Tag: teachingwriting

Young writers’ reading list

Posted on by Suki

The most important thing that young writers can do to develop their skills is write, write, and write some more.

In conjunction with writing, young writers should read great writing: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, jokes, text messages…. The form doesn’t actually matter. The more great writing they read, the more the rhythm of language will take root in their heads.

But finally, young writers can be really inspired by books about writing and reading. Below are a few of my favorites for young writers of a variety of ages.

Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook

The two adult writers of this book address kid writers as equals: fellow writers struggling to find out what they want to say and to say it well. My students love the advice in this book and they love the “I Dare You” prompts sprinkled throughout.


Rip the Page!

This is a book full of fun, inspiring prompts. My students love it. But I do ask them not to actually rip the pages…

Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity
Ray Bradbury was probably the single most inspiring writer to me as a young writer. I didn’t discover this book until I was looking for a good book on writing for my more advanced writing students. This is not for novice writers or readers, and at times Bradbury can be a bit bawdy. (One of the pieces is entitled “Drunk, and in charge of a bicycle”!) But my advanced students love it as much as I do. It would be a great one to read along with reading the books that Bradbury references in his essays.


Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

It often takes a whole semester before students realize what all these stories have in common: they are all about books and reading in one way or another. There aren’t many contemporary short story collections for kids that don’t focus on “classic” stories. Although I love the great writers of the past (see Little Worlds below), some kids just aren’t ready to read past the antiquated language and into a world that doesn’t connect well with theirs. The situations and characters in Shelf Life are accessible and inspiring.

Little Worlds: A Collection of Short Stories for the Middle School

There aren’t a lot of great collections of classic stories for kids. I have to say, most of these stories require a high school reading level. I would also venture to say that most middle schoolers wouldn’t have the depth of understanding needed to really “get” these stories. For that reason, I always have to apologize about the book’s title to my teen readers, who may think that it’s a book for “little kids.” But of course, few of the stories in this collection were actually written for kids. They include many of the greatest short stories that have inspired writers for generations.

My “Teaching Writing” series:

The value of creative writing: a spoonful of sugar

Posted on by Suki

One of the consistent misunderstandings I see amongst parents, other teachers, and even students themselves is how working on creative writing skills translates to improved skills in “serious” or academic writing. Most people seem to consider creative writing “extra-curricular” and therefore not academically important.

However, research has proven many benefits of “extracurricular” study, such as the link between musical study and improved math skills. Similarly, creative writing embeds important skill-building exercises like the medicine in Mary Poppins’s “spoonful of sugar.” Here are some of those lessons.

1. Any writing is good writing

Writing is a ‘practice.’ No matter what the task, whether it’s texting with friends or writing a poem, using words develops the brain just like lifting weights develops muscles. Exercise is a great metaphor because it’s something that many people detest just the way people detest writing. The common advice you see about getting more exercise applies to writing: find a way to make it social, do it in a location that you enjoy, chart your progress, reward yourself.

Creative writing is something that is attractive to many kids in part because of its social character. No one is going to want to read your book report on “Little House on the Prairie” (apologies to my third-grade teacher), but there’s an audience for your Pokemon fan fiction or your poem about autumn. And creative writing shows progress in a pleasurable way. My students have chosen to write everything from an encyclopedic description of sports cars to a NaNoWriMo dystopian novel.

2. Creative writing uses the same skills as academic writing

Good creative writing features specific, appropriate word choice. Good academic writing features specific, appropriate word choice.

Good creative writing features strong, varied sentences, clearly written. Good academic writing features strong, varied sentences, clearly written.

Good creative writing is well-organized and offers the right amount of information to lead the reader through a story. Good academic writing is well-organized and offers the right amount of information to lead the reader through an argument.

Good creative writing makes the writer’s world come alive in the reader’s brain. Good academic writing makes the writer’s argument come alive in the reader’s brain.

But while many students resist “working” on their writing, they are very open to developing their creative writing skills.

3. Creative writing opens the door

Pretty much every reluctant writer I’ve ever worked with has come to me after someone has “taught” them to write. Usually that someone thought that kids need to learn to write the way they learn to make a cake: Give them a recipe, tell them to follow the rules, expect them to enjoy the product.

But that’s not how writing works. For most people, writing isn’t inherently pleasurable, and introducing it as a bunch of rules to be followed to produce a bad-tasting result doesn’t work. It’s like asking a kid to make a cake out of overcooked broccoli—why bother following the recipe if no one is going to enjoy the product?

When kids are excited to share their work, that excitement translates to a permanent, solid base of enthusiasm that fuels enthusiasm for future academic writing.

Forget the work—let’s “play”!

Recently, one of my online creative writing students expressed great pleasure at the end of class for having spent an hour “not learning anything.” I let it slide, happy that he couldn’t see me at my desk, laughing at the success of my pedagogic deception. My students are learning—they just don’t know it.

My “Teaching Writing” series:

Gifted Kids: The disconnect between input and output

Posted on by Suki

…and what you can do about it

It’s hard to educate a child who is profoundly asynchronous, as many gifted children are. While a young gifted child may have a high school level vocabulary, they may struggle to hold a pencil. And the disconnect becomes even more pronounced as the child grows and seems to become more mature. When a child can read and discuss a history text at a high level, we expect that they should also be able to write an essay at the same level. However, it’s an unusual gifted child of 10 years old that can write a coherent essay; even more unusual for a 10-year-old to want to write a coherent essay.

My students’ parents have been asking me this question for years: How can I accelerate my child’s writing to match their analytical abilities? My answer is a multi-step one. Hopefully this will be helpful both for homeschooling parents who are frustrated with their child’s writing output, and school parents whose children are being held back from accessing classes they seem ready for.

1) A disconnect between input and output is completely normal for gifted kids

For homeschooling families, this can seem like a personal struggle. You may not notice other homeschooled kids having similar difficulties, but the fact is, it’s extremely common (within our uncommon demographic), and will require some patience on your part.

If your student is in school, you may be frustrated that educators generally understand little about gifted children and may use this disconnect as “proof” that your child isn’t gifted. It certainly isn’t proof that your child isn’t gifted; however, it may be evidence that your child is not mature enough yet to access advanced courses which require high-level output.

2) Forcing gets the wrong result

One of the first instincts when homeschoolers and teachers sense a lagging skill is to push on it. However, issues of asynchronous development don’t go away if you push on them—they tend to be exacerbated. Especially in writing, it’s important to remember that good writing never comes from being forced. Students need to develop fluency in writing things they want to write before they can be challenged to write academically.

3) Focus on success

I borrowed my “focus on success” approach from teachers in Special Education. They have to accept that some of their students will never be able to function at a high level, so it doesn’t make sense to focus on the things these kids can’t do. Instead they focus on making the kids feel successful at the things they can do, then work on improving their lagging skills as best they can.

How this translates to gifted kids is that if you focus on the lagging areas too much, the kids start to think of themselves as having a problem to be addressed. Then they start to think that the problem “defines” them and they may start to try to avoid confronting it. Especially if they are perfectionists, which is common in gifted kids, they start to shy away from “working on” the “problem” because they don’t feel successful at it. Then they develop a block, and once that happens, you have a lot more work to do to get back to the place where they can work on their skills.

4) Remember that maturity is important

Our gifted kids can seem so mature, but that’s only because certain parts of their brains are developed beyond what is expected for their biological age. The other parts of their brain show age-appropriate (and sometimes lower) development. In some areas of education, you simply have to have the patience to wait for maturity to happen. As long as your child is progressing and is happy and healthy, you probably have nothing to worry about. Waiting for maturity is the right approach, as frustrating as it can be. (The exception is if your child is indicating the presence of a disability such as dyslexia or dysgraphia. In that case, you need professional help.)

There is nowhere I have noticed the importance of maturity more than in developing academic writing skills. Even my best, most fluent creative writers balk at writing essays before they are mature enough to see the need for them. Sometimes the change is almost as sudden as flipping a switch: A child who refused to do any academic writing is suddenly a teen who writes, edits, and takes pride in a serious academic essay. Sometimes the process is slow—and it often happens too late for the comfort of parents and teachers.

5) Input almost always develops before output

I have heard of kids who love to write before they can read, but this is extremely unusual and not necessarily something you should want. Avid young readers who resist academic writing are simply not ready for it, and pushing them won’t help. If input is what they are enjoying, and if their output is keeping pace with their biological age, then you’re doing fine.

6) Adapt as much as you can so input progresses while output develops naturally with maturity

While you are waiting for maturity, you can help foster a love of writing by not pushing writing assignments that are meaningless to them. As long as writing is meaningful, most students will want to do it. Read “Approaching Formal Writing” for tips on how to work on writing skills in age-appropriate ways.

As I explain in my article “Adapting Curriculum,” there are many ways outside of formal writing to continue to engage with advanced materials while not expecting advanced output. For example, if you are reading college-level literature, you can:

  • Have lots of verbal discussions about the book
  • Make it social by taking part in a book group
  • Make creative projects based on the book—visual art, videos, creative writing, comics
  • Ask your child to dictate their ideas while you type or use dictation software
  • Watch movie adaptations and do comparative analysis
  • Go on field trips related to the book’s subject

You can do these sorts of activities for pretty much any subject. Don’t discount the importance of creative output in demonstrating a child’s understanding of a text—this is a natural way for children to interact with their studies.

7) Be patient and realize that much of maturity is biological

No matter how advanced our kids are intellectually, they are still, like all of us, one with their biology. In time, their bodies will grow, their hormones will mature, and it will all sync up. Remaining patient and trusting the process is one of the greatest challenges in parenting gifted children. We need to keep our eyes on the goal: producing happy, healthy, productive adults.

My “Teaching Writing” series:

Approaching formal writing

Posted on by Suki

This post continues the discussion of teaching writing that I started with Healthy Writing Habits for Children. In that post, I discussed how to encourage younger children to write freely and comfortably by not stressing what is wrong with their writing. In this post, I’ll address the topic that parents are so often concerned with: preparing children for formal writing.

The most natural formal writing to approach with kids is letter-writing, both digital and physical.

First off, let’s admit it: Formal writing doesn’t yell out “this is fun” to most kids. In fact, teaching kids formal writing too early is often what makes them hate writing in general. Traditional schools excel at making kids hate writing, and the more they force writing lessons on students, the more students end up hating writing. Then they justify moving formal writing lessons even earlier, because so many students end up poor writers in high school.

One of the things that many people notice about homeschooled kids, though, is that excepting students with a specific disability, homeschoolers often end up being proficient writers with little instruction.

The less instruction the better

Is this really true? Should we stop teaching kids how to write? Certainly, this isn’t what I advocate. But I do believe that formal writing lessons need to be left until formal writing is a reality in students’ lives, not just something that school makes them do. This doesn’t mean that kids shouldn’t be learning to write, but they should be doing it in the developmentally appropriate ways:

  1. Read a lot of great writing
  2. Write a lot about things they are interested in
  3. Value the creation of narrative in any medium—audio, video, illustration, etc.

Don’t jump into formal writing too soon

How do you know a student is ready to approach formal writing? The answer is pretty simple: When the student’s life demands it.

The first formal writing kids do are things like letters to Grandma, Santa, or the Tooth Fairy. This formal writing is perfectly in line with a young child’s life. The next formal writing a child might want to do is start a blog or newsletter about something the child is passionate about. Again, this is formal writing but it draws from a need within the child.

As students progress, they might have to do small amounts of formal writing such as:

  • send an email asking for information about a program
  • send an email to a teacher about a class assignment
  • write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper on an issue they’re passionate about

Parents can encourage students no matter how young to write these communications themselves, with some parental guidance.

Bridging the chasm

But aren’t these simple types of formal writing terribly far from a formal essay? Well, not really. As students mature, they start to see the need to communicate as part of their education and/or work. You don’t have to teach students the execrable 5-paragraph essay format in order for them to understand how to write.

Students go through the analytical process anytime they ask for a raise in their allowance or permission to get a new pet:

  1. break the issue into its basic parts
  2. analyze it
  3. offer supporting information
  4. argue against common objections
  5. present the conclusion

Although the gap between the daily writing that your student does and formal writing may seem wide, kids are learning a lot that you will be able to draw on once they approach formal writing.

A child who is not afraid of writing will start developing formal writing skills as a matter of necessity, as long as the parents and teachers are encouraging and supportive. The first few times my son had to send an email for a formal purpose, I would ask him to send me a draft first. We’d go over it, then he’d rewrite and send. After that, he stopped asking for help with emails.

The first time he had to write something longer than an email for a serious purpose, it was simply second nature to him that he’d write out his ideas, we’d look at it together and discuss it, he’d edit and send it.

Writing assignments encourage the worst writing

The times I’ve had real trouble getting my son to write were the times that I simply assigned something to be written for me, to prove that he could do something. And each time I’ve done that, I’ve regretted it. His formal writing that had real purpose was so much more inspired than anything I ever assigned him.

There comes that day…

Eventually, as students recognize the need for formal writing in their lives, they will be willing to tackle the challenge.

What day is that? When your teen is mature enough to realize the point of formal writing without being told. The other day my son casually said to me, “You never read the essay I wrote for history class, did you?” Then he handed it to me. It was a beautifully written, college-level piece of writing about the history of immigration to the US. Yes, it was assigned writing, but he found a topic of interest to him, broke it apart and found supporting documentation, and presented it to his teacher because it was expected of him in the class he was taking.

The process he went through uses what I see as the three developmental stages in developing formal writing skills:

Developmental stage 1: Write about topics of interest and learn to love communication

Developmental stage 2: Learn to analyze, support, and argue an issue so that you can interact with the world

Developmental stage 3: Learn that formal writing has a real, immediate purpose in your life

Not every student is going to be an inspired, enthusiastic writer. But every student who can learn to communicate effectively can learn to do it in textual form. Our biggest job as homeschooling parents is not to make them hate it before they even start to learn.

My “Teaching Writing” series:

Healthy writing habits for children

Posted on by Suki

This is the first of a sequence of pieces about teaching writing to children in the homeschool environment.

My “Teaching Writing” series in order:

Click here to access all my articles about teaching writing.

One of the hardest things for homeschoolers to work on is writing. We all carry baggage from our own education that colors how we see the writing process. There’s always that nagging voice that says that if we don’t subject our kids to something similar, we will fail to teach our kids to write well.

I have homeschooled two kids, one of them a natural writer, the other reluctant. I also teach kids writing at Athena’s Advanced Academy, and my students come in all flavors. Starting with my own kids, and now even more with my online students, I have rejected the traditional approach to teaching writing. In this post, I will discuss writing strategies for younger (pre-teen) children.

handwritingpenThe tradition: Focus on shortcomings, follow rules

Traditional writing instruction teaches that writing follows rules, and that the teacher’s job is to show students where their writing fails. Students are forced to write:

  1. for no purpose
  2. non-creatively
  3. about subjects they have no interest in
  4. without an audience

Then teachers look at the product, point out what’s wrong, and tell the students to do it again. The result is bad writing, and kids who hate writing so much they will only produce it under duress.

The new approach: Follow passions, focus on the positive

notebookWhen I started homeschooling, I took cues from homeschoolers and from special education teachers. Homeschoolers said that integrating learning into life made for deeper, more meaningful work. Special education teachers, faced with kids who have such severe shortcomings, have to focus on their students’ abilities, whatever they are.

I came across the writing of Patricia Zaballos, who blogs extensively about teaching writing and also wrote a handbook on teaching writing. The crux of her approach is, like special education teachers, to focus on the positive.

My approach to teaching writing is an about-face from the traditional. My students write:

  1. with a clear purpose
  2. creatively
  3. only about their interests
  4. for an audience of fellow students or a general audience on the web

I am there to guide and nurture them, but instead of focusing on their shortcomings, I encourage what’s good about their writing.

Why focus on the positive?

Everyone who has ever had their writing critiqued in a traditional way carries psychological scar tissue that colors their writing. Writing, though necessary in business and academics, is an art. It comes from someplace more personal than the answer to a long division problem or remembering the cause of World War I. To be told that one’s writing is “wrong” is painful and results in negative feelings about writing.

When critiques focus on the positive, students are encouraged to do more of whatever is good in their writing. They are energized by success to find more success.

What if there is no positive?

Sometimes it’s very, very hard to find something good to say about student writing. But it’s worth delving as deep as possible to find encouragement. One student of mine was a very reluctant, poor writer. I had to struggle to find something good to say, but I pointed out that some sentences made me want to know more about what was happening. He responded by developing those sentences into full paragraphs. His writing blossomed. Within a month he was producing writing levels above his original pieces, and I could help him continue to improve by finding new positive points to encourage.

How will students fix the problems if we don’t point them out?

notebookThis is where it’s hard for me to shed the baggage of my own education. I had learned that no one will learn how to write a good paragraph unless we point out that they write bad ones. However, the reverse is actually true. In order to encourage positive development, I point out the very best a writer has produced (even when it’s quite poor). The writer works from her own level to build on her own successes.

I don’t completely ignore lessons in grammar, spelling, and writing structure. But in my classes, I separate these issues from the writing itself. It’s much more fun for students to savage a pretend piece of bad writing generated by me than their own work, which comes from their own souls.

What about preparing for college?

Once students are preparing to write for college or work, they need a different approach: Click here to read “Approaching Formal Writing”

My “Teaching Writing” series:

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