Can you read a (poor, but typical) writing sample?

[lisabees]

DS13 is hs for the first time. His reading and writing are behind grade level. I am so overwhelmed by his lack of writing skills.

 

These are samples of his writing from Connect the Thoughts' Information, Right or Wrong? I made no corrections.

 

Not everything written is true because some people can think the opposite and sometimes people have opinions so not everything written is true only sometimes.

 

These are all facts I think this is boring because its facts only I think you should put some facts and opinions in so its better.

 

The following is from IEW.

 

The disgusting oozing pus, they thought, was apart of the healing process untill Joseph Lister learned how to kill bacteria, because of his idea, his idea was as helpfull as anything and found out how to not get infections. He did it by making the nurses and doctors thoroughly cleaned there introments and dressings.

Help!!! How do you deal with this??? Writing comes so naturally to me; I don't even know where to begin! :confused:

[missmoe]

The first thing that stood out to me was the run-on sentences. Does he understand what makes up a sentence? That would be where I would start. Go through the work helping him to pick out each subject/verb combo and also look for complete thoughts.

 

Hope this helps.

[Tiff in TX]

Have you asked him to read his work outloud? A friend of mine in highschool needed to do this. You would be amazed how much 'fixing' he could do if he heard himself saying the sentences outloud. While he is reading outloud, make sure he is following his puncuation, or lack thereof.

[Stacy in NJ]

I don't think he understands what a complete sentence is. Is he using IEW? I'd back-up and use one of their themed books like All Things Fun and Fascinating. I'd focus on units 1 and 2 for quite some time, until he's able to give verbal reports using KWO and complete sentences.

[midwestbelle]

I watched a video that Pudewa did (an overview of the IEW program) and he suggested sitting with them while they write the sentences and giving them as much help as they need. I have found that since I started out giving them LOTS of help in seeing what would make a good sentence from their own thoughts and the KWO, they are picking up on it and are more able to write the sentences themselves. Now they are writing the sentences on their own and I go over it with them and make suggestions. We've been at this for about 8 weeks using the Ancient History based writing lessons. I have seen remarkable improvement.

 

HTH

[8filltheheart]

I would stop having him write independently for a few weeks. I would gather samples of well-written articles or essays and spend time with him reading and analyzing those. Why are they well-written? What is the topic sentence? How does the author meet the goal of explaining/supporting his objective as stated in the ts?

 

I would them work WITH him on writing a cohesive paragraph. Create the topic sentence with him and help him come with the supporting details. Work on writing the paragraph together. Discuss how the paragraph needs to flow in a logical order.

 

Does he understand complete sentences? Does he know mechanics rules for commas, periods,etc? If not and those errors are from lack of knowledge in those areas, you might want to even forgo paragraph writing for a few weeks and concentrate solely on sentence construction. It is hard to judge whether or not the run-ons are from lack of knowledge, lack of attention, or being overwhelmed by the writing process. Only direct interaction can answer that question.

 

FWIW.......the easiest paragraph for children to write independently are how-to paragraphs. Does he have a passion like a hobby, collection, game? Getting him to write how-to paragraphs once he has mastered sentences and basic paragraph construction would be the easiest transition into successful writing. Help him organize an outline in logical order. Help him create a ts. Discuss transition words like first, next, then, etc.

 

My kids write how-tos as their first paragraphs when they are much younger than your child. They often spend a couple of weeks or more on them. They write everything from how to change a transformer to baking cookies, etc.

 

I don't think that pointing out the errors he has made in the examples would be beneficial. I think he needs to step way back in sequence and learn much more basic steps. Those little baby steps will help to eventual feelings of control and success.

Edited November 5, 2009 by 8FillTheHeart

[Julie in MN]

Lisa,

Are you thinking this is the best he is able to do -- or is this all the effort he's willing to put into it? At his age, boys especially don't necessarily care how their writing looks.

 

Julie

[5LittleMonkeys]

My dd5th is having trouble with her writing as well and when I posted about this I got some really good advice regarding going back to narrations.

I have gone way back to basics with her. I am going back over complete and incomplete sentences, run-on sentences, capitilization, punctuation and subject verb agreement. The only writing I am requiring right now are a few sentences she writes about what we have read in history or science. I am having her do more lengthy oral narrations. I have to guide and prompt her to only narrate back the important information. I direct her to think first about what she is going to say before she says it and to speak in clear precise sentences without a lot of unnecessary words. It seems to be helping her. I had her doing Writing Strands Level 3 before but she was trying to move through it too quickly. It does move rather quickly for a struggling writer. In the next few weeks I plan to start over again with the Writing Strands from the beginning but spending a lot more time on writing good sentences and organizing a paragraph. We may have to spend the rest of the school year doing paragraphs but if that is what it takes so be it.

[Carol in Cal.]

1. Copywork every day, no exceptions, and it must be PERFECT. That gets him accustomed to looking closely at things that he may not be thinking about, such as how to use punctuation properly. It's essential to use a very good model for this copywork.

2. Editor in Chief for the punctuation issues and for teaching how to look for errors in a written work.

3. Dictation--Maybe start with once a week, using something that he has copied earlier in the week. This gets him used to having something in his head and writing it down.

4. Freewriting every day--this is not corrected, but it's about a certain subject. Save these and after 3 weeks look them over. You will probably see an improvement in the fluency and clarity of his writing at that point. See Writer's Jungle for more on this.

5. As others have suggested, when he does an actual composition, have him read it outloud to you. Read it outloud to him as well. Read it just like it is written--don't fix spelling or punctuation marks by reading them in if they are not there. Then every time he makes an improvement, have him read it over again out loud. Really, there is no better editing technique than this.

6. Have him read only very well-written stuff for a while. Go to plays. Watch Shakespeare movies. Immerse him in good writing.

7. Go back to Writing Strands 3 and walk him through it bit by bit. That gives a little more 'room' than IEW does, and gives you a chance to get him used to following a specific assignment. After each assignment is finished, assess him only on the extent to which he completed the assignment. Be very gradual about combining mechanics training with composition training. You can marry those later, but it seems to me that he needs them to be separate for now. You might consider doing the WS assignments yourself from time to time and then talking about your writing process with him. That is a great way to teach him how to write without appearing to criticize him.

8. Buy Writer's Jungle and maybe Help for High School from BraveWriter. And sign up for a Kids Write Basic class the next chance you get. The class will teach you how to teach writing to him--it's great.

[ElizabethB]

You might want to limit the number of words allowed in one sentence for a while!

 

Step him through how to break them up, then have him break them up on his own once he gets the hang of it.

 

Eventually, longer sentences are fine, but it looks like he's not quite ready for them yet.

 

My best writing teacher rewrote almost every other sentence (and sometimes almost every sentence!) for us and then had us re-write it that way, and also taught us several different sentence structures to follow, and then added them in to our compositions to vary our writing.

[lionfamily1999]

I would recommend picking up Writing with Ease and First Language Lessons. It seems like grammar and writing skills are lacking :( Don't worry though! I'm sure that those programs could get him up to speed!

 

If you're completely adverse to that, then I would say start with having him narrate to you while you write it down. Together, edit what he has said and have him copy it.

[Lovedtodeath]

I would make him diagram his sentences. If he cannot diagram them, then he needs to rewrite them so that he can.

[lisabees]

I am so grateful to all of you!! This first year of hs is tough! I feel like much of my time, in these first months, is spent getting to know my son as a learner and discovering the programs that work/don't work. I am enjoying all of it, but sometimes feel like I have wasted my time when a program isn't a good fit.

 

Julie, you asked if ds is capable of better. Yes, he is. But, the sentences still wouldn't sound like a 13 year old wrote them. When we edit a piece and I point things out or he rereads it, he does see his spelling and basic punctuation errors. He just doesn't hear that his writing sounds so juvenile and incorrect. He has been exposed to literature his entire life - I have read hundreds of novels to him. He can read a book and note that the writing is wonderful, but cannot see that his is not. Then, again, maybe he does and just doesn't care. In fact, I will say that he doesn't care. I have always attributed that to his years of reading and writing struggles.

 

I love all of your ideas. I will start at the basic sentence. I will take a step back. Analytical Grammar is on its way. I hope that it's not too advanced for him.

 

Carol, thank you for your suggestions! So many specific ideas. I definitely need lots of hand holding! :lol: I have always been intrigued by Writer's Jungle and would love to know more about it. I have never even looked at Writing Strands or editor in chief.

 

Momof7, he does have a specific interest, love, obsession! It is baseball. A how-to paragraph would be very easy for him, if it involves baseball. Great idea. I also like your idea in analyzing good essays and articles.

 

I am getting taught every day by all you wonderful people. Now to decide on Writer's Jungle, IEW's theme writing or Write Shop. Thank you!

 

Lisa

[Julie in MN]

Julie, you asked if ds is capable of better. Yes, he is. But, the sentences still wouldn't sound like a 13 year old wrote them. When we edit a piece and I point things out or he rereads it, he does see his spelling and basic punctuation errors. He just doesn't hear that his writing sounds so juvenile and incorrect. He has been exposed to literature his entire life - I have read hundreds of novels to him. He can read a book and note that the writing is wonderful, but cannot see that his is not. Then, again, maybe he does and just doesn't care. In fact, I will say that he doesn't care. I have always attributed that to his years of reading and writing struggles.

 

Lisa,

This may not apply to you, but this year (8th) I decided my ds needed to buck up. His writing too often looked like a text message. I mean, how many times do I have to tell him to capitalize the word "I"??? So I read to him from MCT's article about how he just doesn't accept elementary errors from a middle school student. I didn't do it meanly, but I just said that we now need to spend our time on learning the next level, not on repeating the old levels.

 

It seems to have helped a little. I remind him to correct all his elementary school errors before he finishes a writing assignment, and we then have more interesting discussions about what he's written.

 

Here's the part I read. It's under #10, About Research Papers," the first full paragraph on page 2:

http://www.rfwp.com/downloads.php#10

 

Seems simplistic to just read a paragraph, but it was just what we needed as a sort of ground-rule for my fun and creative but carefree dear youngest child. Maybe a similar idea would help a bit at your house, who knows?!

Julie

[lisabees]

Lisa,

This may not apply to you, but this year (8th) I decided my ds needed to buck up. His writing too often looked like a text message. I mean, how many times do I have to tell him to capitalize the word "I"??? So I read to him from MCT's article about how he just doesn't accept elementary errors from a middle school student. I didn't do it meanly, but I just said that we now need to spend our time on learning the next level, not on repeating the old levels.

 

It seems to have helped a little. I remind him to correct all his elementary school errors before he finishes a writing assignment, and we then have more interesting discussions about what he's written.

 

Here's the part I read. It's under #10, About Research Papers," the first full paragraph on page 2:

http://www.rfwp.com/downloads.php#10

 

Seems simplistic to just read a paragraph, but it was just what we needed as a sort of ground-rule for my fun and creative but carefree dear youngest child. Maybe a similar idea would help a bit at your house, who knows?!

Julie

 

Oh Julie, thank you for that link! The article was fabulous. I cannot wait to read the others.

 

I do need to start from scratch. Let him know the expectations (by reading that paragraph), show him what good writing is, analyze those good writings, teach good sentences and paragraphs.

 

What an amazing journey this has been so far!! I think I'm learning more than he is! :lol:

[lionfamily1999]

What an amazing journey this has been so far!! I think I'm learning more than he is! :lol:

I like that part of homeschooling best ;) Ds and I have grown a lot closer learning together :)

[kalanamak]

I don't know, but the Old Nick in me says: make him diagram his sentences. That will make them shorter and more to the point. I'm saying this tongue in cheek, but it might work.:)