Category Archives: practice writing skills

The new SAT writing essay is an improvement

Posted on October 12, 2016 | Leave a comment

Big changes have come to the SAT essay.

  • It’s optional, not required any more.
  • You have 50 minutes, not 25, to complete it.
  • It’s based on a reading passage, not an out-of-the-blue idea.
  • It will be judged on three criteria: your understanding of the reading passage, your ability to analyze the reading passage, and your writing skills.

It’s still not easy, but it’s certainly more like the writing students do in college.  Often college students need to read a book or a journal article and write a response to it.  Students need to show that they understand what the reading is about, that they can analyze the thinking that went into the passage, and that they can do so in clear, sophisticated English.  Rarely are college students ever offered a philosophical problem with no warning and no preparation, and rarely too are they asked to respond with an essay in one sitting.

The old, 25-minute limit was ridiculous.  Planning a response was reduced to three minutes; writing was limited to 20 minutes; and checking for errors lasted about two minutes, or more often, not at all.  When I work with students on writing anything we spend significant time on planning, developing details and ordering the paragraphs.  You can’t do that in three minutes.  And for most of the writing college students do they have overnight or longer to provide a response.  Good writers put their writing down, take a walk or a hot shower, and then return to the writing inspired.  At least with the new SAT there is breathing room.

Even though the reading selection might contain highfalutin vocabulary, you don’t need to understand every single word to get the gist of a reading selection and to analyze it.  The reading passage is long enough and contains enough persuasive arguments that the student can readily understand it with a strong high school vocabulary.

And the essay is optional.  For students who can write, this is their chance to prove it, adding another way to impress college admission officers.  For students who can’t write well, their lack of skill will show in the multiple choice section of the writing test.

Google the new SAT writing test to find websites offering greater perspective on the change.  See if you agree that the change has improved the test.

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Posted in citing evidence, Including details in writing, persuasive essay, practice writing skills, prewriting organizer, revising first drafts, SAT, SAT essay

How to use vocabulary workbooks as the basis for writing lessons

Posted on September 27, 2016 | Leave a comment

Teachers and tutors, do you want to save time and get double or triple use from the same source?  Use your students’ vocabulary workbook to teach writing.

EPSON MFP imageMany of my  students use the Wordly Wise 3000 series (which I recommend).  It has 20 lessons per booklet, one booklet per grade, first through twelfth.  In each lesson is an annotated list of new vocabulary words plus exercises using the words.

Like other vocabulary building series, each lesson also has a reading selection in which each new vocabulary word is used.  These reading selections are followed by many questions asking the student to use one of the new vocabulary words in a complete sentence answer.

But other ways to use the vocabulary and reading selections augment their original purpose and make them valuable as writing tools.  Here are some I have used.

  • Summarizing.  I teach students to underline the most important or key words in each paragraph.  Next, I show how to analyze each paragraph and to write an identification in the margin next to the paragraph.  Those phrases might be “dodo bird’s appearance,” “raising $ for Statue of Liberty base,” or “Renaissance dates and definition.”  Then, using the underlines and margin information, I teach the student to write a summary of each paragraph in about one or two sentences.  When he is done, he has a good summary of the reading selection.
  • Paraphrasing.  Taking one sentence at a time, I ask students to rewrite the sentence, keeping the meaning but changing the sentence structure and, where possible, the vocabulary.
  • Writing RACE responses.  I write a question based on the article.  Then I ask the student to respond using the RACE format (Repeat the question, Answer the question, Cite part of the article used as evidence, and Elaborate on that evidence with more evidence).
  • Writing sentences using new vocabulary words.  So many times students can define a word but they cannot use it properly in a sentence. I ask them to write sentences using vocabulary words. This shows their weakness in understanding certain words and helps me to explain the words better to them.
  •  Writing paragraphs using new vocabulary words.  I ask students to write each new word in a coherent paragraph or two. Writing a paragraph takes more skill than writing independent sentences.  Not only does the student need to know how to use the word, but he needs to know its noun, adjective and verb forms and whether it is the best word in a given situation.  Forming a coherent whole takes imagination and hard work.
  • Writing narratives.  Put a person or animal into the nonfiction situation in the reading passage and write about it. What if you were a dodo bird encountering your first human being?  What if you were a Cherokee forced to say good-bye to your land in North Carolina and trek toward the unknown?  What if you were Leonardo’s apprentice, entrusted to carry the rolled up canvas of the Mona Lisa from Florence to France?

If you are teaching children to write, you know that coming up with a writing topic is tedious.  But by using the reading selections from the vocabulary workbooks, the subject matter is identified, the student has prior knowledge, and the vocabulary words are identified.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

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Posted in narrative writing, paraphrasing, practice writing skills, summarizing, vocabulary building

When a student writes one or more paragraphs which don’t belong and need to be cut, what is the best approach?

Posted on September 13, 2016 | Leave a comment

The student has put time and effort into his writing, but part of that writing doesn’t work.

Child writing

  • Maybe it’s irrelevant information. The child has lost his focus and is heading down an interesting but off-topic route.  You can see this, but he can’t.
  • Maybe the words repeat. The child says the same idea he already said  and the repetition is not needed.
  • Maybe the sentences are something the student needs to write to get going. (I woke up in the morning and then I went to the bathroom and then I got dressed and ate breakfast, and we got on the plane and we flew to Las Vegas.  Ah Las Vegas!)  Everything that happens getting to Las Vegas has to be written by the student in order to start her writing, but it’s not what the essay is about and needs to be cut.

 

How does a teacher or parent show that words need to be cut without breaking the child’s heart?  Here’s my approach.

  • First I ask the student to read his writing aloud. I might ask him to show me where the “off topic” section is on his prewriting organizer.  He might notice it’s not there.  I say that I think the reason it’s not there is because it’s not  what he planned to focus on.  My goal here is to get the student to agree with my analysis.
  • I suggest that certain sentences probably should be saved for another essay. By saying they should be saved, I am allowing the student to save face as well as to think that all his work has not been in vain.  Usually the student says nothing.  Then I lightly, with a regular pencil, draw a big box around the words which I think should be removed, explaining what I am doing.  I do not cross out the words.  I don’t draw the box in ink or even in dark pencil.  I make it all seem tentative at first and able to be erased if the student disagrees.  My goal is to gain the student’s trust but not to force him to delete.
  • Next I ask the student to read the parts not boxed and see if they work without the boxed parts. Usually they do, but sometimes transitions might be needed.  If the box is the beginning of the essay, sometimes a new introduction needs to be written.  I ask the student to verbally say how the remaining parts can be connected if we leave out the boxed parts.  Usually the student has good ideas.  Usually he writes the new parts or the transitions between the lines or in the margins.
  • It’s important to evaluate the student’s body language through this process.  If he becomes a stone, or if he is barely able to talk, don’t press him.  Sometimes I say, let’s think about this until next lesson, okay?  And then I move the paper away and go to a different part of the lesson–a BINGO vocabulary review, for example.  My goal here is to maintain the student’s trust and to give him time to adjust his thinking.
  •  At the end of the lesson the box is still there, untouched.  The boxed writing is the student’s writing and he or she must decide whether it  stays or goes.

Did you ever see the film, All the President’s Men?  One reporter grabs the copy of another reporter and revises it without permission.  The original writer of the copy goes ballistic.  It’s the same thing when a teacher or parent changes a child’s copy without the child’s permission.  We need to respect the child and give him or her time to come around to our way of thinking.  And sometimes the child doesn’t.  That’s okay too.

 

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Posted in clarity, cutting out words or paragraphs, practice writing skills, revising first drafts

How to encourage the addition of more details by students

Posted on August 24, 2016 | Leave a comment

Sometimes students balk at writing more details when they have finished their first drafts.  They think they have already included plenty of details when more details would enhance the writing.

To encourage the student to write more details, on a separate piece of paper I rewrite one of the student’s sentences needing more details and suggest we go back and forth–first me, then the student–adding details.  Here are some examples.

The student originally writes, “We walked back to the pool.”  I add, “In our flipflops and bathing suits,” to the beginning of that sentence.  “Well, of course we wore our bathing suits,” says my student, so he crosses out “and our bathing suits.”  But he adds, “In our flipflops we walked to the outside pool entrance.”

Another sentence the student originally writes is, “My cousin, Johnny, picked up a glass and cut his fingers.”  This time the student starts the additions by adding “soda” to “glass.”  I ask which fingers.  He crosses out “fingers” and adds “thumb and index finger.”  But then without my asking him to, he continues. “My cousin, Johnny, picked up a soda glass and cut his thumb and index fingers.  You could see the fat and blood.  My uncle drove him in a taxi to the hospital emergency room.  My uncle sent a picture to my aunt, showing Johnny doing a pose in his bandage.”  What a difference!

Another sentence my student writes is, “We walked to the gift shop.” Before I could add details, he added “to get rocky road ice cream because it was 100 degrees F.”

Why did this exercise work?  By pulling the sentences out of the student’s own work and isolating them, it was easy for the student to see the plainness of the sentences.  By my offering to write some of the additional phrases, the work seemed more like a game, and he was willing to play along.

Were we working on a computer, we could have swiped the new sentences and replaced the plainer ones, making the work even easier.

 

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Posted in composing text on computer, Including details in writing, practice writing skills, revising first drafts

I want my kids to write more this summer. Any ideas?

Posted on June 5, 2016 | Leave a comment

Yes.  First, I would let the children know that they will be writing every day this summer.  Give them time to get used to this idea.  And tell them you will be writing too.  Every assignment they do, you will do too.  Your commitment shows them how important you think writing is.

EPSON MFP image

Set up a schedule for writing time and stick to it.  Some kids think summer should be a completely unscheduled time.  Dispel this myth.  Let them know that at a certain hour every day they and you will write.

If the children have a computer or tablet available, let them use it.  This will make the idea of writing daily more palatable.  (But check to be sure they are writing and not surfing or gaming.)  Research shows writers write better when they use electronic equipment, perhaps because of the ease of erasing, moving around phrases and looking up synonyms and spelling.  If you have only one such device, stagger the writing times.

Since finding a topic to write about day after day will be a problem for your children, you decide on topics ahead of time.  You know your children’s interests and experiences.  You know what they have studied in school, what hobbies they enjoy, what trips they have taken.  These are excellent topics for writing.

Insist the children create some kind of prewriting organizer for each writing assignment.  Insist too that it be detailed.  Let the children know you want to see the organizers before they begin their first drafts, and that you will show them yours.  Monday’s writing assignment could be to develop such an organizer.  Together discuss the problems and benefits of creating an organizer.

Tuesday’s assignment could be writing the first draft.  Since knowing how to begin is often a problem, help your children.  Make suggestions to one another.  Let them help you too.  Let them see you as a learner in the writing process.  Prod the child to begin, even if the beginning isn’t great.  It can be improved later.  Allow errors and mediocrity at this point.  It’s better for the writer to get into a “flow” state of mind and to continue than to stop and start to fix errors.

Wednesday’s assignment could be to write a conclusion and to begin to revise.  If the child has trouble writing a conclusion, suggest possibilities.  Then, read aloud your draft and self-correct as you go along letting the child hear how it is done.  Ask each child to read aloud his or her draft, and let him fix the errors he hears.  Suggest places that are skimpy or confusing.  Insist that the children add more details, such as proper nouns, numbers, dates, sensory information, and for examples.

Thursday’s assignment could be to continue revising.  Identify verbs and strengthen them.  Identify sentence beginnings and vary them.  Identify lengths of sentences and vary them.  Older children could identify types of sentences used and vary them.   Final drafts should be completed and printed by the end of Thursday’s writing time, or if revision takes a long time, have the children prepare their final drafts at the beginning of Friday’s writing time.

Friday’s assignment could be to evaluate each piece of writing.  Use two columns marked “Did well” and “Needs improvement.”  Start with the “Did well” column, listing things the child did well, like sticking to one idea, organizing, adding humor, writing dialog, writing clearly, using capital letters—anything which will give the child confidence.  In the “Needs improvement” column, ask the child what he or she thinks needs improvement.  Maybe limit comments to the two areas the child thinks he needs to improve the most, such as run-on sentences, using direct quotes, spelling it’s and its or remembering to use periods.

On Friday also you could agree on Monday’s topic.  If the kids need to think about it or do research, they can do that over the weekend.  Let the children suggest topics.  The more they control the process, the more willing they will be  to participate.

Lastly, hang up the finished final printed drafts on the refrigerator or someplace where they can be admired.

(If you need information on any of these parts of the process, scroll back through these blogs.  Any blog might make a good mini-lesson.)

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Posted in clarity, composing text on computer, conclusions, essay introduction, flow, Including details in writing, Introductions, practice writing skills, prewriting organizer, publishing student writing, revising first drafts