Writing help...

[CoastalGal]

Background: My oldest daughter (17) is dual-enrolled at the local community college. She is taking one class, Introduction to Early Childhood. This class has required A LOT of writing...she has a paper due almost every week. (The weeks she doesn't have a paper due, she has a test with at least 4 essay questions.)

 

Question: Is there a resource you could recommend for helping her to improve her writing STYLE. She has the basics of capitalization, punctuation, etc. but struggles horribly with STYLE. Her sentences are very "wordy" and jumbled...they just don't flow. KWIM??

 

ETA: I've been spending a ton of time proofreading her writing and making suggestions to improve the style/flow. I'm hoping to help her help herself...I'm at my wit's end writing/rewriting her work every week.

Edited November 3, 2010 by CoastalGal

[Guest]

I'd start at the college. Most -- I'd imagine pretty nearly all -- colleges, from community college level to the Ivies, have writing centers with tutors who are available to help students with their writing and revision. The professor of her course should have office hours during which she can ask any question pertaining to the class or to her writing, asking for pointers or for recommendations and other resources she can use.

 

If she is planning on taking another course next semester, consider a writing class. That way the entire focus would be on writing problems and strategies, probably including a great emphasis on revision techniques. Some teachers are definitely better than others, and some will suit her learning style better than others; so have her ask around, look up teacher references, or even go to office hours this semester and meet the possible professors to discuss writing.

[CoastalGal]

Another question: is it unusual for a teen to have done a lot of writing and NOT learn/pick up on good style?

 

For the past 4 years, we have used TOG's Writing Aids and Writing Assignments. We ALWAYS revise before publishing the final copy...and I have REPEATEDLY corrected the same things.

 

Is she being lazy or is she just not getting it?? I honestly can't tell...

[Jenn in CA]

No it's not unusual at all! My boys have taken college English, one is on his second semester, and he still makes the same style-type errors before revising, although he has gotten better. I feel like a broken record but I am confident that one day he'll get it.

 

I think visiting the school's tutoring center is a great idea.

 

Another might be asking "is this your very best?" before she lets you look at it... reminding her of her common problems, then see if she can find them herself.

 

Lastly, I'm not sure if your 'editing style' is to give specific re-wordings, or to just write "wordy" by certain sentences, but if you're giving a lot of specific suggestions, perhaps switch to being more general. For ex., "Cut this paragraph by half", "Break this sentence up" or write "wordy" or "vague" next to theunderlined sentence.

 

My son can be wordy and jumbled. One thing that helped was to tell him "one major thought per sentence." Don't know if that's your daughter's issue but thought I'd throw it out there as an idea.

 

I learned a ton about how to help my kids along by observing the way their college English teachers explained things. It will get better! College English is a great foundation before tackling future college classes that require papers.

[Tullia]

It's free, and shouldn't take a lot of time to implement for a college student. The author wrote the exercises for his students who were having the same kinds of problems you're describing. The focus is on analyzing the style of selected great writers and creating more structural awareness at the sentence level:

 

The link to the pdf is on the lower right side of this page:

http://www.classiclanguagearts.net/workbook.htm'>http://www.classiclanguagearts.net/workbook.htm'>http://www.classiclanguagearts.net/workbook.htm'>http://www.classiclanguagearts.net/workbook.htm

 

Professor Einarsson's home page:

http://www.classiclanguagearts.net/

 

ETA: Oops! Didn't pick up on the fact that your dd is still a high school student. If you decide to use the resource, you might want to go through it with your dd. My co-op students who used this had no problem finishing in a semester.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Martha in NM

[1Togo]

Help her start a Writer's Notebook for editing issues; i.e. style, etc. I've tried several approaces and this has worked well. Feel free to PM me.