I can't knock the edge off my son's left-brainedness. (This is about writing.)

[Lang Syne Boardie]

Edited: Thanks so much! I got the help I needed. My son asked me to take his writing off the internets. LOL Not to worry, he knew I put them up here and was fine with that, but I'll respect his wish to remove his essays now that we've received some excellent input.

 

Original post: We can't break out of this box no matter what we do. It's a shame, because his oral speeches are very smooth and very good. He speaks well when teaching classes, as well. His writing is stilted, though. He gets a format in his head and it becomes second nature almost instantly. He's always learned like this; everything is a skill to be instantly mastered and never forgot. Great for music, math, science, and languages, but not so much for writing. He's in ninth grade. Is there hope?

 

I'll put the samples in other posts below. You'll see that no matter what subject we're working with, the essay sounds the same.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Tibbie Dunbar 2.0

[Lang Syne Boardie]

deleted at son's request :)

Edited March 7, 2012 by Tibbie Dunbar

[Lang Syne Boardie]

deleted at son's request :)

Edited March 7, 2012 by Tibbie Dunbar

[Lang Syne Boardie]

deleted at son's request :)

Edited March 7, 2012 by Tibbie Dunbar

[Lang Syne Boardie]

deleted at son's request :)

Edited March 7, 2012 by Tibbie Dunbar

[Lang Syne Boardie]

I hope somebody will understand what I mean. Taken one at a time, his essays are probably acceptable for ninth grade. Taken as a body it is obvious that this is how he learned to write essays, this is how he currently writes essays, and this is how he will always write essays.

 

Help?

[MomatHWTK]

Is he a mimic? I tend to pick up the style of whatever I am reading. So, if I am reading materials with a specific writing style I will being to write that way.

 

Perhaps even if he isn't a mimic, you could get him to "copy" another writer's style as an assignment. Take a factual essay that you like, ask him to write an essay on one of the topics he's already written about (so he doesn't have to do new research) and comform it to the other essay's writing style.

 

FWIW, if you have one style and it's a good style, it should carry you pretty far. ;)

[regentrude]

I hope somebody will understand what I mean. Taken one at a time, his essays are probably acceptable for ninth grade. Taken as a body it is obvious that this is how he learned to write essays, this is how he currently writes essays, and this is how he will always write essays.

 

Help?

 

I do not find his writing bad for a 9th grader at all. I just skimmed your samples, but I think he is writing essays just fine.

I think the problem is with the format of the essay which, if drilled a certain way, allows very limited freedom and does not encourage originality. And he might just have been assigned too many of the same.

 

I would simply assign him completely different sorts of papers: a longer research paper, a newspaper article, a political commentary, a theatre or movie review, a restaurant critique, a short story etc and have him experiment with a variety of forms.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

Is he a mimic? I tend to pick up the style of whatever I am reading. So, if I am reading materials with a specific writing style I will being to write that way.

 

Perhaps even if he isn't a mimic, you could get him to "copy" another writer's style as an assignment. Take a factual essay that you like, ask him to write an essay on one of the topics he's already written about (so he doesn't have to do new research) and comform it to the other essay's writing style.

 

FWIW, if you have one style and it's a good style, it should carry you pretty far. ;)

 

Yes! You've really hit on something here. I was thinking he'd lost some ground because I used to really enjoy his jr. high writing. Now that I think of it, he was writing narrations of Dallas Lore Sharp and Dickens. LOL That is very helpful. Thank you. Neither of us are very comfortable with ancients. Next year should be better for writing and literature, for both of us.

 

I do not find his writing bad for a 9th grader at all. I just skimmed your samples, but I think he is writing essays just fine.

I think the problem is with the format of the essay which, if drilled a certain way, allows very limited freedom and does not encourage originality. And he might just have been assigned too many of the same.

 

I would simply assign him completely different sorts of papers: a longer research paper, a newspaper article, a political commentary, a theatre or movie review, a restaurant critique, a short story etc and have him experiment with a variety of forms.

 

Thank you very much. I think I was so concerned about fitting in with TOG's Writing Aids that I did over-emphasize the essay. I hadn't thought of that. I'll step away from Writing Aids a little and give him some variety to help him find his voice again.

 

Thank you both.

[Teachin'Mine]

FWIW I think your son is a very good writer! I skimmed through the samples, but the flow within was good and the transitions made for easy reading. Yes, they're all similar in style, but when he gets to college, he'll have different teachers for different subjects, so I doubt that his sticking with one style of writing will even be noticed - especially since it sounds like he's more into math and science. But he's only in 9th grade and writing very well. IMO style takes time and more freedom from the usual writing assignments may help that to develop. He might enjoy writing science fiction or something else. Personally, I wouldn't even edit or grade this writing, I would let it be for his own enjoyment so he's able to be free to try different things without worrying whether they're right or wrong.

[Kareni]

You might also see if your library has some volumes in the Best American Essays series so that your son might see a variety of different styles of essay writing. Here's a link to the 2011 edition.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Ester Maria]

How much writing does he do, on average (weekly? monthly? per semester? however you do it)?

 

Perhaps you should have him write less, in terms of the number of assignments, but have him write longer, more meaningful assignments. Yeah, he got that particular format down - awesome. Now, with a good student, you move onto more elaborate and more complex formats.

 

This is a good problem to have, by the way. :D It is comparatively easy to work on stilted, when you consider that it is much, much more difficult to work with a child who just lacks conceptual clarity and cannot present the concepts one flowing from the previous one into the next one.

 

I think his major issues are not being stilted, though, but as far as the format is concerned, I suggest the above.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

FWIW I think your son is a very good writer! I skimmed through the samples' date=' but the flow within was good and the transitions made for easy reading. Yes, they're all similar in style, but when he gets to college, he'll have different teachers for different subjects, so I doubt that his sticking with one style of writing will even be noticed - especially since it sounds like he's more into math and science. But he's only in 9th grade and writing very well. IMO style takes time and more freedom from the usual writing assignments may help that to develop. He might enjoy writing science fiction or something else. Personally, I wouldn't even edit or grade this writing, I would let it be for his own enjoyment so he's able to be free to try different things without worrying whether they're right or wrong.[/quote']

 

Thank you. We're taking the advice of several in this thread and giving the ol' essay a rest. He's working on a movie review today and loving it.

 

You might also see if your library has some volumes in the Best American Essays series so that your son might see a variety of different styles of essay writing. Here's a link to the 2011 edition.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

I forgot all about this resource! Thank you!

 

How much writing does he do, on average (weekly? monthly? per semester? however you do it)?

 

Perhaps you should have him write less, in terms of the number of assignments, but have him write longer, more meaningful assignments. Yeah, he got that particular format down - awesome. Now, with a good student, you move onto more elaborate and more complex formats.

 

This is a good problem to have, by the way. :D It is comparatively easy to work on stilted, when you consider that it is much, much more difficult to work with a child who just lacks conceptual clarity and cannot present the concepts one flowing from the previous one into the next one.

 

I think his major issues are not being stilted, though, but as far as the format is concerned, I suggest the above.

 

Not sure what you mean by the bolded? Would you use a different adjective to describe his essay style, or is there a bigger problem that I'm not noticing?

 

He writes often. I'm happy with his longer papers, his long written responses, and his essays that he has a chance to revise and perfect. (I forgot to mention that most of the essays I shared were closed-book, cold 'test' questions from TOG. He gets 30 minutes to write them as part of a longer evaluation. He answers one such essay question every Friday.)

 

Other writing: He averages one song every month. I always forget that songwriting is creative writing; if I don't assign things I forget to assess educational value...As part of his Civil Air Patrol experience he also writes speeches, long informative emails, class outlines (he teaches), and manuals. He's written a sermon or two. All of that writing is very good.

 

I think MomatHWTK showed me why I'm not satisfied. His 6th to 8th grade writing was quite beautiful, even moving sometimes. I've looked back at his writing to see why it was better, or more pleasing, and it is obviously because he was narrating good literature in a good imitation of the author's voice without being restrained much. So now he's doing the 'technical' writing that adults need to do in various areas of life, but I don't like it because it's not pretty.

 

Well, that's not fair. He's already communicating at an adult level in several areas of life, and his test essays are probably not below average for a ninth grade boy. That should be good enough for a boy who doesn't really care about writing at all right now.

 

His songs are beautiful, so he's still writing creatively. When we get to years 2 and 3 he will again be responding to literature that we are both inspired by, and he will have grown a year older.

 

Argh. I am so hard on this boy. I'm taking the excellent advice in this thread and spending a little time on other types of writing, beginning with a movie review. He'll begin another research paper in two weeks, and I'll excuse him from evaluation essays for awhile so he can focus on that.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Tibbie Dunbar

[Trilliums]

He might look to magazines he enjoys reading to view the wide range of writing styles illustrated. We recently went through a few Scientific American magazines and focused primarily on the way different articles began. We discussed the different spproaches and how the writing grabbed or failed to grab out attention.

 

His passages seem well-written, but I can see your desire for more variety.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Tib - I don't think that his essays sound stilted. They are perfectly fine. It is only when you see them side by side that you see that there is a similarity in style between them.

[Ester Maria]

Not sure what you mean by the bolded? Would you use a different adjective to describe his essay style, or is there a bigger problem that I'm not noticing?

Because you posted a more or less representative sample of your son's writing, I focused on the common elements related to the format / style, because that is what you complained about. And that is where I do not think he has problems. ;)

 

However, taken *in isolation*, I could make a number of specific observations to several papers, related to the specific claims / content / phrasing.

Those are, however, not the kind of general format / style insights you asked, so I omitted them, but that is actually where I see some problems, rather than where you seem to see.

Well, that's not fair. He's already communicating at an adult level in several areas of life, and his test essays are probably not below average for a ninth grade boy. That should be good enough for a boy who doesn't really care about writing at all right now.

Yep. :)

[Lang Syne Boardie]

Because you posted a more or less representative sample of your son's writing, I focused on the common elements related to the format / style, because that is what you complained about. And that is where I do not think he has problems. ;)

 

However, taken *in isolation*, I could make a number of specific observations to several papers, related to the specific claims / content / phrasing.

Those are, however, not the kind of general format / style insights you asked, so I omitted them, but that is actually where I see some problems, rather than where you seem to see.

 

Yep. :)

 

I'm aware of some content problems, certainly. We're working on them, mostly during Socratic discussion periods. I think the generalizing and editorializing are immaturity issues for him. I'm hoping, at least! He's not instinctively thinking to back up his statements, either. Oh, well, other problems for another day, I guess.

 

:)

Edited March 7, 2012 by Tibbie Dunbar