Category Archives: how to teach writing

Encourage complex thinking in little kids’ writing

Posted on September 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

When children start to write sentences, teachers and workbooks encourage simple sentences (sentences with one complete subject and one complete predicate).  Such a sentence might be “I am seven years old” or “My dog had pups yesterday.”

As students progress, teachers encourage compound sentences (two simple sentences connected with a FANBOYS—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so—conjunction).  Such sentences might be “I am seven years old but I can ride a bike” or “My dog had pups yesterday and I can name one.”

As students progress to a greater age, and in theory, to more complex thinking, teachers encourage complex sentences (two simple sentences connected in such a way that one sentence is clearly more important).  Such sentences could be “I am seven years old although I look older” or “My dog had pups yesterday while I slept.”

Teaching sentences this way presupposes that little children think in simple sentences, then gradually grow into thinking in compound sentences, and then as they mature more, think in complex sentences.

The problem is, this pairing of sentence types to maturity is a false correlation.  Have you ever listened to four- and five-year-olds speak?  “I want five candies because Johnny has five candies” (complex sentence).  “For Halloween, I want to be a princess with a long pink dress and a sparkly crown in my hair and maybe ballerina slippers” (simple sentence).  “She pushed me into the snow with a real hard push, the kind of push of a football player mad at the guy carrying the football.” (simple sentence)

These sentences in the previous paragraph contain complex thoughts (cause and effect, layered details, and a metaphor).  Yet only the first sentence is a complex sentence, and of the three, it is the least complex in thought.  The other two show far more complexity of thought, yet they are simple sentences.

The complexity of these sentences can be shown by boldfacing the simple subject and predicate, and by stacking the dependent ideas  above (if they are said first) and below (if they are said after the subject and predicate).  Notice how the two simple sentences show more layers (more complexity of thought) than the complex sentence.

I want five candies

because Johnny has five candies.

 

For Halloween

I want to be a princess

with a long pink dress

and a sparkly crown

in my hair

and maybe ballerina slippers

 

She pushed me

into the snow

with a real hard push

the kind of push

of a football player

mad

at the guy

carrying the football

 

My point:  Little children speak with complex ideas.  Encourage them to write with complex ideas too.

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Posted in complex sentence, compound sentence, expressing thoughts, FANBOYS, how to teach writing, metaphors, sentence structure, simple sentence, teaching writing

How to write a five-sentence essay introduction about a novel

Posted on March 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

Writing introductions to essays is hard for students.  Every single sentence in introductions is hard to write because students don’t know what belongs in those sentences.  Here are the kinds of first sentences I see from students writing an essay about a fictional story:

“I am writing about the book Gone with the Wind. The lady who wrote it was Margaret Mitchell.  The main idea is about a girl who lived during the Civil War.”

“The name of the book is Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Judy Blume wrote it, but Peter tells the story.  He tells about his brother Fudge.  Fudge is 3 and a pain in the neck.”

“Odysseus was a Greek king. He fought in the Trojan War.  Then he went home.  Only it took ten years to get home.  This is what The Odyssey is all about.  Homer wrote it.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a pattern students could follow?  Well, there is.  Here is what I suggest to my students:

For the first sentence, identify the book and its author and one other fact, such as the year of publication or the setting.  Here are some good examples:

  • Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell is set in Georgia during and after the Civil War.
  • In Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, author Judy Blume tells the story of an older brother, Peter, and his younger brother, Fudge.
  • The Greek poet, Homer, probably wrote The Odyssey about 2,700 years ago, but he wrote about things that happened 500 years before that.

For the second sentence, identify the setting (time and place).  Here are some examples:

  • Most of the novel takes place in Tara, a plantation near Atlanta, and in the city of Atlanta between 1861 and the early 1870s.
  • Peter and Fudge live in modern times in an apartment in New York City, near a park and subways.
  • After the Trojan War, a Greek king and his men sail in the Mediterranean Sea for many years, trying to get home.

For the third (and maybe fourth sentence) summarize the book.  Some examples are

  • The novel tells how one person, Scarlett O’Hara, survives the Civil War and the years after it while loving one man she can’t marry. Later, she realizes the man she married is the one she really loves.
  • Peter is embarrassed by the crazy things Fudge does, like pretending he is a bird, breaking off his two front teeth, and losing his shoe in the subway.
  • When the Greek king, Odysseus, finally arrives back in Greece, he needs to fight many Greek men who want to marry his wife.

Use the next sentence to transition from the previous sentences to the main idea sentence (the fifth sentence) of your essay.  For example,

  • Complicating the story is that the man Scarlett can’t marry loves someone else.
  • On the first page, Peter wins a turtle Fudge likes, and in the last chapter, Fudge finally gets the turtle. The turtle is an important character in the novel.
  • Since many years have passed since Odysseus left home, few recognize him. Of those closest to Odysseus, his wife and son do not recognize him, but his dog does.

Write your main idea or thesis in the final sentence of the essay.  Here are some examples:

  • Throughout Gone with the Wind, Scarlett’s chasing after the man she loves moves the plot forward.
  • Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing begins with Peter winning a turtle, and it ends with a crisis involving the turtle.
  • At the story’s end, Odysseus slays his rivals and wins the affection of his loyal wife, returning to the situation before the Trojan War began.

Notice that in these introduction sentences:

  • The word “I” is not used.
  • The first sentence uses a pattern: The (name of book) by (name of author) is set in (someplace) or tells the story of (something).
  • The other sentences use a pattern, too, a pattern identifying information to include.
  • The last sentence is the main idea (thesis) sentence of the essay.

After students master this pattern, they can experiment with changes to it.  You might think that following a pattern lacks creativity.  Yes, it does.  But since the pattern contains all the important details, it’s a safe way to proceed.  For students learning to write essays, following a pattern that works is better than floundering with details that don’t work or with missing details.

When we start baking a cake, we use a recipe.  When we become better bakers, we can make changes to the recipe.  When we learn to write, we follow patterns.  Later, when we become proficient, we can make changes to those patterns.

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Posted in essay introduction, how to teach writing, writing template

Two typical writing problems for middle schoolers and how a tutor overcomes them

Posted on January 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Problem 1:  A seventh grader is writing a narrative about the first day of the new semester.  She starts her story by recounting how her alarm rang.  Then, lying in bed, she worries about two new teachers she would meet that day.  Next, she writes that she goes downstairs, eats breakfast, dresses and takes the bus to school.  Once in school, she grabs her texts from her locker, talks to a friend,  heads to her first class, and meets one of her new teachers.

“Do you need that part about going downstairs, eating, taking the bus, and going to your locker?” I ask her.

“Well, yeah.  How else do I show that I go to school?”

“Could you write about waking up and being nervous to meet your new teacher, and then jump to the part where the teacher meets you, saying ‘Welcome to our math class, Cara.’?”

“No, because how will the readers know who is talking and that it is later that day?”

“Okay.  Could you say, ‘Cara, is it?’ my new teacher said as I walked in the classroom an hour later.”

“You mean I don’t need to say all the in-between stuff?”

“That’s right.”  I suggest she cut and paste her paragraphs about eating, riding the bus and going to her locker to the bottom of the narrative for now while she thinks more about it.

She does, hesitantly.  A little later, she deletes that part.  “I guess I don’t need it after all.”

Problem 2:  But I can’t write, “’Cara, is it?’” my new teacher said as I walked in the classroom an hour later” because it’s only one sentence, and every paragraph needs five sentences.”

“No, it doesn’t.  Look at any book and count the number of sentences in each paragraph.  Lots will have only one sentence, and others will have seven or ten or even a fragment.”

She picked up a book and opened it and counted sentences.  She closed the book.  “But then why do my teachers say I need to write five sentences in each paragraph?”

“That’s to encourage you to write more.”

“You mean there’s no rule?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

She left the one-sentence paragraph on her page, and followed it by another one-sentence paragraph.

* * * *

Sometimes working with a writing tutor means dispelling myths, like the five-sentence paragraph or needing to write a “before” to a story instead of jumping right in.  Sometimes working with a writing tutor means making mistakes repeatedly, like forgetting to use apostrophes or using texting abbreviations, and asking for help.  Sometimes working with a writing tutor means trying stylistic changes, like adding dialog or figurative language.  Sometimes working with a writing tutor means experimenting with vocabulary the student has not written before.

Do you know a student who could use one-on-one writing instruction?  Tell that student’s parent about me.  I tutor writing to students, second grade to high school,  online.  Together students and I plan, organize, write first drafts, and revise, noting why each step in the process is important.  Writing well is like playing the piano well or kicking a soccer ball well.  It takes practice.  And with a knowledgeable coach or tutor, a student improves faster.

 

 

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Posted in five sentence paragraph, how to teach writing, narrative writing, omitting unnecessary information, teaching writing, tutoring for writing

How to better use prewriting organizers

Posted on April 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

Organizing writing before the first sentence is written is a sure way for students to improve their writing.  Yet many students (most students?) don’t do it.  Why?  Some kids are in a hurry and don’t want to take the time to create an organizer.  Some kids don’t know how to create useful organizers.  Some kids think skipping an organizer won’t harm their writing.

What can teachers do to encourage students to create organizers and to use them?

Teachers could insist students use a prewriting organizer before writing a single sentence, and grade it or include it as part of the writing assignment grade.  For a given assignment, the teacher could reproduce several student prewriting organizers (and the teacher’s own prewriting organizer) for the class to analyze.  What ones are effective?  Why?  The teacher could ask students to compare those to their own organizers.  Then the teacher could ask students to improve their organizers before they write their essays.

Teachers could insist that students follow their organizers, and grade the essay, in part, on whether the organizer was followed.  Teachers could ask students to exchange organizers and essays before they are turned in for grades.  Classmates could alert students who have not followed the organizer.  Teachers could give those students more time to align their essays with their organizers.

Teachers could limit the kinds of organizers students use to

  • Either mindwebs or semiformal organizers for most informational and persuasive essays,
  • Either Venn diagrams or charts for comparison or contrasting information, or
  • Modified time lines for narratives.

Teachers could spend more time teaching how to use organizers without requiring the resulting essays.  Not every organizer needs to lead to an essay.

Teachers could provide exercises using poor organizers for students to analyze.  Students would need to identify why those organizers are poor and how they could be improved.

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Posted in analysis, comparison essay, essay writing, how to teach writing, narratives, persuasive essay, prewriting organizer

Where should a student start an essay?

Posted on March 31, 2019 | Leave a comment

If you are teaching children essay writing, at which point do you tell students to begin their writing?  With the hook?  With the introduction?  With the thesis?  Somewhere else?

Lately when my students start to write essays, I tell them to skip over the introduction completely for now except for its last sentence, the thesis.  That is where I tell them to begin.

Then I tell them to write the topic sentences of the body paragraphs.  After that, I tell them to fill in the body paragraphs with detailed sentences.  Then, after the student knows the contents of the body, I tell students to write their introductions at the top of one page and their conclusions at the bottom of that page, so the students can see them both together.

The first draft of an essay is put together something like this (after the student writes an organizer):

  • The thesis is written at the top of the notebook paper or computer document.
  • Under it is written the first body paragraph topic sentence. About 2/3 of the way down the notebook paper is written the second body paragraph topic sentence.  On the back top is written the third body paragraph topic sentence.  Half way down is written the fourth, if there is a fourth.  If the student is using a computer, these sentences can be written one beneath the other since inserting more material is easy.
  • At this point, I ask the students to check to see if each topic sentence supports the thesis. If not, this is the time to make it work.
  • Next, the students fill in the body paragraphs with details from their prewriting organizer, making sure that each detail supports the paragraph topic sentence.
  • Finally, on a separate notebook paper (or at the top of the essay), students compose the introduction with or without a hook.  Below it, the student composes the conclusion, trying as much as possible, to pick up some thread mentioned in the introduction.  If the student is using a computer, the student can move the conclusion to the end once he or she has compared it to the introduction.

At this point students can type a rough draft if they have worked on notebook paper, assembling the paragraphs in the correct order.  Once the essay is on computer, they can revise.

Students tell me that at school they are told to start writing essays with the hook.  I tell my students to skip right over that.  Why?  What I am looking for is not creativity but logic, the logic of topic sentences which support a thesis and paragraph details which support the topic sentences.  That is the meat of an essay, and that is what I see missing in students’ essays these days.  When that logic is established, the student can work on a creative (or not) introduction and a conclusion which dovetails with that introduction.

 

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Posted in adding details, conclusions, essay conclusions, essay introduction, essay thesis, essay writing, first drafts, full circle conclusions, hooks, how to teach writing, organizing information, teaching writing, thesis, writing tips