April 19th, 2012 — Brainstorming, Grammar & Spelling
CONTENT, style, and mechanics all play an important role in creating a strong essay, story, report, or article.
When we communicate on paper:
- Our goal is to be thorough, accurate, concise, and concrete.
- Our writing needs to flow well and make sense.
- We have to guard against misspellings and sloppy grammar, which can distract the reader and dilute our message.
Writers have dozens—even hundreds—of tips and tools at their disposal to make this process easier and improve chances for success. From time to time, I pick different ones to help you or your students plan, write, or edit more effectively. Here are six tips to try out:
1. Brainstorm Before Writing
The purpose of brainstorming is to plan ideas and jot down details to jumpstart your writing. Brainstorming can take many forms, including clustering, mind-mapping, lists, grids, and formal graphic organizers.
Instead of writing full sentences, it’s better to make lists of words and short phrases. Later, as you refer to your brainstorming sheet during writing time, your list of concrete words and other details will jog your memory and keep your writing from taking tangents. Brainstorming keeps you on track.
2. Use Different Kinds of Sentences
Try a combination of simple, compound, and complex sentences to add variety and improve the style of your writing. Here’s a helpful quiz on sentence types.
3. Choose Strong Words
Vivid, active, colorful words have the power to paint clear mental pictures and stir the reader’s emotions. When dull, vague, or overly used words clutter up your writing, replace them with stronger, more precise ones.
Dull: Isabella made a nice dessert.
Interesting: Isabella whipped up a rich chocolate mousse.
Watch out for boring words such as fine, nice, or good. Is it a good book, good friend, or good weather? Then express it more specifically.
riveting book, faithful friend, balmy weather
Avoid vague verbs such as cried, said, or went in favor of concrete ones:
The orphan sobbed, wailed, or wept.
Dr. Cooper ordered, whispered, or agreed.
The horse galloped, trotted, or raced.
Check to see that you haven’t repeated main words too many times, using your thesaurus to find appropriate synonyms.
Finally, when picking the best words for saying what you mean, don’t choose them based on how long they are or how clever they make you sound. Otherwise, you run the risk of sounding pompous or stuffy.
4. Include Subordinating Conjunctions
Sentence variations can add interest and maturity to any piece of writing. Using subordinating conjunctions is just one way to vary sentence structure, often by combining sentences like these together:
I shop frugally.
I save several hundred dollars each month.
Example 1: When the subordinating conjunction begins the sentence, a comma follows the dependent clause.
Because I shop frugally, I save several hundred dollars each month.
Example 2: When a dependent clause beginning with a subordinating conjunction comes at the end of the sentence, don’t separate the two clauses with a comma.
I save several hundred dollars each month because I shop frugally.
Either way, you can see how using because to combine two short sentences results in a single but more interesting sentence.
If the term or concept is new to you or your students, you may find it helpful to print out a list of subordinating conjunctions.
5. Watch Out for Misplaced Modifiers
Avoid pesky misplaced modifiers—phrases or clauses placed near the wrong noun. Make sure to position a modifier close to the word or phrase it should modify to avoid confusion.
Incorrect: Hiking along the overgrown path, a tree stump tripped Fernie.
Why is this wrong? Because the sentence implies that the tree stump was hiking along the path!
Correct: Hiking along the overgrown path, Fernie tripped over a tree stump.
6. Revise Everything
Everyone’s writing improves with editing, so no matter how great you think your article or story is, let it breathe for a day and then scrutinize it for clarity, conciseness, concreteness, and errors.
Your Turn
What’s your favorite writing tip?
January 6th, 2011 — Brainstorming, College Prep, Editing & Revising, high school, jr. high, Reluctant Writers
Quick! Take this survey:
- Do your students complain about having to edit and revise their compositions and essays?
- Do they hate having to spend several days on the same writing topic (brainstorming, writing a draft, self-editing, and revising)?
- Do they become apathetic and lose steam by the time they get to the final draft?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, I have good news: Your kids are completely normal! But short of dragging them across broken glass or hot coals, how can you teach them to embrace the steps of the process as a natural, expected part of writing?
Writing Is Hard Work
If you’ve not used a formal writing program before, it’s possible that the writing process is new to your children. Regardless, they’re not alone. I wish there were a magic wand I could wave over them to help them like it better, but in truth, writing is hard work, and it takes time and discipline.
Unless they’re making lists, journaling, or emailing a friend, most writing does require planning, drafting, editing, and revising. This would be true whether you use WriteShop, some other writing program, or simply create your own writing assignments.
Typically, students want to write a paper once and be done with it. They don’t want to brainstorm, and they certainly don’t want to rewrite it. But whether or not these steps of the writing process are built into the curriculum (as they are with WriteShop), it’s really important for children to come to terms with the reality that this is how writers—from students to professional authors—write.
A Look at the Writing Process
There are three main parts of the writing process: brainstorming, writing, and editing and revising.
Brainstorming
The student who just sits down to write without having first brainstormed will either stare at the page with a blank look, unable to think of anything, or she’ll write in a fairly disorganized fashion, repeat herself, include unnecessary detail, or omit key ideas. Even in timed-writing sessions, students are encouraged to dash out a quick outline to help them focus on what the question is asking and to keep them from drifting off-topic as they write. Simply, brainstorming focuses a writer. It helps her choose details, plan and organize her story or report, stay on track, and avoid tangents.
Writing
Writing is done in stages. The first draft serves to get those rough, new ideas onto the paper. By its very design, the first draft is meant to be revised later.
Editing and revising
Whether or not your child agrees, every paper benefits from revision, and editing gives her a chance to make some modifications. Even this blog article was edited and revised many times before I posted it. I don’t just try to catch typos; I also want to make sure my answers are complete and clear, my thoughts are organized, and my tone is professional yet conversational. This self-editing process tends to be subjective for most of us because we feel an emotional attachment to each and every word. That’s exactly why your child needs to turn her work in to you for objective feedback: She needs an outside opinion in order to write a more polished final draft
Helping Your Student “Get It”
OK. You and I agree that the writing process is important. Yet the $20,000 question remains: How do we get our kids on board? Again, there are no magic answers, but I can offer a few ideas:
Show your teen she’s not alone.
Your student may feel as though she’s the only one who has to plan, write, and revise her compositions. Discovering that the writing process is universal may help her back down a bit. For fun, you might ask her to do a Google search for the term “writing process.” I bet she’ll be surprised to find over 21 million results!
Give freedom to a creative child.
It’s natural to expect a negative response from a reluctant, resistant writer. But if a student who normally loves writing fits this profile too, maybe she feels her creativity is being stifled when she is asked to brainstorm or make changes to her text.
First and foremost, give such a student the freedom to write for the sheer joy of writing—plays, stories, poems, whatever she loves! Separate these experiences from her writing lesson by not requiring her to plan or revise these stories. For her, use the writing process to teach skills in the same way that math drills, piano lessons, or other repetitive activities teach, reinforce, and offer practice. Let her write to her heart’s delight in her free time, but also require her to learn discipline through the structure of the writing process.
Use analogies.
As a parent, I’m sure all this makes sense to you. The hard part is communicating it to your student. I find that analogies can help explain things so that she can get it too. Here are some past blog articles that deal with the writing process. Several offer different analogies that compare the writing process with things like gardening, cooking, scrapbooking, and spelunking (caving). See if one or two of these analogies spark understanding in your reluctant student.
Point to the future.
Students who choose to go to college quickly discover that the writing process is taught there as well. And as much as they may grumble and complain, it’s to their benefit to plan, draft, and improve each piece of writing.
Among curriculum sites, public schools, universities, and professional writers’ blogs and websites, the writing process is regarded as key to success. To help your teen see how vital these repetitive skills are, even at the college and professional level, here are a couple of outside sources that further explain the purpose and various stages of the writing process.
Start Young
In the end, there’s no shortcut to bypass the writing process. Planning and revising are as important to a composition or essay’s success as the actual writing. The best way to avoid arguments, head-butting, and apathy is to train your children while they’re young, perhaps using a program like WriteShop Primary (or the upcoming WriteShop Junior). If they grow up with the writing process, they’ll be more likely to accept and value it, even if they never learn to love it.
Copyright 2011 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.
December 8th, 2010 — Quotations
“No matter where we [are] in our writing careers, we’ll always have to edit. We’ll never become so good that we outgrow the need for it.”
–Jody Hedlund
October 20th, 2010 — Brainstorming
A couple of weeks ago, I posed a question at the WriteShop Facebook page: What is YOUR favorite part of the writing process—brainstorming for ideas, writing the rough draft, or self-editing and revising? The responses were pretty evenly divided.
- Rough draft….I get to be sloppy!!!!!
- Rough draft – definitely
- A completely finished final draft!
- My favorite part is self-editing and revising.
- Brainstorming
- I like the editing and revising part, the polishing and refining. I have such a hard time with the idea of a “completely finished” final draft…. I have to work on that perfectionism and being able to say “This is good, and ‘good’ is good enough.”
- I love the creativity and freedom of the rough draft.
- Definitely the brainstorming and research! I could do it for weeks!
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a lot like spilling out a box of puzzle pieces, finding the edges, and hunting for a few particular colors and shapes. All the parts are there, and you’re working on the framework and key elements, but the main picture is still a big blank.
Those who favor the brainstorming stage love watching an idea begin to emerge. They find joy in the initial bursts of inspiration and creativity, knowing they can sort and organize later.
During brainstorming, you toss out ideas—all kinds of ideas! Some will end up sticking while others will fall by the wayside. Ample brainstorming helps reduce writer’s block by giving you something to say when it’s time to write.
Rough Draft
Writing a rough draft reminds me of shaping a vessel out of clay. You have a sense of what you want to make, and now you’re going to jump in and start creating.
The rough draft is the favorite of those who enjoy watching their story or essay begin to unfold. They love getting started. They love the imperfection. They love playing with ideas and watching them take shape. And they love knowing their best work is yet to come!
This is the time to begin herding those random brainstorming ideas into formation. I like to call the first draft a “sloppy copy” because it gives the writer permission not to be perfect the first time.
Karen emailed me to share how this revolutionized their homeschool writing:
My son hates writing assignments … because he puts so much pressure on himself to be perfect. The phrase “sloppy copy” instead of “first draft” is the breakthrough we’ve been needing. In his mind the assignment is now to make a sloppy copy; therefore he HAS to include errors or he would not be fulfilling the assignment.
Self-Editing and Revising
Once the ideas have begun to form on paper, the tweaking begins. The writer replaces dull or repeated words and ideas, reduces clutter, cuts off rabbit trails, and focuses on polishing the writing.
Like a stream, writing is a fluid entity. Replacing a word, altering a phrase, moving a sentence—these are like adding rocks or removing log jams to redirect the flow of the stream. With even the simplest, most subtle movement, a writer has the ability to alter the direction of the composition. It’s a powerful, beautiful thing.
Editing and revising happen to be my favorite part of the writing process. I just love watching my early ideas find their groove!
What’s your favorite part of writing?
June 14th, 2010 — Editing & Revising, Elementary, Reluctant Writers
Editing does not need to be a negative or intimidating experience for your K-3rd grader. When children learn at a young age the value of gentle correction and self-improvement, they will come to see editing as a natural part of the writing process.
Determining Your Goal
Your main goal is to help your child learn to look for ways to improve her story or short report. The amount of editing will increase as writing skills progress and the child matures.
Don’t overwhelm your first grader with too many expectations. But by the time she’s in third grade, she should learn to self-edit for story details, organization, and simple mechanics, and should be able to use tools to help edit spelling as well.
Helping Your Young Child Edit and Revise
At this age and stage, keep editing and revising as simple and non-threatening as possible. Sit together with your child and read her story together. Then help her take the first steps to learn how to self-edit her own work.
Just remember: Start small! If your child is still in kindergarten, you’ll only want her to revise the simplest and smallest of errors (Did we begin each sentence with a capital letter? Is there a period at the end of every sentence? Does our story have a beginning, a middle, and an end?) As she grows in both age and skill, you can begin adding more editing elements to your short list.
Most second- and third-graders can begin including any or all of the following as you edit and revise together.
1. Search for the good.
- Give your child a highlighter pen. Encourage her to look over the story by herself and highlight a difficult word she spelled correctly.
- Next, ask her to look over the story by herself and highlight a sentence she wrote correctly by starting it with a capital letter and using the correct punctuation. Praise her for a job well done.
2. Discuss the details of the story together.
- Identify the main character and setting.
- Ask your child if she would like to add more details about each one.
- Discuss ideas for improvement.
3. Talk about the story.
- If the story includes a problem, does your child write the beginning, middle, and end in such a way that the problem is solved?
- If so, does the problem get solved with a satisfactory solution?
- If not, discuss ideas for improvement.
4. Circle any misspelled words together, but only if the child is at least in first grade.
- Look up each word in a children’s dictionary; or
- Create a spelling word wall containing her most frequently misspelled words. She can refer to it as she writes and edits.
5. Help your child revise her writing.
- Write the corrections in between the lines on the paper.
- Your child may rewrite her corrections on a new paper if she chooses.
What If She Resists?
Do the editing on a different day. This removes the child from the freshness of her writing and she will feel a little less emotionally attached to the story and its flaws.
Make a photocopy of the child’s story. She’ll be more willing to mark her paper if she knows she the original will remain untouched.
Type her story. Another way to help a reluctant editor is to type her story for her (always double-spaced), leaving all mistakes intact. Again, the more removed the marked-up version is from the child’s original, the less emotion she’ll attach to it, which means the more willing she’ll be to make corrections.
Try a checklist. You can do these editing exercises orally, of course, but if your child balks, she may need to use a typed checklist and work by herself.
Once your editing time is over and the child has made simple changes to her story, have her “publish” it in a fun way, such as attaching it to a paper kite, turning it into a scroll, or making a giant comic strip—knowing that she’s publishing her very best work to proudly share with others.
Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.
June 7th, 2010 — Editing & Revising, Encouragement, Homeschooling, Teaching Writing
Grading and commenting on your kids’ writing is one of the most valuable elements of writing instruction. But it also gives the most grief to parents, who often feel underqualified to identify and evaluate written strengths and weaknesses.
Seeds of Doubt
A host of “ins” and “uns” seems to attack parents when it comes to writing, making us doubt our ability to edit and grade objectively. With regard to teaching or evaluating writing, do you ever use any of these words to describe yourself?
- Insecure
- Uncertain
- Incompetent
- Unsure
- Inadequate
- Unequipped
Many of us wear these monikers like millstones around our necks, allowing the weight of our insecurities to immobilize us. At worst, teaching and grading writing don’t happen at all, or at best we’re sporadic, leaving Mom feeling guilty and our children awash in frustration.
It’s not that we don’t think it’s important to give our children input. But don’t we all have excuses?
- I’m afraid I’ll be too hard on my child.
- I don’t know how to grade a paper—there’s too much guesswork.
- What do I know about writing? I’m just a math-science person.
And heaven forbid Mom should set aside her worries and actually make a comment. The smallest hint of suggestion from you and the drama begins.
- But I like it this way!
- You’re always so critical.
- You never like anything I write!
Myths about parent editing
As a parent, perhaps you simply don’t know how to give objective input. So either you don’t give feedback at all—and therefore see no improvement—or you offer suggestions that make your child feel picked on or rejected. To help you renew your perspective, let’s look at three myths about parent editing.
Myth #1 – Editing and grading writing are too subjective.
- Fact: Learning to edit is a process for both student and parent.
- Fact: Many aspects of a composition CAN be evaluated objectively.
Myth #2 – It’s too difficult to edit and grade writing.
- Fact: The more you edit and revise, the easier it will become.
- Fact: Familiarity produces recognition—you will catch on!
- Fact: There are tools (rubrics and checklists) to help you.
- Fact: You don’t have to find every mistake. Even addressing just a few errors can help your child’s writing begin to change course.
Myth #3 – Editing and grading writing is for professionals.
- Fact: Many parents cannot find mistakes in their children’s writing—but you can improve your skills! If you feel weak in a particular area such as grammar or spelling, take a “crash course” to refresh yourself. Buy a second student workbook and study the subject alongside your kids. Or, consider a resource like The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation to help you brush up on key rules.
- Fact: You CAN learn to edit and grade. Programs like WriteShop and WriteShop Primary are good examples of homeschooling products that guide and direct parents through the writing and editing process.
Over the next few weeks, you’ll not only gain tips and tools to make editing and grading easier for you, you’ll also learn ways to help your children participate in the process through self-editing and revising.
We’ll start next week with tips for Editing and Evaluating Writing: Grades K-3.
I also know that parents tend to panic more as junior high and high school draw near. So if you have older kids, you’ll be happy to know I’ve got you covered as well. Stay tuned!
Copyright 2010 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.
January 25th, 2010 — College Prep, high school, jr. high, Resources & Links, Teaching Writing
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:
January 14th, 2010 — Editing & Revising, Elementary, Grammar & Spelling, jr. high
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.
January 13th, 2010 — Editing & Revising, Quotations
“The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.”
—Mark Twain
December 21st, 2009 — Editing & Revising, high school, jr. high, Stumbling Blocks to Writing
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.
