Add figurative language to not only increase sensory details but style.

Posted on December 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

Many students forget to use figurative language in their writing even though on most of the rubrics used to evaluate student writing, figurative language is included in the section marked “style.”

What kinds of figurative language are easy to insert?

Alliteration means the repetition of a particular consonant sound as in “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Students can be intimidated by alliteration because they think they need to use every word beginning with the same sound. Two words beginning with the same consonant sound is usually enough, and those words don’t need to be consecutive. For example,

My little brother, Fred, was nearly frozen with fear.

I dreamed about a dreary day in December.

My mother made mashed potatoes on Monday.

After a student has written a rough draft, and after he has examined his writing for clarity, verbs and sentence openings, I help him introduce alliteration. I find words beginning with consonants that might be easy to modify with an adjective or with a prepositional phrase. Together we think up adjectives that begin with the same letter as the noun, such as a large linden tree or a cherry-flavored chocolate bar. Or, if the writing is fiction, we might change names (John F. Kennedy School becomes John Jefferson School). Or we might add to a name to provide alliteration (Mary becomes Mary Margaret).

Similes are comparisons using like (my cat seems like a tiger) or as. . .as (my cat is as fierce as a tiger). Students come up with similes easily when they are reminded to do so, but many times the similes they choose have nothing to do with the ideas being expressed.

For example, a student might describe his sticky buns “as sticky as a stamp on an envelope.” True, both are sticky, but the buns are a delicious food and the stamp is a piece of paper. Instead, I ask the student to identify another delicious food that is sticky. “My sticky buns are as sticky as peanut butter on my teeth.” Or, “My sticky buns are as sticky as taffy on my braces.” These provide closer analogies and so they work better as similes.

Poor example:  He ate as fast as a rollercoaster.

Better example:  He ate as fast as a steam shovel.

Even better:  He ate as fast as an out-of-control fire.

You might think hyperbole would be easy for a student to use, but it is not. Hyperbole is the extreme exaggeration of an idea to the point of absurdity. “I ate three large pizzas last night” could be hyperbole if eating three large pizzas is clearly impossible for that child, but “I ate 23 large pizzas last night” is clearly hyperbole. “I had five hours of homework last night” might not be hyperbole, but “I have enough homework to last me until I am 70 years old” is clearly hyperbole.

Poor example:  My great-grandmother can remember the Great Depression.

Better example:  My great-grandmother voted for George Washington.

Usually students don’t exaggerate enough. They might write, “I ate a whole pizza last night,” or “I studied for four hours for that test.” Together we strategize about what is possible but unlikely (not hyperbole) and what is clearly impossible (hyperbole).

We also talk about the tone of the student’s writing. Hyperbole works well in humorous writing but it sometimes changes the mood of a more serious piece. If that is the case, I suggest the student use another form of figurative speech.

More on other figures of speech in the next blog.

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More about how to add details to improve writing

Posted on December 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

Let’s talk more about how students can add details.

Proper nouns are usually easy to add. If the student mentions his school, ask her to write the full name of the school. If the student mentions her home, ask her to mention the city and state. If the student mentions her teacher, ask her to name her teacher.

However, some students don’t want to reveal this information, especially if it will be published. (More on how to publish in a later blog.) When I tell them to make up the information, they think this is lying and are reluctant to do it, especially younger children. I explain that they are doing a writing exercise, and that renaming is perfectly ethical in a situation like ours. But expect resistance.

Numbers can be easy to add. How many friends threw snowballs? How many snowballs did you throw? How many minutes did you throw snowballs? Children tend to write “a few” or “lots” expecting the reader to know what they mean. They assume the information inside their own heads is available to the reader.

Dates, time of day, seasons—these are usually easy to add, but someone has to remind the student to add them.

Sensory feelings, smells, sounds, and tastes–Students describe what they see but often forget to describe reactions by their other senses—how cold the snow feels, how fragrant the hot chocolate smells, or how coming in from a cold day fogs their glasses.

Size and color are usually given by the student, but in a bland way. “Blue” can mean many shades of color. I help the student by looking up synonyms in a thesaurus or by writing a simile—blue as the ocean on a cloudless day.

Getting inside someone’s head helps the reader understand motivation, but students seldom explain, assuming everyone understands. “My brother hit me with a snowball. So I threw one back at him.” Why did you throw it back? What part of his body were you trying to hit? Were you mad at him or were both of you having fun? Ask the student to let the reader hear what she is thinking.

Adding dialog is like adding great action verbs. It brings writing alive. Dialog is not hard to add if the student thinks about it. Instead of “My brother and I decided to have a snowball fight,” how about this: “Hey, let’s see who can hit that tree the most,” my brother said. I said “Sure,” and began packing snowballs. The information is the same, but with dialog, the reader is better informed and more emotionally connected to the writing.

Feelings are important to add if there are characters. Even though a character might be flying a space ship over Mars, the reader can identify with the character when his fear or exhilaration are explained.

Adding examples can quickly make the reader understand a difficult concept. “The heavy rain soaked the ground. For example, the iris roots were covered with an inch of water where the roof drained near them.” Or “My little cousin says words funny. For example, she says “dog-EEE” when she sees a dog” and “No, no yuck” when she sees the dog’s dish of food.”

We’ll talk about more about adding figurative language in the next blog. It is another way to add detail to writing and to improve the style of writing..

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Add details to improve the number of words per sentence and to improve sentence structure.

Posted on December 11, 2014 | Leave a comment

Adding more details has the effect of adding more words to an essay. More importantly, it changes a general, humdrum essay into a specific, interesting essay. If the number of sentences stays the same, then the number of words per sentence increases, usually a good outcome for children who tend to write tiny sentences.Add Details graphicUntil they work with me, many students think that adding more details means adding more adjectives. Not so. When I say details, here is what I mean:

  • Proper nouns—Give names to common nouns already in the essay, or add names.
  • Numbers—Use specific amounts of items, not “some” or “a lot.”
  • Dates, time of day, time of year, year, season
  • Sensory details—Identify and describe smells, sounds, tastes, textures, and sights.
  • Sizes, shapes, colors, amounts.
  • Thoughts and opinions of the characters or the writer, if appropriate
  • Dialog—Let the reader hear characters talking instead of using indirect quotes.
  • Feelings of a character, including the narrator. These are often overlooked, yet it is through feelings that readers connect with characters.
  • Similes, metaphors, hyperbole and other figures of speech.
  • Examples—probably the most important kind of details.

One way to shake up an older student’s writing is to ask him to add each of these kinds of details (if appropriate) to a single essay. Or pick a number—five, for example—and let the student choose which kind of details to use. Some details are easier for the student to add by herself; others will take teacher modeling.
More on each of these kinds of details in the next blog.

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What is the right age to start a child writing essays? Is first grade too young?

Posted on December 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

3rd grader writing an essay.For 20 years I have tutored children in how to write. Only one rising first grader and two children already in first grade were ready to write essays. Essays require thoughtful organization for which most first graders don’t have the patience or organizational skills. They want to jump right in without planning.

What qualities do I look for in students ready to write essays?

  • Children who already write long narratives—the fronts and backs of notebook paper. Sometimes this is the sign of a gifted child who is more advanced than her peers in writing skills.
  • Children who can read at a third grade level or better. Through their reading, these children have encountered lots of writing which subconsciously will influence their style, vocabulary and topics.
  • Children with strong vocabulary skills. During a writing class, students will hear new words, or will hear words used in new ways. Liking to work with words is a sign that students are ready for essay writing.
  • Children who can spell well (not perfectly) with more correct spelling than phonetic spelling. A writing lesson is not a spelling lesson.
  • Children who speak English well, using words and grammar correctly. Writing lessons include fixing up grammar errors, but in general, the student’s command of English grammar and usage should be good. A writing lesson is not a grammar lesson.
  • Children who can focus for up to an hour. Many skills come together during writing classes—holding a pencil, forming letters and words, organizing thoughts, spelling, finding synonyms in a thesaurus, listening to a teacher’s instructions, sitting (or standing) for most of an hour, and asking questions. Writing is a process, not a single skill, and parts of the process are best worked on while the ideas are flowing, so the child needs to be able to hang in there.
  • Children willing to take direction. I have taught talented first graders who had all the above qualities but they were not willing to listen to my suggestions or to follow my directions. Children need maturity to begin essay writing.

Third grade is a good time to start essay writing for some children. For others, fourth grade is better. During kindergarten, first and second grade, students can focus on writing sentences or paragraphs. They can also learn from reading with an adult. You can point out to your child why a certain sentence sounds good, or how a writer gets the child’s attention. You can point out how a certain character in a book sounds like a child because of the words she uses or the way she uses them, while an adult sounds differently.

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Combine sentences to improve the number of words per sentence and to improve sentence structure.

Posted on November 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

In addition to eliminating sentences, combining two or more sentences usually reduces the number of total words in an essay; it also reduces the number of sentences. This causes the number of words per sentence to rise slightly.

I ask students to combine sentences without using “and,” “but,” and “so” to avoid adding more compound sentences to the essay. Students can easily combine sentences, but they cannot easily combine them without using coordinating conjunctions. I work with students on using subordinate conjunctions, relative pronouns, and gerund and participle phrases.

Combining sentences in an essay by a six grader.

Here are revisions that combine sentences about a swim meet by a sixth grader:

Students start by figuring out the number of words in each sentence and writing those numbers in the margins of their essays next to the sentences. Students look for small numbers indicating short sentences. Usually, but not always, the short sentences need to be next to each other in order to combine them. Always they need to be in the same paragraph.

When the student finds a short sentence, he reads nearby sentences to see if the two sentences can be combined. Not all neighboring sentences can be combined. They need to be close in topic, or show some kind of relationship—a cause and effect, a sequence, or a dialog by the same person, for example. If the sentences seem related, the students and I discuss how they could be combined. Beginning writing students almost always suggest “and,” “but” and “so,” since these are the connecting words they normally use (and the words their school teachers suggest).

When I suggest alternatives, I need to keep in mind what will sound normal to a student of a particular age. What improvements I can suggest to a younger student, or to an ESL student are often more limited than what I can suggest to an older or more widely read student.

“Sometimes my little sister asks a silly question. I say a silly answer and she laughs at me.” How can these eight and ten-word sentences, respectively, be combined? I might suggest adding the word “when” after the word “sometimes.” “Sometimes when my little sister asks a silly question, I say a silly answer and she laughs at me.” For a younger student, combining a simple sentence with a compound sentence to form a complex-compound sentence is a big improvement in sentence structure. It also produces a 19-word sentence that sounds normal to a third grader’s ear.

How about this example? “First, snowball fighting. We had the fight in our front yard. I was the one who made perfectly round snowballs.” The third-grader who wrote this fragment followed by two tiny sentences changed them to “First, my brothers and I had a snowball fight in our front yard where I made perfectly round snowballs.”

In our next blog we’ll talk about another way to revise sentences: adding more details in order to increase the number of words per sentence and to improve sentence structure.

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