Entries Tagged 'Teaching Writing' ↓

Most of you are a few months into the new school year, and by now you have a pretty good idea of whether writing is humming along nicely or stubbornly dragging its heels. Now is a good time to evaluate this often-neglected subject and decide if you need to make any mid-course corrections.

It may help to ask yourself: Do I really need a formal writing program? Surprisingly, you may not. Here are some things to consider.

Do You Need a Writing Curriculum?

No, if you . . .

• Are a self-starter.
• Provide your kids with a variety of writing activities and projects.
• Include writing as part of your unit studies.
• Regularly incorporate writing across the curriculum.
• Enjoy thinking up writing lessons for your children.
• Are good about remembering to have your children write several times a week.
• Don’t worry too much about whether you’re missing something.

Yes, if you . . .

• Tend to push writing to the back burner.
• Feel uncertain about what to teach and when.
• Worry about not doing enough writing with your children.
• Prefer a bit more structure.
• Like a more systematic approach to teaching.
• Are more comfortable following a schedule.
• Feel overwhelmed at the thought of coming up with writing assignments or creating your own lesson plans.

Did You Answer Yes? Read On!

What to Look For in a Writing Program

• Clear teaching directions.
• Step-by-step student instructions.
• Creative, engaging ideas for prewriting, brainstorming, and publishing.
• Ungraded materials that allow you to teach several children.
• Materials that will encourage a reluctant writer, yet challenge a stronger or more eager writer.
• An approach that appeals to different learning styles.
• A program that builds the writing process into the lessons.
• Lessons that offer models or examples.
• A program that teaches self-editing.

What to Avoid

• Materials that just tell children to write rather than teach them HOW to write.
• Rigid lessons with very specific writing topics and little room for flexibility.
• Comprehensive curricula that attempt to fully teach both writing and grammar.
• Generic or all-purpose grading rubrics that require too much guesswork on your part.

. . . . .

When you’re comparing writing programs, WriteShop is a good place to start. Whether you’re teaching elementary ages or teens, WriteShop products meet many of the above recommendations for a solid, parent-friendly writing program.

You’re in good company if you think teaching writing is downright painful. Many homeschooling moms feel completely inadequate and unequipped for the task. As a matter of fact, if I were to take a poll, most of you would probably say you’d rather have a root canal.

Sometime we dream about how nice it would be just to plunk a workbook down if front of our kids and watch clear, engaging, organized stories and essays take shape before our very eyes. But in reality, writing needs to be taught.

Yes, a handful of us have children who will figure it out all on their own, but most children need modeling, teaching, and feedback in order to learn and improve as writers.

Beyond your own self-doubt, you may be struggling to help your kids overcome issues like writer’s block, laziness, perfectionism, or other hurdles that prevent progress. Most students want to scribble out a paper and call it done. Then they want you to rave over it! But at the first sign of a suggestion from you, watch out—here comes the meltdown!

This creates tremendous frustration for the parent because you can’t seem to figure out how to make this whole writing thing work. Your kid is a mess, and you feel like a failure.

Isolate the Source

Kid Issues

• Does your child complain that he can’t think of what to write about?
• Does he dawdle?
• Does he have learning challenges that may require special attention?
• Is he unwilling to take correction or accept feedback?

Mom Issues 

• Do you feel overwhelmed?
• Are you trying to teach many children at different levels?
• Are you disorganized and flying by the seat of your pants?
• Are you unpredictable in your editing and grading?

Alone or in combination, these factors can contribute to incredible stress, irritation, and discouragement.

Make Simple Changes

You can take small steps toward reducing the level of frustration in your home. These ideas work wonders with all types of learners:

1. Keep writing assignments short and specific.
2. Use brainstorming worksheets and graphic organizers to help your child think his ideas through before he begins to write.
3. Break the assignment into bite-sized chunks, giving mini deadlines along the way.
4. Choose writing materials that are flexible enough to use with several children at once.
5. Have a plan: Know what you want to teach and when, and then schedule writing into your week. 
6. Use objective, lesson-specific editing and grading tools to help you evaluate your children’s writing fairly.

Small successes will begin to usher frustration right out the door, leaving encouragement and accomplishment in its wake!

Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

Middle to upper elementary children express a really wide range of writing abilities.

Some children still struggle to hold a pencil or write words.

Some have strong verbal skills yet remain weak in writing. They can spin a great story and tell it orally, yet they’re not yet able to write independently.

Others are beginning to emerge as writers, still depending on you a great deal (as much or more than ever, it may seem). These children need to dictate ideas and sentences during both brainstorming and writing, though they’re also able to contribute more and more to the actual writing itself.

Finally, there are those who are progressing well through the stages of writing and now work fairly independently.

Encourage the Writing Process

Continue to encourage the writing process so it becomes natural. This starts by helping your child view writing as a multistage process:

• We plan.
• We write.
• We make changes.
• We write our final draft.

Ultimately, our kids begin to understand that the paper is the product and writing is the process.

How Much and How Often?

For children in grades 3-5, the focus remains on improving sentence structure and writing a solid paragraph.

• On average, they should spend about 30-40 minutes per day on writing, depending on both age and attention span.
• In my experience, 8-10 quality writing projects per year is plenty of writing (meaning the piece will be taken through each step of the writing process). That’s roughly one complete writing project a month. Meanwhile, lesser assignments such as book narrations, journaling, and so forth can fill in gaps.
• A good target is 1- to 3-paragraph stories or short reports. Take care not to rush your child into longer assignments too soon. A concise, concrete, short piece beats a long, rambling, disjointed, dull, repetitive, tedious essay any day—no matter what age the child!

Remain an Involved Parent

These are bridge years, when most students go from largely parent-supported writing pieces to more independent writing. The biggest key to success with this is lots of practice. Fostering independence doesn’t mean you give an assignment and disappear! Even if it seems counterintuitive, continue working closely with your middle and older elementary children. Your 3-5^th graders need you to:

• Model and teach.
• Oversee their work.
• Participate with them as needed.
• Praise their efforts.
• Give helpful feedback.

Make Writing Fun

Start writing now! If you wait till junior high to begin teaching writing, by then it’s time to get down to brass tacks, and your children may have missed the delight of writing during their elementary years, when they learn that writing is something to enjoy and anticipate.

So most of all, for any elementary child in grades K-5, the writing experience should be fun! Motivation, excitement, and a positive learning environment all help children build confidence in their writing skills as they acquire the ability to write.

Helping your K-2nd grader with writing
Helping your 5th-8th grader with writing
Helping your high schooler with writing

Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

 .  .  .  .  .

In Spring 2011, WriteShop will introduce WriteShop Junior Book D, the first in a series of writing curricula for middle and upper elementary ages. Children have so much fun playing writing games, learning to use exciting writing tools, and writing appealing stories such as adventures and mysteries that they hardly realize they’re learning!

We’ll continue posting details and info here at the blog, but if you’d like to be among the first to get the scoop about the book’s release—or even preorder, join our mailing list by visiting www.writeshop.com and looking for the newsletter sign-up box.

I’m sure it’s no secret to you that children develop at different rates. One child possesses remarkable fine-motor skills, yet she struggles to speak a coherent sentence. Another talks circles around his siblings, but his handwriting leaves much to be desired.

This disparity is often more obvious during the primary years, when most children are either emerging writers with little or no ability to write or beginning writers who are developing early writing skills.

Let Go of Expectations . . . and Stress

Because fine-motor skills vary from child to child, don’t be distressed if your youngster has a hard time holding a pencil correctly, writing on a line, forming letters and words, or demonstrating neat penmanship.

These early elementary years—typically kindergarten through third grade—produce a great deal of growth in most children, but if your little one doesn’t seem to be following the pack, take a deep breath and accept that it’s okay.

Meanwhile, make sure your writing time is spent together, and that you build instruction from your child’s own efforts rather than from artificial expectations. For example, if he’s great at telling stories, but cries buckets if you make him write anything down himself, let him dictate to you as you write his words.

My youngest child definitely had his own timetable. He had the hardest time with any writing-related activity, so most of our “writing” time happened orally, with me doing the writing as he narrated. The good news is that with much mommy patience and perseverence, he eventually did “get” it.

Embrace Repetition and Routine

Have you ever noticed that your littles never tire of reading the same book or singing the same songs over and over and over again? It’s one of the main ways children absorb information, and the sooner we accept that, the more likely learning will take place.

Repetition, routine, and consistency play a major part in nurturing young writers. Since primary-age children thrive in this environment, you may have to sideline your own fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants tendencies as you devote yourself to keeping a schedule, building bit by bit on their emerging skills, and nurturing your young writers in the way they learn best. Someday you may be able to let spontaneity reign once again, but until then, routine is your friend!

Focus on Age-Appropriate K-2 Writing Skills

Too often, parents neglect teaching children how to think about and plan a story. They just assign it. Instead, give your young children tools to experience success as they develop the ability to write by teaching them to brainstorm; plan a beginning, middle, and end; and then write or dictate the story.

Typical Progression

Take care not to jump into advanced writing too soon. Instead, watch for and encourage this progression in your youngsters:

1. Writing a letter, word, or group of words on their project according to their ability.
2. Writing a complete sentence.
3. Understanding the concept of a paragraph.

How Much and How Often?

• At this age, it’s enough to devote 3 days a week to the writing process.
• Spend 15-30 minutes max per day on writing activities, depending on age and attention span.
• Expect your child to write 5- to 7-sentence stories. A more articulate child may show interest and inclination to write longer pieces—and that’s great. Just don’t force it. Make sure your children crawl before they walk!

Be an Involved Parent

Children cannot learn to write on their own. A parent who participates one-on-one with her child inspires success! To effectively develop basic writing skills, your child needs some important things from you:

• Your presence
• Your example
• Your encouragement
• Your daily guidance

Teaching your young child to love words and writing—or even the idea of writing—comes from purposeful instruction in a fairly structured environment. Your child may not absorb everything you say and do. He may not exhibit the skills your friends’ kids exhibit. And he may alternately drive you crazy and break your heart with his moans, groans, and tears.

Just remember that this is springtime for your little one, where you’ll see both subtle growth and explosions of learning. Take your time to nurture with patient care, and your budding writer will bloom and blossom in time.

Helping your 3rd-5th grader with writing
Helping your 5th-8th grader with writing
Helping your high schooler with writing

Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

 .  .  .  .  .

WriteShop Primary is the perfect way to gently introduce writing skills to young children using repetition, routine, pre-writing games and activities, crafts, and storybooks. Perfect for most children in grades K-3. For help choosing a starting level, visit this link.

When assigning writing to your children, you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel with a brand-new lesson. Sometimes it’s fun to approach a familiar assignment in a fresh new way. For example:

• Tweaking an existing lesson instruction by adding different elements.
• Having your children revisit an earlier composition—either a recent story or one they wrote a year or two ago) and changing it up somehow. 

Here are some simple ways to add variety to your children’s writing by using lessons you already have lying around!

Change the tense

Using the same composition they wrote before, have students rewrite it, changing the tense. If it was written in past tense, ask them to write it in present, and vice versa. If the story was written long ago, you may also want to have them increase the length, add more sentence variations, or expand description.

Change the point of view

Have your child rewrite a story from a different point of view by writing as another character in the story. For practice, have him retell a familiar story such as David and Goliath, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, or a fable or fairy tale. Have him “become” one of the characters in the story and rewrite the story in first person. A younger child can do this exercise orally.

Describe a food

Instead of describing a food, students may write a restaurant review in which they vividly describe an assortment of foods—from appetizers to dessert. Expect this composition to be several paragraphs in length.  Suggestion: Visit a restaurant and have students take “brainstorming” notes as they sample various foods.

Describe a place

As an alternative to describing a place, your child can design travel brochures about a favorite vacation spot, famous landmark, city, country, or geographical region she would like to visit. Include text and pictures.

Write a biography

Every student writes biographies at some point. To change it up a bit, have your kids write an autobiography of a famous individual instead (autobiographies are written in first person) as if they were that historic person. Alternatively, you might ask them to assume the role of an historical figure and write one or more journal or diary entries or letters. Any of these exercises should be historically accurate, perhaps fitting in with a current topic of study.

Create a newspaper

A newspaper format lends itself well to a history unit. Why not have your child write an entire newspaper about a historical era? Include a wide assortment of the following:

• Local, national, and international news stories
• Advertisements
• Comic strips
• Entertainment
• Doctor’s column
• Literary news
• Sports
• Travel
• Vital statistics (births, deaths, marriages, crimes)
• Editorials/opinions/letters to the editor/exposés, etc.

This newspaper activity should be spread over a longer period of time. Some research will be required to ensure historical accuracy. This also makes a wonderful group project, with all your students contributing to one newspaper.

Encourage your children to take their writing in new directions by trying some of these simple ideas. It won’t be long before you—and they—are thinking up different twists all on your own!

When you set a sheet of blank paper before your child and tell him to write, you might as well toss him into the absolute blackness of a yawning cavern without rope or flashlight and have him find his way out. Either way, he faces a slew of unknowns, and without the right tools to assist him, he’ll be lost.

Just as a spelunker, or caver, uses specific equipment to help him safely explore a cave, every student needs writing tools to help him feel more confident and successful.

So, how are writers like spelunkers? You’ll be surprised at the similarities!

They Need Clear Boundaries

Unless you’re on a tour, there are no handrails or paved walkways in a cave. A first-time cave explorer facing the unknowns of a dark cavern usually has no idea how to start, which direction to take, or how to get back at the end of the day.

That’s why novice cavers go with an experienced guide who can give direction and establish boundaries. When the boundaries are clear, the caver won’t worry about things like winding up in an endless passageway or falling into an underground stream. He also won’t huddle fearfully against a damp wall, paralyzed by the dark, unknown surroundings. Boundaries provide safety to explore.

Writers need boundaries too. It’s pretty intimidating to most kids to face a blank page and have absolutely no idea what they’re supposed to put on it. Students who lack skills and tools either hover anxiously over the page, unable to write at all, or they write in a disorganized, sidetracked manner.

To help your child feel more confident and secure, establish boundaries using some of these ideas:

• Define the nature and purpose of the writing assignment, such as describe a food, explain a process, tell a personal story, or compare and contrast two novels.
• Give specific requirements for length, such as number of words, paragraphs, or pages.
• Provide topic options with the framework of the assignment. For instance, if the student must describe a food, give her several choices from which to pick, or let her come up with her own. When she’s interested in the subject matter and has a say in the topic, her confidence rises.
• Give clear instructions so the student knows exactly what’s expected.

They Need Supervision, Structure, and a Plan

To practice caving safety, novice cavers need a leader with experience to oversee the expedition. He has a plan, makes sure everyone follows directions, and is responsible for bringing his group of explorers back on time.

Students also need an overseer—a parent or teacher—to ensure their writing success. Even if you establish boundaries for the assignment, your child can still get lost, delayed, or overwhelmed without direct supervision. 

• Break the assignment into parts to ward off procrastination, dread, and hyperventilation. Just as a caver wears a head lamp to help light the way, your student needs to know where he’s going with his writing assignment too. Illuminate his path by showing him the steps of the writing process. They include prewriting, brainstorming, writing, editing, and revising.
• Give a deadline for the finished piece—and stick to it.
• Create a schedule or plan to promote timeliness. Ask your student to turn in each part of the writing assignment on its proper due date along the bigger timeline.
• Monitor progress. Supervision and follow-through are key to his success. If you don’t check your child’s work each step of the way, you may impede his progress. He’s waiting for your OK before he moves on to the next part of the assignment; failing to follow up with him only encourages procrastination.

They Need the Right Equipment

Unlike a newbie, a seasoned caver would never dream of entering a cave with nothing but the clothes on his back and a pocket flashlight from the Dollar Tree. He knows that as he meets various obstacles during his adventure, the right equipment will serve him well: proper clothing, a good helmet, a helmet-mounted light, spare batteries and bulbs, food and water, and basic survival supplies.

On the other hand, novice writers think nothing of approaching a cavernous writing assignment equipped with nothing but pen and paper, when in truth, they need a well-stocked chest of writing tools.

It may take some time to fill that toolbox, but eventually they’ll have a wide assortment of proper tools to help them write with confidence and skill.

• Graphic organizers and brainstorming worksheets for planning and sorting ideas
• Stylistic tools, such as transition words to connect ideas and paragraphs and sentence variations to add interest to the writing
• A good thesaurus to help them choose strong, accurate words.
• Checklists or rubrics that remind them what to look for when proofreading and self-editing.

They Need to Develop Their Skills 

Much of what a person learns about cave exploration comes through . . . cave exploration! He can study caving techniques day and night, but until he enters his first cave and starts scrambling over rocks, traversing ledges, and crawling through narrow passageways, all the book learning in the world won’t make much sense.

Writers also learn by doing. As they discover new techniques and skills and put them into practice, they’ll gain confidence in their ability to write—and they’ll show noticeable improvement. Here are five important skills your writers will need to develop:

• Teachability. They must be willing to take instruction and receive feedback.
• Observation. Excellent writing samples and parent or teacher modeling can provide positive examples for students to follow.
• Concreteness. Students need to avoid dull, vague writing by learning to choose strong, vivid words.
• Conciseness. They also need to learn the art of using fewer words to make their point.
• Practice with different kinds of writing. Finally, they need a variety of writing lessons so they can learn to describe, inform, persuade, argue, write poetry, tell stories, etc.

Simple tips and tools like these can set your student on the path toward success. And when you provide your child with boundaries, guidance, writing tools, and useful skills, he’ll be better equipped to conquer that once-terrifying abyss of a blank page.

Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

Alexis Bonari is joining me today as a guest blogger here at In Our Write Minds. Alexis blogs for onlinedegrees.org. I know you’ll enjoy trying this activity with your pre-writers.

On the path to inspiring our children to love reading and writing, we often overlook the fact that there was a time when stories were generated as oral traditions.

Stories were created and then passed down through the generations without the use of written language. Our modern writing and story-telling techniques were inspired by these traditions.

Even before our children are of an age to read or write, they have stories to tell. They often regale us with tales of how their day was spent, or will imagine elaborate adventures starring their favorite fictional character or stuffed animal.

Tap into that creative energy and follow these simple steps to help them develop their own fictional work.

What you’ll need

• An audio recorder
• A variety of art materials: construction paper, glue, markers, magazines with pictures and scissors to cut them out, etc.

Steps to creating a masterpiece

1. Brainstorm.

Tell them that you’re going to help them author their own book. Then, help them brainstorm ideas for a story. Write the ideas down on a piece of paper. Help them develop a rudimentary outline. Don’t direct too much. Let them develop their own concept.

2. Write the book.

Get out the recorder and record them telling their new story. Play it back once and let them make any changes they want. Then, get out the construction paper, separate the story into sections, and copy it onto the paper. (Discuss ahead of time what type of pictures they might want for each section so you can organize the book as you go. If they want to add more pictures or change things up, go with it.)

3. Decorate and design!

Help them use the art supplies to draw/paste pictures into the book. Design a cover or chapters if you want. Pretty much anything goes.

If you encourage your children to develop their story-telling skills early, writing will come easily to them. Writing is really about conveying information in a clear manner. Learning this process can be a fun experience for everyone!

Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at onlinedegrees.org, researching areas of accredited online degrees. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

When my children were young, I participated actively with them during writing time. I found that asking questions was a wonderful way to help them come up with ideas and choose stronger vocabulary words. 

Try it with your own kiddos. This exercise works with both reluctant and articulate writers of all skill levels—it’s a great way for them to develop the ability to learn, think, and explain.

1.  Ask specific questions about your child’s writing.

• How did that happen?
• How did that make you feel?
• Can you tell me more about…?
• What are some other words you could use to describe…?
• Where were you?
• Who else came to the picnic?

2.  Draw out responses.

Take advantage of dialoguing with your child to draw out information and story details. This time of questions and answers is especially helpful when he can’t think of what to say. 

As he responds to your initial questions, you can then rephrase and extend your child’s words, ask a clarifying question, or model more complex vocabulary or sentence structure.

3.  Ask open-ended questions.

Try not to ask questions that require a one-word answer or a yes or no response. If you ask your child, “Was he wearing a hat?” the conversational exchange is over and done with when he says yes or no. Instead, try asking an open-ended question: “What was he wearing? What else can you tell me about that?”

Here’s a sample dialogue* to give you an idea of how to encourage more response:

You:     I like your idea about Sabrina Sea Bass and the kelp beds. How could we start the story?
Child:   Sabrina Sea Bass went to the kelp beds.
You:     Yes, she did. But before she got there, she had a problem. What was the problem?
Child:   She got lost trying to find the kelp beds.
You:     Why did she get lost?
Child:   Because it was her first time going by herself and she went the wrong way.
You:     That IS a problem! How could we use that information to start the story?
Child:   It was Sabrina Sea Bass’s first time to go to the kelp beds all by herself.
You:     Let’s write down that sentence.
You:     Now you can start to tell about the problem. What went wrong?
Child:   Well, instead of turning left at the coral reef, she turned right.
You:     Good way to introduce the problem! Let’s write down that sentence.
You:     Then what happened?
Child:   Soon she swam into a dark, dark cave.
You:     Ooh, that’s good! Let’s write that down. Soon she swam into a dark, dark cave.
You:     How did she get out?
Child:   She asked a friendly octopus which way is out.
You:     That’s a good question, but maybe it would be better if she told him where exactly she wanted to go. She asked a friendly octopus . . . what?
Child:   She asked a friendly octopus, “Which way are the kelp beds?”

Keep your questions and dialogue going like this until your child has organized or written his story. Eventually, he will learn to ask himself similar questions on his own.

. . . . .

*This sample dialogue comes from WriteShop Primary Book B, Lesson 8 (Problem and Solution). All WriteShop Primary books contain loads of practical, age-appropriate prompts and dialogue samples that will help you promote stronger writing skills in your younger children.

From time to time, parents ask us whether WriteShop aligns with the Six Traits of Effective Writing.

6 + 1® Trait Writing is a model for teaching and assessing writing. Originally, it was intended less as a teaching tool and more as an evaluation tool to help teachers identify student strengths and weaknesses.

Although WriteShop wasn’t developed according to the Six Traits model, our products do offer comparable tools to teach, edit, and evaluate your children’s writing. After all, our goal is to help you become a more effective teacher, and these skills and tools just make sense—no matter what name they go by!

Creating Good Writers

Students become good writers through modeling, discussion, and plenty of practice. But most parents—even those who are intuitive writers—need specific guidelines and rubrics to help them teach writing systematically and effectively, including:

• Explicit instruction for how to teach the writing process (along with specific writing skills).
• Guided writing (modeling) and discussion. 
• Step-by-step student directions.
• Practical application of grammar and spelling to writing.
• Checklists, rubrics, and other tools to help edit and evaluate writing.

WriteShop and the Six Traits

Though our products may not fully align with the Six Traits model, both WriteShop I & II and WriteShop Primary give you the instruction and guidance you need to teach writing with confidence!

However, two favorite WriteShop tools—the Writing Skills Checklists and the Composition Evaluation forms—do meet many criteria of the Six Traits model.

The elements of the Writing Skills Checklist allow you to give your junior high or high school student valuable suggestions and a chance to improve his or her paper. And the Composition Evaluation form provides a rubric for effective, accurate grading.

Each of the Six Traits (listed below) is followed by specific elements WriteShop I and II look for in a composition.

Ideas

The main focus or purpose for writing

• Did the student follow directions for the assignment?
• Did he include lesson-specific content?
• Did he support his ideas with details?

Organization

The internal structure of the writing

• Did the student use appropriate topic and closing sentences?
• Did he use transition words when necessary?
• Did he communicate clearly?

Voice

The sense that the writer is speaking directly to the reader

• Did he write in the correct narrative voice for the assignment?

Word Choice

The use of concrete, colorful, precise vocabulary to communicate meaning

• Did the student use vivid, active, colorful words?
• Did he avoid vague, repeated, or overused words?
• Did the student limit use of passive voice (“to be” words)?

Sentence Fluency

The flow and readability of the text; effective use of sentence variations

• Did the student communicate clearly and avoid awkwardness?
• Did he use a number of interesting sentence variations?
• Did he use his tenses properly?

Conventions

The mechanical correctness, including spelling, punctuation, and grammar

• Did the student adhere to conventions of form?
• Did he correctly use punctuation, capitalization, and grammar?
• Did he spell correctly?
• Did he use correct sentence structure?

WriteShop Primary materials for kindergarten to third grade also align well with the Six Traits model, both for teaching and evaluating. For more information about WriteShop products, visit www.writeshop.com.

Strong writing skills will help your student earn higher test scores, write quality college application essays, and become a better communicator. That’s the good news.

But as I shared recently, there’s bad news too: many college students possess dismal writing skills and are not adequately prepared for rigorous coursework.

I know this is pretty disheartening. It can be easy to give in to gloom and discouragement. Instead, let’s look at positive, practical ways to equip our teens for college-level writing. 

Cover the Basics

The requirements are pretty simple, really: focus on basic but key writing skills throughout junior high and high school to adequately prepare your student.

Make sure he regularly writes quality compositions and papers. Specifically, he should know how to write a:

• Professional email.
• Business letter.
• Résumé.
• Clear, well-organized essay (both persuasive and expository)
• Research paper.

Minimally, by the time your teen graduates from high school, he should at least know how to:

• Write clearly.
• Use correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
• Use proper sentence structure.
• Proofread and self-edit.
• Take notes.
• Cite sources.

Plan Ahead

If you teach these foundational writing skills early, you’ll still have time to introduce advanced writing and longer, more specific essays in 11th and 12th grade, including:

• Literary analysis.
• Different types of essays (cause/effect, compare/contrast, reflection, argument, definition, etc.).
• Research papers of various lengths.

So make a plan. Keep working on your teen’s grammar and writing skills, and give purposeful writing assignments on a regular basis. Otherwise, writing will keep dropping to the bottom of the stack—and your teen will be in for a rude awakening when his college years begin.