Why is he so resistant?

[stephanier.1765]

So it's time for son's first literary response essay. We had an absolutely fantastic discussion about his reading. We talked in detail about how to write a literary response essay and a thesis statement and he came up with a great one. I was rather impressed. So this morning he does his rewrite and hands me his essay. It's a description essay. I had reiterated time and again that is *not* what this essay should be about. I did find his thesis buried in there but it wasn't used as such. Ugh! So we talked about what his essay should be and how he could use some of his material in a new way. He was dragging his feet the whole way and I still wasn't sure he was understanding the point so I researched how to write a literary response paper on the web and found a couple of great "how to's" to print out for him. He is being totally resistant to reading them. Why? It could only help him work through his essay. Is it just a boy thing or just my son is a brat thing?

[emubird]

I don't know, but if you figure out a way around this, let me know so I can apply the successful technique to my 15 yr old daughter. (Who, by the way, can write circles around just about everyone -- it's writing lit analysis that stumps her -- she'll write an absolutely hilarious, well written, and devastatingly true critique of a character's behavior, but it won't be written in "acceptable" format nor be much of a literary analysis paper.)

 

Come to think of it, my college freshman had this same problem when she was still in high school. I didn't really figure out how to fix it then, but by senior year she seemed able to pull something acceptable together.

 

I can't tell you how many "how to write an essay" websites I've shown my kids. Sometimes they read them, if I'm lucky. Then they tell me they didn't understand them.

 

One thing that might work is just having them read a lot of the type of essays they're supposed to write. There's kind of a rhythm to them. Maybe they just need to get that into their heads. sparknotes has a lot of these examples -- and some of them aren't even written all that well. Maybe rewriting one of the bad ones would be instructive.

 

But it's not peculiar to your son and he will either grow out of it, or find a perfectly successful path through life that doesn't require him to write those sort of essays. I only ever wrote ONE of them in my entire college career and that was only because I was interested enough in English lit to take a class that wasn't required.

[Cedarmom]

Sounds like you are doing a great job. You have given him all the tools he needs. As to why? Well because he'd rather be gaming, building, playing, whatever instead of an essay, of course!:) I don't know, my son fought it the whole way too. He enjoyed the books, thewriting about them, eh, not so much. Keep letting him know what you expect, and keep requiring it, hopefully eventually he'll just do it.

[JennW in SoCal]

Well, YOU are interested in him being able to write a good essay, but he clearly isn't as keen on the idea! It's a teen thing. It is also the beginning of the year, and I don't know where you are in the high school years, but the ideal essay is something you should be working towards, not expecting at the beginning. And not expecting with a re-write.

 

Since this isn't my kid and I'm not the one banging my head against the wall, it is easy for me to say that you should count your blessings. A good discussion on the work is a terrific first step. That he wrote at all is a terrific next step. That you found a thesis is a wonderful third step. I would suggest dropping this essay after going over what is good and how better to structure it, and move on. Next essay you can talk about his thesis, then tell him to argue in support of it. It is going to be hit and miss -- sometimes you get the perfect essay and sometimes you get a wandering descriptive mess.

 

It is REALLY hard to get away from writing description and instead writing persuasively about your thoughts. Learning to be focused and succinct is tough -- give him some time to find his way. It really sounds like you've got the first step working for you already, in that you are having great discussions. Keep that part up and be patient on the writing. They grow and learn in their own sweet frustrating time.

[tiffijo1]

I think your doing great!

[1Togo]

I've tried many lit approaches with our children throughout the years; i.e. traditional textbook, Teaching the Classics, annotation, and now ideas from Understanding Fiction from the Writing Strands folks. The only time any of them enjoyed writing about their books and dug into them was last year when I took our daughter through The Lost Tools of Writing. Even though we did not analyze the books using traditional terms; i.e. plot, theme, character, etc., we examined all of that. Just through a different lens. I thought I would give the traditional approach a try this year, but even though I know how to do it, the personal connections are not there. Andrew Kern, the author of LTW, cautioned me about the problems of abstract lit analysis in an email exchange that we had last spring. We'll give literature analysis a try another year.

 

I agree with the other posts, You are doing a wonderful job. Keep the discussion going. Your son is not being a brat. Literary analysis and personal response papers are difficult. If your son does not have a good handle on essays, that may be bogging him down. Also, the dicussion is often enough. By the time, your child has finished with the talking. He is finished. Writing is overkill.

 

Bonita

[stephanier.1765]

Thanks everybody, your words of wisdom are definitely a comfort and will help me quite a bit going forward. He did finally get the bare bones idea of what I was looking for. The essay got a lot shorter but I was okay with that. I really just wanted him to have an idea of analysis vs description. He was complaining a lot about his hand hurting but was also resistant to using the computer. I really don't get that because in past years it was the other way around. So we had a lovely discussion comparing baseball to essay writing and how muscles always hurt at the beginning of the year but eventually build themselves up. And we talked about how the best way to be a better baseball player was practice, practice, practice and so it is with being a better essay writer. I got a lot of grins out of that and I think he finally understood. What a long day. I ran away to the used bookstore as soon as we were done. :lol: