aroma, warm, food, faith, prayer, plenty, thankful, blessing, welcome, gathering, together, November, Thursday, parade

Making Your Own Themed Word Banks

When giving a writing assignment, have your student use prepared word banks such as the two above, or work alongside him as he creates his own. Here’s one idea:

Brainstorm with your child to assemble a fall word bank. Look at a book, magazine, or website containing colorful images of autumn or Thanksgiving. Ask questions to stimulate thought, such as:

• What do you see on this page that makes you think of fall?
• Name some fall colors.
• How do you think that icy windowpane feels?
• In this picture, what fall activity is the family involved in?

As you and your child think of autumn-related words, add them to your word bank. Older children can use a thesaurus later on to look up synonyms for some of their words, thus broadening their writing vocabulary.

Find more Thanksgiving writing activities here and here—great ways to apply these new word bank ideas!

Copyright 2009 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

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Word banks are such great tools for helping kids expand their writing vocabulary, which is why we’ve included 17 exhaustive word lists in our WriteShop I and WriteShop II student books—lists such as texture words, personification, and emotions.

And in each of our WriteShop Primary books, younger children are encouraged to make Portable Word Banks, including season words, color words, and spelling words.