Try journal writing with your child to improve mechanics, grammar and vocabulary

Posted on October 25, 2015 | Leave a comment

Many teachers ask their students to write in journals daily for a few minutes. Often it is at the start of the writing lesson, while the teacher readies herself for the lesson.

But journal writing needn’t be restricted to the classroom. Journal writing during homework time can achieve many of the same results as writing during the school day.

  • boy writing on a window benchStudents can improve the mechanics of their writing. Capitalization, punctuation, use of apostrophes, use of quotation marks—all can improve through regular journal writing. When the child has completed her five or ten minutes of journal writing, the parent can remind the child to check if her sentences begin with capitals or if she has remembered to spell there/their/they’re correctly. This reminder can be given for a week, and then the next week the reminder can be about another aspect of writing which the child is learning.
  • By writing daily in a journal, the child can gain confidence using certain kinds of writing, such as dialog, extended sentences, or prepositional phrases. Before the child begins her journal writing homework, the parent could say that she wants the child to begin each sentence with a prepositional phrase or to include dialog in her writing. Later, the parent could ask the child to check that the end-of-sentence period is inside the quotation marks.
  • child writing in sleeping bagIf the child allows the parent to read the journal, the child could be encouraged to write a question mark or even a question to the parent asking about something she has tried to write. For example, the child might have tried to use a new vocabulary word, and might want to know if she used it correctly or spelled it correctly. The parent could write a note in the journal to let her know if she succeeded, establishing a dialog between a beginning writer and a more experienced writer.
  • In her journal, the child might relate a private thought which she might not have the confidence to say aloud. She might write about a bullying situation or a curse word used by a classmate. Journals can open discussions about sensitive issues.
  • Sometimes the parent might suggest an open-ended sentence to write about. “If I saw my brother doing something unsafe, like ________, I would. . .” or “The reason I don’t like ________  is because . . .”

To encourage a child to write in a journal, the parent might say that she is going to write in a journal at the same time. The parent might read aloud her journal entry or might say, “Not tonight,” providing the child with permission not to share her writing. Or the parent might give the child her journal entry to read aloud or privately.

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Posted in English Writing Instruction

Students should use more proper nouns to add details

Posted on October 18, 2015 | Leave a comment

One easy way to add details to writing is to add proper nouns.   Yet children don’t recognize the advantage.

When children write, details such as names are clear in their minds. If they know that “we” stands for Mom, Dad and Louisa, they think the reader will too. Children are so self-centered that they forget to put themselves in the shoes of readers. They need to be reminded that readers don’t know all that the writer knows, so the writer needs to be more specific.

Here is an example of part of a fourth grader’s essay. The part in black is the essay as the student wrote it (with names changed). The part in blue is the same information with proper nouns and more details added by me.

Three months ago I finished fourth grade which I liked because of my teachers and my classes.

In May I finished fourth grade at School 18. I liked fourth grade because of my teachers, Ms. Perkins and Mr. Howard.

We had two teachers, Ms. Perkins, my math, science, and social studies teacher, and Mr. Howard, my reading and language arts teacher. Ms. Perkins didn’t give much homework, but she gave us a project for social studies. Out of all subjects, she taught me math the most. Mr. Howard, a really good teacher, used to play ball with us at recess.

Ms. Perkins taught Room 104 math, science, and social studies, and Mr. Howard taught us reading and language arts. Ms. Perkins didn’t give homework on Thursdays and Fridays, but she gave us a project about a person from the Revolutionary War. I researched Paul Revere and his ride to Lexington. Out of all subjects, she taught me math the most, including division, long division, decimals, area and perimeter. Mr. Howard, a really good teacher, used to play basketball with us at recess. He’s as good as Lebron James!

Which held your interest more?

Adding proper nouns isn’t hard.  Here are some ways.

  • Replace pronouns with names of particular people and places.  After you replace the name with a pronoun, reuse the name especially in a new paragraph.
  • Make up names if you are not sure or if the name doesn’t matter.  If you can’t remember the restaurant’s name, make one up.  If you can’t remember the tour director’s name, make one up.  If you can’t remember the name of the college your sister attends, make one up.  For most writing by children, absolute honesty is not important.  Writing well is.
  • Compare a particular person, for example, a little brother, to a famous person, for example, Dennis the Menace.
  • Use the names of books, movies, video games and board games instead of common nouns.
  • Add days of the week, months and holiday names.

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Posted in proper nouns

Write to learn

Posted on October 11, 2015 | Leave a comment

Why do we write?  We express ourselves, we show what we know, we communicate with others, we have fun–the reasons vary.  But one of the most important, though often overlooked reasons, is that we write to learn.girl with pony tail on floor writing

Recently I worked with a high school student who was required to read Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, a memoir about the author’s miserable childhood.

However, my student not only needed to read the text but she needed to write about it using this approach:

  • On her computer (she could have used notebook paper), she created two columns. The first was labeled “Direct quote and page number” and the second was labeled “My response.”
  • For each chapter in the book, she was required to find one quote that identified the main point of that chapter. In the left column, she rewrote that quote  and its page number. In the right column she wrote a personal response to that quote. She did the same for all the chapters of the book.

“This assignment is probably to prove to the teacher that I read it,” she said to me. True, but this combination of reading and writing also helped her learn.

  • The student needed to analyze each chapter for its main idea or theme. She had to compress all those words of text and evaluate which idea seemed to dominate.
  • The student needed to find a quote that exemplifies the theme of each chapter. This called for understanding the text and evaluating one quote’s worthiness compared to another quote’s worthiness.
  • The student needed to use her emotional intelligence to offer a personal response. She knew that other students might choose the same quote. She needed to offer an insight that was uniquely hers.
  • And later, during a verbal discussion of the text or a written test, this writing assignment would probably make the student more confident. She had thought through the main ideas and was able to put forward an educated understanding.

Many research studies show a positive  correlation between writing about a text and understanding it. Writing is not the only way to improve reading comprehension, but it is a proven good way.

For more information about this learning strategy, see The Read, Respond, Revisit, Discus Strategy (Hurst, Fisk, & Wilson, 2006)

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Posted in write to read better

Creating paragraphs using a list of vocabulary words

Posted on October 4, 2015 | Leave a comment

Sometimes teachers assign students to create a paragraph or two using vocabulary words they are learning in class. This can be a worthwhile writing assignment. Here’s why.

  • Many times students know the meaning(s) of a word, but they cannot use the word properly in sentences. ESL students, especially, need work in usage. They might not know the part of speech a word is, or the past participle of a word if it is a verb, or  if a word needs to be followed by a preposition and if so which preposition.  Students need practice using words and getting feed back on how the words  are used.Student writing and thinking
  • ESL students (as well as some native English speakers) also need work in coherence, this is, putting words in the proper order to make sense. They need to know if the word they are using is a noun which might be used as a subject and go early in the sentence, or if it is an adverb which might go just about anywhere. They might not consciously think, “Is exploit a noun?” but they need to listen in their minds to hear if it sounds right where they are placing it. This takes practice.
  • Almost all students need practice spelling new vocabulary words. Spelling as a separate subject is not taught once students reach middle grades, yet students still need to repeat spelling words in order to make the spelling stick. They get that practice when they write the vocabulary words in sentences.
  • Creating a group of related sentences using particular words takes thought. Students use higher level thinking skills when they apply a word to a situation. They might consider using a word in a particular sentence and then discard the sentence because they realize it doesn’t fit the meaning of the paragraph.

Here is an example of an ESL fifth grader’s use of vocabulary words in a situation based on a life experience.  Her vocabulary words are underlined.

Hannah, 12, and her younger brother, Harry, 9, arrived here two days ago when my idle summer of ease ended. Eric is an immense problem to everyone except Steven (my kin). He flails his arms when he can’t play Wii, making us uneasy. Our guest is addicted to technology such as the Wii, computer and T.V. Affecting us with his boisterous personality, he makes it hard for me to be tolerant.

Hannah, his sister and a former friend of mine from Taiwan, does not provoke me; instead her delightful personality captivates my time. Because she deserves a major break, I am gratified that she has come to visit us. I feel partially happy that they flew here.

To worry about the disaster that her brother will make is senseless; instead I will focus on having a sensational time with Hannah.

Here is a similar assignment by the same student when she was a ninth grader.

The fear of not meeting my own expectations intensified until I felt paralyzed. I had an aversion to enroll in complicated classes in dread of failing. I loathed doing anything with my sister because she always managed to do it better than I did, whether it be tennis, ice skating, swimming, or academic classes. She sprinted like Usain Bolt. On our high school swim team, she kicked like Michael Phelps, double lapping me. Would I ever achieve what my sister had? The question plagued me. The burdensome feeling of fear weighed on my shoulders like the world pressing on Atlas’s shoulders.

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Posted in ESL, vocabulary building

Direct quotes bring writing to life

Posted on September 28, 2015 | Leave a comment

Child writingAdding more details to writing almost always enhances it. One kind of detail students should be encouraged to use is direct quotes.

Direct quotes can be conversation between two or more people. Direct quotes can be the inner thoughts of a person. Direct quotes can be onomatopoeia sounds that a person hears—a dog’s bark, a siren or a plane’s engine.

But most children don’t use direct quotes.  They use indirect quotes. For example, they write, “Joyce said that I could come to her party,” instead of Joyce said, “Why don’t you come to my party?” With indirect quotes readers do not hear exact words or sounds. Instead they hear the words or sounds filtered through the mind of the narrator.

Is there a meaningful difference? Definitely! Suppose you hear the screeching of tires and the thud of a car crash with your own ears. You become hyperalert, perhaps scared. You might feel a chill ripple through you. But suppose your friend tells you about an accident near her home. She tells you there were awful sounds and she was scared. In the first instance, you are there. You are hearing the sounds yourself and the impact is palpable. In the second instance, the events are second hand. You are not hearing the sounds yourself.  The impact is weak.

When we write we want to let readers experience as much as possible through their own senses, not through a character’s or a narrator’s. One way to put readers into a situation is to use direct quotes. Let’s look at how some students have used direct quotes.

Here a sixth grader uses the exact words of a teacher. The student could have written, “The teacher said the cookies tasted good.” But isn’t hearing the exact words of the teacher better?

Today we presented our cookies to Mrs. Smith, and she eyed them carefully. She took a bite, and her face lit up. “Why, this cookie beats every cookie I’ve tasted,” she bellowed. “Can you make me these again?”

Next, we hear the thoughts and the shouting of a child written by a fifth grader.

I woke up in the morning, running down the stairs, feeling grown up. I’m turning seven!

“Mom! Dad! Mom? Dad?” I ran upstairs and downstairs, searching all rooms. “Where is everybody?” I thought. “Did they forget my birthday?” Two thousand questions about my birthday ran in my head!

I wondered if my parents were in the garden. I rushed upstairs, changed my clothes, ran downstairs, and opened the door. Where was everybody?

“Mom! Dad!” Silence. “Mom? Dad?” Still silence.

Another fifth grader wrote about a boy who cared for a baby dragon.

Weeks later when the dragon was bigger than Cody and had grown wings, Cody said, “We have to get out of here. I’m endangering the entire village.”

“Yes, you’re right. We do,” the dragon said.

“You can talk. Whoa! Listen, it’s getting late. I better get home,” Cody said.

As Cody entered the village, a mystic traveler was listing dragon names. One name caught his attention: Phoenixheart. Suddenly Cody sprinted to where his dragon was. “Your name is Phoenixheart.”

“Cool name, but I have something to admit. I can’t actually speak. I’m just forming words in your mind,” Phoenixheart said.

Did you notice how we, the readers, learn that the dragon speaks at the same moment that the boy does.  We are there, hearing the conversation with our own ears.

Next, a fourth grader tells about his birthday party. His direct quotes are short, but notice how real they sound.

We played tag in the downstairs hall, but it didn’t last long because my mom yelled, “That’s enough!” After that, we played magnetic darting. When everyone kept hitting the hall wall, my dad said, “Go outside and play.”

Finally, a first grader shows that even seven-year-olds can use direct quotes effectively as she summarizes a book she read.

One day Nate the great was in his garden weeding when Oliver the pest came over. 

“I have lost a weed,” said Oliver. 

“No problem,” said Nate the great.  “You may have all of my weeds.” 

“But this was my weed,” said Oliver the pest.  “I bought it at Rosamond’s adopt-a-weed sale for a nickel.  It’s name is Superweed.  It is small and scraggly,” said Oliver. 

“Very well, I will take your case,” said Nate the great.

Once kids see how powerful direct quotes are, they want to use them all the time.

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Posted in dialog in writing, narrative writing