x-post SWB middle grade to high school writing

[choirfarm]

Ok, I listened to the tapes once a couple of weeks ago. Then yesterday I listened to the two talks about middle school and high school writing and took notes. One thing I just don't understand is the huge jump. I guess I just don't understand how they are supposed to make it.

 

By 8th grade they should be doing a 3 level outline twice a week. They should then once or twice a week be writing a paper from the outline. They should write a literary response ( 1/2 a page).

In 9th grade they are writing 2 or 3 rhetoric assignments that go with that study. (I'm unclear as to how much or exactly what that is as I have never studied rhetoric.) They write 2 one page persuasive papers a week in history science or literature as well as 1 6-8 page paper per semester.

 

WOW!! They go from writing 3 half page papers to I'm guessing writing assignments from rhetoric, 2 one page papers proving a thesis EVERY week and a long research paper each semester!!! How are they supposed to go from just summaring to writing two papers each week that prove a thesis when they haven't ever done it before!!!!!!

 

Shouldn't there be more of a transition?? I'm thinking my 8th grader might write 1 persuasive paper a week next year. Just confused.

 

Christine

[Amy in CO]

This is just my understanding, I am right in the middle of transitioning my dd from logic to rhetoric. I looked over my notes from both the new WTM and the 2 cds on middle/high school writing.

 

From what I can see, from WTM, it shows the summaries increasing from 1/2 page in 5th to 1-2 pages in 8th in literature. For history it increases from 3-6 sentences to 1 page. And for science, 2-3 paragraphs to 1-2 pages. So there is definitely longer assignments as you progress.

 

Also in 7-8th grade, you transition from just writing summaries to re-writing from your outlines, which would also be longer.

 

For high school, the rhetoric 2-3 hours, isn't necessarily 2-3 written assignments. You spend that amount of time reading, outlining, and either writing or finding an example of what you read about.

 

I have in my notes that the research paper is 4-8 pgs in length for a 9th grader. I don't know about you, but my children always focus on the minimum, not the maximum number. It isn't that hard to write a paper that length if you allow them to choose any topic they are interested in.

 

For the two 1 page persuasive papers, it isn't that much more difficult than the outlining, re-writing, and summaries that they have already been doing. And on the cd, SWB lists question that can be used to find a thesis. I was surprised how easy it was to get my dd to come up with a thesis using this method. Of course sometimes she has more to say than others, so currently her length is 3/4- 1 1/2 pages.

 

My dd is in 9th, but a bit behind SWB's suggestions as we started late. She has been doing maybe 1 persuasive paper per two weeks, while she continues with outlining and those skills.

[choirfarm]

My dd is in 9th, but a bit behind SWB's suggestions as we started late. She has been doing maybe 1 persuasive paper per two weeks, while she continues with outlining and those skills.

 

Ok, this is exactly where my 9th grade son is, though we haven't done outlining. He writes a page paper in about two weeks. One week he figures out the topic and makes an outline and writes a rough draft. The next week he polishes it and makes it sound tons better. I can't imagine him writing two polished papers a week. But I'll work on it. He wrote 1 6 page research paper this last year. I guess I'll try to have him do two next year and maybe have him do 1 persuasive paper a week. i just can't see him doing two. Not on top of math, Statistics and Physics with TOG thrown in!!

 

Christine

[Guest]

Ok, this is exactly where my 9th grade son is, though we haven't done outlining. He writes a page paper in about two weeks. One week he figures out the topic and makes an outline and writes a rough draft. The next week he polishes it and makes it sound tons better. I can't imagine him writing two polished papers a week. But I'll work on it. He wrote 1 6 page research paper this last year. I guess I'll try to have him do two next year and maybe have him do 1 persuasive paper a week. i just can't see him doing two. Not on top of math, Statistics and Physics with TOG thrown in!!

 

Christine

 

You have hit on a crucial point. TWTM writing curriculum was thought out and planned with a humanities student in mind, and if everyone remembers this there will be a lot less stress for those kids (and their parents) who are science or math-focused. Remember that SWB also says that the high school years mark a point where a child can specialize somewhat; skills they no longer need to emphasize can be down-graded or even dropped. The example she gives in the book is a literature student dropping higher math, but this can definitely be turned on its head, and a science or math student can have a reduced load of writing, particularly in the humanities.

 

Also, if a child has mastered outlining and rewriting from an outline to your satisfaction, I'd decrease those types of activities and move on to original papers. Save outlining for a particularly difficult book or a subject for which your child might want to keep notes.

 

Remember, too, that the program lays out an ideal. Not everyone is going to fulfill it to the letter, and that's okay. You adjust the template for your particular child and his or her abilities, interests, needs, etc.

[Amy in CO]

You have hit on a crucial point. TWTM writing curriculum was thought out and planned with a humanities student in mind, and if everyone remembers this there will be a lot less stress for those kids (and their parents) who are science or math-focused. Remember that SWB also says that the high school years mark a point where a child can specialize somewhat; skills they no longer need to emphasize can be down-graded or even dropped. The example she gives in the book is a literature student dropping higher math, but this can definitely be turned on its head, and a science or math student can have a reduced load of writing, particularly in the humanities.

 

If I remember right, SWB said on the cd that the two 1-page persuasive essays per week and 1-2 research papers per year were the minimum for any high school student. Also, that while working on the research papers, you could cut out the persuasive papers.

 

So if that was all we were doing, we would do 12 weeks of persuasive papers, 6 weeks to work on research paper, and then repeat.

 

We are using Excellence in Literature which includes three written papers of varying types and lengths per month.

 

So keeping that in mind, I will alternate history and science, and just do 1 persuasive essay in either history or science per week, whatever is assigned for literature for the week, and then cut history and science when doing the research paper, but continue literature.

 

Also, if a child has mastered outlining and rewriting from an outline to your satisfaction, I'd decrease those types of activities and move on to original papers. Save outlining for a particularly difficult book or a subject for which your child might want to keep notes.

 

My dd is still working on outlining and rewriting, which is why we are continuing it. Hopefully by the fall we will have that skill down and can drop it.

 

Remember, too, that the program lays out an ideal. Not everyone is going to fulfill it to the letter, and that's okay. You adjust the template for your particular child and his or her abilities, interests, needs, etc.

 

Yes, I agree. We need to take the ideas and fit it to our child. Which is one of the reasons we are incorporating Excellence in Literature. My dd enjoys the variety of writing assignments they have. I think she would quickly become tired of doing two persuasive essays a week.

[Colleen in NS]

Ok, this is exactly where my 9th grade son is, though we haven't done outlining. He writes a page paper in about two weeks. One week he figures out the topic and makes an outline and writes a rough draft. The next week he polishes it and makes it sound tons better. I can't imagine him writing two polished papers a week.

 

Because of my understanding (from the lectures) of learning outlining, I'm wondering if you worked on just outlining-from-books/rewriting from outlines with him for awhile, if even his rough drafts would improve drastically when you get back to doing his own original outlines/writing? So that it wouldn't be so much work/take so long to do a final draft? To me, the idea of learning to outline-from-books/rewrite is like doing copywork - you are analyzing how experienced authors write, and practicing that (like when artists copy great paintings to improve their techniques). Then you take that experience, and learn to put your own outlines of your own thoughts together and rewrite from those. It's as though analyzing-others'-writing-via-outlining actually saves you work and hassle when it comes time to write your own outlines of your own thoughts.

 

If I remember right, SWB said on the cd that the two 1-page persuasive essays per week and 1-2 research papers per year were the minimum for any high school student.

 

(bolding is mine) This is my impression, too.

 

TWTM writing curriculum was thought out and planned with a humanities student in mind, and if everyone remembers this there will be a lot less stress for those kids (and their parents) who are science or math-focused.

 

But in the audio lectures, she includes science in her persuasive writing talk. My impression from these lectures is that persuasive writing is not just for literature and history - it's for science, art, music, anything, really, that you want to form an opinion about and prove your point. I imagine one could take persuasive writing techniques and use them to argue some idea in mathematics, too (although I know there are mathematical ways of proving math ideas :lol:). It seems to me that the principles learned from these lectures are applicable in a wide range of subjects. There's even a blurb in WTM rhetoric stage science about original source readings, and writing a summary/evaluation of each book. IMO, these persuasive techniques are valuable to learn, for use across the curriculum. So it seems to me that a student could specialize in science or whatever in high school, but still incorporate these skills into his science study, and for the rest of his life.

[Guest]

 

But in the audio lectures, she includes science in her persuasive writing talk. My impression from these lectures is that persuasive writing is not just for literature and history - it's for science, art, music, anything, really, that you want to form an opinion about and prove your point. I imagine one could take persuasive writing techniques and use them to argue some idea in mathematics, too (although I know there are mathematical ways of proving math ideas :lol:). It seems to me that the principles learned from these lectures are applicable in a wide range of subjects. There's even a blurb in WTM rhetoric stage science about original source readings, and writing a summary/evaluation of each book. IMO, these persuasive techniques are valuable to learn, for use across the curriculum. So it seems to me that a student could specialize in science or whatever in high school, but still incorporate these skills into his science study, and for the rest of his life.

 

Yes, of course; I didn't think I implied otherwise. I was just saying that a math or science-focused highschooler could cut down on the amount of writing in the humanities and arts in order to do more in math and science. I don't think you have to be even-handedly writing in terms of quantity, across the curriculum, though all grades.

 

Also, as valuable as persuasive essays are, what I've heard over and over from my husband (a chemistry professor) and his colleagues is that learning to keep a good lab notebook is a hugely important skill in the sciences, one that is neglected almost universally. I don't think they are talking about typed-out prose "reports" of experiments either.

[Amy in CO]

learning to keep a good lab notebook is a hugely important skill in the sciences, one that is neglected almost universally. I don't think they are talking about typed-out prose "reports" of experiments either.

 

This is a skill I am starting to integrate with my middle child (very science oriented). We are keeping it very basic now. My dd didn't do many labs this year, so we didn't do it. I have been researching for next year so that we can do it properly then.

[Colleen in NS]

skills they no longer need to emphasize can be down-graded or even dropped. ...a science or math student can have a reduced load of writing, particularly in the humanities.

 

Also, if a child has mastered outlining and rewriting from an outline to your satisfaction, I'd decrease those types of activities and move on to original papers.

 

Yes, of course; I didn't think I implied otherwise. I was just saying that a math or science-focused highschooler could cut down on the amount of writing in the humanities and arts in order to do more in math and science. I don't think you have to be even-handedly writing in terms of quantity, across the curriculum, though all grades.

 

I see what you're saying now. I didn't read carefully enough. :D I thought you were saying persuasive papers could be dropped, but you didn't say that. Sorry about that!

 

Side note: I, too, am doing a bit of reading about keeping good lab notebooks. Very interesting stuff!

[Guest]

Side note: I, too, am doing a bit of reading about keeping good lab notebooks. Very interesting stuff!

 

What are you reading?? I've love to read more myself on this topic.

[Musicmom]

Side note: I, too, am doing a bit of reading about keeping good lab notebooks. Very interesting stuff!

 

What are you reading?? I've love to read more myself on this topic.

:lurk5:Yes, please share what you're reading to learn about this! I've been searching for guidance in this area and not found anything very helpful.

[Tullia]

Something to keep in mind about persuasive essays is that while it's an important essay type for the high school years, they're not assigned very often in college work. At least that's what I'm hearing from my son and other college students. Maybe it's an attempt to thwart the use of "essay mills". Research paper skills, OTOH, are important.

 

About lab reports; my son has found that the narrative writing skills he learned in Classical Writing Homer were a big help in writing up lab reports that included all the relevant information in proper sequence. You still have to master the content and the conventions of the subject, though.

[Guest]

Something to keep in mind about persuasive essays is that while it's an important essay type for the high school years, they're not assigned very often in college work. At least that's what I'm hearing from my son and other college students. Maybe it's an attempt to thwart the use of "essay mills". Research paper skills, OTOH, are important.

 

 

This would be an interesting question to pose on another thread: what kinds of writing do your college students find themselves most often asked to do? How do writing expectations change across subject disciplines? What kind of writing is the hardest for undergraduates to do? How often do they use the process of invention, drafting, revising, and the like?

[choirfarm]

Because of my understanding (from the lectures) of learning outlining, I'm wondering if you worked on just outlining-from-books/rewriting from outlines with him for awhile, if even his rough drafts would improve drastically when you get back to doing his own original outlines/writing? So that it wouldn't be so much work/take so long to do a final draft? To me, the idea of learning to outline-from-books/rewrite is like doing copywork - you are analyzing how experienced authors write, and practicing that (like when artists copy great paintings to improve their techniques). Then you take that experience, and learn to put your own outlines of your own thoughts together and rewrite from those. It's as though analyzing-others'-writing-via-outlining actually saves you work and hassle when it comes time to write your own outlines of your own thoughts.

 

 

 

(.

 

His problem is not organization. It is style. It is clunky, clunky, clunky. He has the topic sentence. He has the details, but it just doesn't flow at all and his word choice is poor. Here is an example of his final draft of a literary analysis. Basically his first draft had no transitions and used linking verbs quite a bit. His intro had no attention getter, etc. It takes him time to add to the bare bones that he has. I don't have a copy of his first draft.

 

 

 

The Darkness Inside Us

 

 

 

Do you think you have a heart of darkness? Joseph Conrad thinks so. He develops the theme of darkness in his book Heart of Darkness through the characters of Kurtz, the Manager, and Marlow. Through these three Conrad shows us that we all have a heart of darkness, even when we think our motives are pure.

Kurtz is a perfect example of Conrad’s idea because he comes to Africa to help “civilize” the “savages”, but by the end of the book, Kurtz is more of a savage than the people he came to civilize. When he first comes to Africa he actually did care about the people from Africa. Once he came to the jungle and realized the power he has, he sets himself up as a god to the native people. By the time he dies, Kurtz believes the company should, “exterminate the brutes!” He collects more ivory than all of the other stations combined by using extreme force. To Conrad, Kurtz is a representation of Europe, where at first people cared about the Africans, but when given power, became even worse than the Africans. Conrad uses Kurtz to show that all of us have a heart of darkness.

Conrad uses the Manger to show that all of us have a heart of darkness because he represents the companies that exploited Africa. The Manager is a scheming liar whose number one goal is to keep his job. He will do anything that he has to do to secure it. The Manager is concerned that Kurtz will steal his job and that Kurtz’s business practices will ruin the reputation of the company, even though the company was no better. He sabotages a boat so that supplies cannot reach Kurtz. Kurtz full understands this. When the manager says the boat came to save Kurtz, Kurtz replied, “Save me, save the ivory, you mean.” He is eager to hear about Kurtz’s death. Thus, Conrad uses the Manager to show that companies are not always as good and noble as they seem.

Finally, Conrad uses the character of Marlow to prove his point. Conrad does this by making Marlow see how impure his own motives are. Marlow goes to Africa to explore the “blank spaces” on the map. While Marlow does not succumb to the darkness in his heart, he does lie to Kurtz’s fiancé about Kurtz’s last words to keep her from a broken heart. As the story goes on, Marlow becomes more and more aware of the darkness in the surroundings and in his heart. Unlike Kurtz, however, Marlow is able to control it and remains decent. He is appalled at the waste of life at the outer station. Marlow never is the same after his journey; he goes back thinking that all civilization is a lie. Marlow represents the people who can control their heart of darkness some and can at least see it. Conrad does this to show us that even those who can partially control their heart of darkness still have one.

“The horror! The horror!” These are Kurtz last words. They represent Kurtz’s realization of how dark his soul his. Conrad frequently uses examples from Kurtz, the Manager, and Marlow to show the darkness inside us.

 

I'm not sure why the paragraphs didn't tranfer??

Edited May 27, 2010 by choirfarm

[choirfarm]

The problem i have with the writing from the outline like she describes is that my son would have done it word for word. He has a big problem doing that. He doesn't even have to have the work in front of him. It is like he has memorized the way the words work and so entire phrases come from the text and he doesn't realize it. I think he may sort of have a photographic memory a little bit. I remember the first year i had him home to homeschool and we were going over bones of the body and I gave him a diagram. I saw him filling it out, and I said you can look at the diagram. He said, "I don't need to." and proceded to fill it out perfectly from memory of what we had read together. So IEW didn't work real well because even with a key word outline, he would end up writing exactly what HAD been written.

 

Christine

[LisaCA]

If they are using MLA format for their paper; by the time they set their margins, heading, 12 font, double spaced, a basic 5 paragraph essay should not be too difficult. Remember, for college entrance exams they will have only the allotted time to read the topic, brainstorm, do a quick outline, and write. It might be a good time to practice this and say that the paper does not have to be perfect but is like a pop quiz or impromptu essay.

[choirfarm]

If they are using MLA format for their paper; by the time they set their margins, heading, 12 font, double spaced, a basic 5 paragraph essay should not be too difficult. Remember, for college entrance exams they will have only the allotted time to read the topic, brainstorm, do a quick outline, and write. It might be a good time to practice this and say that the paper does not have to be perfect but is like a pop quiz or impromptu essay.

 

 

You know he does REALLY well on timed tests. We've done the timed tests and he writes 2 to 3 pages on them and does really well. He also does a great job on regular test. I put an essay question on every single one. He generally writes 2 to 3 pages on them and they are well organized. The one he is taking this time will be

1. “Although the 1800’s saw the end of slavery in America, the attitude of white Americans toward black Americans actually deteriorated over the course of the century.†Support, oppose or modify this thesis by tracing the history of slavery and the attitude toward African-Americans in the United States from the time of Jefferson, through the Civil War, to the end of Reconstruction.

I wonder why he has more trouble with literature essays???

 

Christine

[Tullia]

You know he does REALLY well on timed tests. We've done the timed tests and he writes 2 to 3 pages on them and does really well. He also does a great job on regular test. I put an essay question on every single one. He generally writes 2 to 3 pages on them and they are well organized. The one he is taking this time will be

 

1. “Although the 1800’s saw the end of slavery in America, the attitude of white Americans toward black Americans actually deteriorated over the course of the century.” Support, oppose or modify this thesis by tracing the history of slavery and the attitude toward African-Americans in the United States from the time of Jefferson, through the Civil War, to the end of Reconstruction.

I wonder why he has more trouble with literature essays???

 

Christine

 

Maybe it's a guy thing plus a maturity issue? I assigned a mix of literature and history essays from middle school on. My son always preferred to write about history, and didn't begin to really "get" how to write about literature until he had an assignment (near the end of high school) which called for a rhetorical analysis of the marriage proposals of Mr. Collins and Capt. Wentworth and then an essay comparing the two. Things just finally fell into place in a fairly short period of time. As it turned out, he didn't have a lot of trouble writing about literature last fall in his first college English course, but I wondered when he signed up for the course how he'd do.

[Guest]

Choirfarm, is that essay from an 8th grader???? If so, he's reading some really difficult material and I'd guess the difficulty is partly in interpretation rather than strictly a writing problem.

 

It sounds from what you are saying that his difficulty is primarily in literature papers. Is that the case? If so, my advice -- I taught writing and literature classes at the University of California for twelve years -- is to slow way down and work at the paragraph level for a while, on this particular type of paper.

 

When kids have all kinds of problems with clunky writing, choppy sentences, and lack of clarity, it's usually because they are struggling with complex ideas and how to manage them. So I'd work on the ideas first. Does your son read the text more than once? Does he take notes? What kind? Do you talk about the book together? He may need a lot of preliminary discussion and note-taking before he sits down to write. Working with shorter forms, like short stories and poems, can be really useful for this kind of practice becuase the student can easily go back over the text multiple times. Novellas like Heart of Darkness are also a good length.

 

Then take a single element from his essay -- in this instance, one of the character's he's discussing. Show him how he is essentially summarizing the text, making large, sweeping statements without using details from in the text itself to expand on his argument or position. This is a crucial, but very difficult transition to make for most high school kids. Maybe you can compare it to his history writing, since he seems to do that well. He probably feels more comfortable with that because it seems more like dealing with facts. Point out how he uses statistics, or specific information of any kind: dates, examples, quotes. Then guide him in transferring that kind of detail to his lit papers. Think of the words in the text as his evidence, and he's got to present that to you for his argument to work. He can't just refer to it or mention its overall significance.

 

It will serve him very well if he can learn to pare down his topic -- for instance, focusing on one character in the book, not all -- and learn how to incorporate specifics from the text.

 

If I've misunderstood what you're asking about him or anything in what I've said is confusing please feel free to PM me if you like.

[choirfarm]

Choirfarm, is that essay from an 8th grader???? If so, he's reading some really difficult material and I'd guess the difficulty is partly in interpretation rather than strictly a writing problem.

.

No, he's a 9th grader. I know I've been confusing, but my other son will be an 8th grader next year and so I was trying to figure out what I should do with both of them.

 

We spent the first quarter just working on paragraphs with both boys ( 9th and 7th) . That said, as I've gone back to look all of the paragraphs are history related. Yes, he likes facts and statistics and this was the first literary analysis paper he had ever done.

 

I haven't done the WTM method, so I was listening to the tapes and trying to figure out what to do next year ( 8th and 10th) with where we are. I'm definitely doing outlining with my 8th grader. He just had trouble with that. His actual style of writing is much better, but his organization is a disaster. My oldest will diligently write out an outline, but it sounds so wooden.

 

Christine

[Colleen in NS]

What are you reading?? I've love to read more myself on this topic.

 

:lurk5:Yes, please share what you're reading to learn about this! I've been searching for guidance in this area and not found anything very helpful.

 

I found a book called Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments, by Robert Bruce Thompson, in the library. It only has three pages about keeping a lab notebook, but those pages are packed with info.. They tell you why it's important to keep a notebook (primary source for companies is one reason - I had no idea), guidelines to keep in mind for keeping it, and step by step instructions for what to include.

 

The rest of the book is great, too. It has lots of practical guidance on obtaining chemicals and lab equipment, and what the chemicals and lab equipment are all for. It talks about safety. And it's packed with experiments you can do at home. After I browsed through it, I remembered that this must have been the book Janice in NJ mentioned awhile ago, so I looked it up here, and sure enough, it was. There were several other positive posts about this book, too.

 

His problem is not organization. It is style. It is clunky, clunky, clunky. He has the topic sentence. He has the details, but it just doesn't flow at all and his word choice is poor. Here is an example of his final draft of a literary analysis. Basically his first draft had no transitions and used linking verbs quite a bit. His intro had no attention getter, etc. It takes him time to add to the bare bones that he has.

 

I'm wondering if this is why discussion beforehand would be helpful? To help him put his ideas into words/phrases/sentences that are more interesting?

 

The problem i have with the writing from the outline like she describes is that my son would have done it word for word. He has a big problem doing that. He doesn't even have to have the work in front of him. It is like he has memorized the way the words work and so entire phrases come from the text and he doesn't realize it. I think he may sort of have a photographic memory a little bit.

 

I have a totally untried, theoretical idea, based on what I've learned from WTM/the lectures. :D

 

I wonder, if you used the new WTM outlining instructions, if his rewrites would come out in his own words, instead of from his photographic memory. Here's my theory. Most outlining instructions say something like, "Find the main idea - see if there is a topic sentence - write that in your own words. Next, find the ideas that support that main idea. Next, find the details that support those sub-ideas." Whereas the new WTM outlining instructions have a few of what I would call more mini-discussion type questions that you can use, to extract the main idea/supporting ideas/sub-details, without going word for word. It's still methodical, but it is mini-discussion-provoking. Maybe this would help him to process the info., but put it in his *own* words/phrases on his outline, and maybe cause him to forget what his mind photographed from the text? Then, put the outline away for a day or two, and then have him rewrite, and maybe sit with him to jog his memory of what you two talked about, instead of what exactly was in the text?

 

I just mention this, because I've been using these questions for ds to do two-level outlines this year (will move to three-level next, along with rewriting from them), and his outlines do reflect what is in each paragraph, but his thoughts come out in sentences (we do sentence outlines) of his own making (and he is very visual, too). When I was first coaching him through how to outline using these questions, I think the mini-discussions we had for each step really helped him to think his way through the paragraph, processing those thoughts into his own words. Which I think will help him in his rewriting next year.