What is the least amount of criticism I can give

[Abbeygurl4]

my son? He is 13 and a very reluctant writer. We just started IEW a few weeks ago and this is one assignments. I think it's full of run on sentences but I don't want to discourage him. Please, if you have the time, take a look and help me help my ds edit this paper. Thanks!

 

The Sake Merchant and the Samurai

 

 

It was a cool but cloudless day, shade cast by the falling cherry blossoms dappled the ground, and under a tree sat a Samurai, wounded at the battle of Sekigahara. A Sake merchant saw the wounded Samurai, and carefully tended his wounds. The Sake merchant was a native of Owari Province, at the time ruled by the benevolent but iron fisted Oda Nobunaga.

 

Less than a year afterwards, the Sake merchant borrowed three-hundred thousand moon from the local gang, but could not pay them back! A week later, the leader of the gang, Shishido Baiken, became impatient with the Sake merchant, and violently sheared off his hand! The Sake merchant, fearing for his life, hastily made for the city, hoping to hire a "Yojimbo" or bodyguard.

 

When the Sake merchant finally arrived at the city of Kiyosu, he realized with a start that he hardly had enough money to feed himself, let alone hire a Yojimbo. Depressed, he collapsed in the street, and, thus making a spectacle of himself, was noticed by Shishido Baiken and his gang. But just as they were about to kill him, the Samurai that he had saved earlier recognized the Sake merchant, and lunged at Baiken, killing him in a single stroke! The rest of the gang, having witnessed their leader be killed so easily, fled in terror. And so, by his kindness to the Samurai the Sake merchant was saved.

[Kuovonne]

my son? He is 13 and a very reluctant writer. We just started IEW a few weeks ago and this is one assignments. I think it's full of run on sentences but I don't want to discourage him. Please, if you have the time, take a look and help me help my ds edit this paper. Thanks!

 

The least amount of criticism? How about, "Great Job!"

When I read that your son is a reluctant writer I was totally unprepared for the passage that followed. I would have never guessed that he is a reluctant writer.

 

Did he really just start IEW a few weeks ago? He's either picking up the dress-ups naturally, or he has a natural gift for words.

 

I'm not seeing the run-on sentences. He has many long sentences with great description, but they are not run-ons simply because they are long.

 

Of course there is room for improvement in this short story: minor tweaks in wording or punctuation, adding details here and there, etc. But nothing major.

 

Is his informative writing more stilted than his story writing? Is that why you say he is a reluctant writer?

[Abbeygurl4]

The least amount of criticism? How about, "Great Job!"

When I read that your son is a reluctant writer I was totally unprepared for the passage that followed. I would have never guessed that he is a reluctant writer.

 

Did he really just start IEW a few weeks ago? He's either picking up the dress-ups naturally, or he has a natural gift for words.

 

I'm not seeing the run-on sentences. He has many long sentences with great description, but they are not run-ons simply because they are long.

 

Of course there is room for improvement in this short story: minor tweaks in wording or punctuation, adding details here and there, etc. But nothing major.

 

Is his informative writing more stilted than his story writing? Is that why you say he is a reluctant writer?

 

 

That was lesson #7 - Story Sequence, characters, conflict and climax. He was never able to do WWE or Writing Strands so I put off making him write until we started IEW a few weeks ago. He reads A LOT and has a fantastic vocabulary but hasn't been able to form cohesive paragraphs, let alone write a full paper. I have the feeling he will do much better at story writing than informative writing.

 

I have to sit with him during the SWI and stop the video often to make sure he understands. It's been a slooooow process. Thank you for your input! I'm very used to his vivid descriptions so I think I was looking at structure more than style.

[freesia]

The least amount of criticism? How about, "Great Job!"

When I read that your son is a reluctant writer I was totally unprepared for the passage that followed. I would have never guessed that he is a reluctant writer.

 

Did he really just start IEW a few weeks ago? He's either picking up the dress-ups naturally, or he has a natural gift for words.

 

I'm not seeing the run-on sentences. He has many long sentences with great description, but they are not run-ons simply because they are long.

 

Of course there is room for improvement in this short story: minor tweaks in wording or punctuation, adding details here and there, etc. But nothing major.

 

Is his informative writing more stilted than his story writing? Is that why you say he is a reluctant writer?

:iagree: I can't find any run-ons, either. I think he did an excellent job. I would just work on the missing commas this time around. If he is reluctant writer, he probably needs to hear what a great job he did, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration.

[Abbeygurl4]

:iagree: I can't find any run-ons, either. I think he did an excellent job. I would just work on the missing commas this time around. If he is reluctant writer, he probably needs to hear what a great job he did, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration.

 

Thank you! I've just let writing slide for such a long time with him and I've been really worried about preparing him for college writing.

[boscopup]

It was a cool but cloudless day, shade cast by the falling cherry blossoms dappled the ground, and under a tree sat a Samurai, wounded at the battle of Sekigahara.

This is the only run-on sentence I noticed. I would just suggest replacing the comma after "day" with a period, and capitalizing the word "shade". Then it's two sentences. He may be meaning to make it a series ("x, y, and z"), but it does seem awkward, as the items in the series aren't obviously related in some manner.

 

I'll bet if you point out all the vivid imagery he used, the minor splitting of that one run-on into two sentences would not be a big deal. At least, I know my reluctant writer son would be ok with that suggestion. We've had to move his "which" clauses around in both paragraphs he's written so far (he's in lesson 1 of SWI-A). He had an appropriate "which" clause, but he put it in the wrong place in the sentence both times. So I said, "That's a great use of the 'which' clause! Let's just move the clause to right after the noun it describes. I really like how you used it in THIS sentence though - good thinking!" So it's sandwiched between compliments. Even as a perfectionist, he's been ok with that. :D

 

The only other thing I noticed about your son's sentences is that sometimes he used commas where they weren't needed. The sentences didn't look like run-ons to me though. I think he did a great job. :) If you have talked about commas a lot in your grammar program, you could maybe have him do a scavenger hunt for extraneous commas in the paper. If you haven't hit it much yet, I'd probably just leave it alone for now and make a note to yourself to study comma usage in grammar.

[Laura Corin]

I think he did a great job. There are some minor issues, but I think it's worth just letting him feel good about his effort at this stage.

 

Laura

[Abbeygurl4]

This is the only run-on sentence I noticed. I would just suggest replacing the comma after "day" with a period, and capitalizing the word "shade". Then it's two sentences. He may be meaning to make it a series ("x, y, and z"), but it does seem awkward, as the items in the series aren't obviously related in some manner.

 

I'll bet if you point out all the vivid imagery he used, the minor splitting of that one run-on into two sentences would not be a big deal. At least, I know my reluctant writer son would be ok with that suggestion. We've had to move his "which" clauses around in both paragraphs he's written so far (he's in lesson 1 of SWI-A). He had an appropriate "which" clause, but he put it in the wrong place in the sentence both times. So I said, "That's a great use of the 'which' clause! Let's just move the clause to right after the noun it describes. I really like how you used it in THIS sentence though - good thinking!" So it's sandwiched between compliments. Even as a perfectionist, he's been ok with that. :D

 

The only other thing I noticed about your son's sentences is that sometimes he used commas where they weren't needed. The sentences didn't look like run-ons to me though. I think he did a great job. :) If you have talked about commas a lot in your grammar program, you could maybe have him do a scavenger hunt for extraneous commas in the paper. If you haven't hit it much yet, I'd probably just leave it alone for now and make a note to yourself to study comma usage in grammar.

 

Thank you. Those are good suggestions. I also thought that the first sentence sounded awkward and it should be two. I also thought there were too many commas.

[Pen]

This is the only run-on sentence I noticed. I would just suggest replacing the comma after "day" with a period, and capitalizing the word "shade". Then it's two sentences. He may be meaning to make it a series ("x, y, and z"), but it does seem awkward, as the items in the series aren't obviously related in some manner.

 

I'll bet if you point out all the vivid imagery he used, the minor splitting of that one run-on into two sentences would not be a big deal. At least, I know my reluctant writer son would be ok with that suggestion. We've had to move his "which" clauses around in both paragraphs he's written so far (he's in lesson 1 of SWI-A). He had an appropriate "which" clause, but he put it in the wrong place in the sentence both times. So I said, "That's a great use of the 'which' clause! Let's just move the clause to right after the noun it describes. I really like how you used it in THIS sentence though - good thinking!" So it's sandwiched between compliments. Even as a perfectionist, he's been ok with that. :D

 

The only other thing I noticed about your son's sentences is that sometimes he used commas where they weren't needed. The sentences didn't look like run-ons to me though. I think he did a great job. :) If you have talked about commas a lot in your grammar program, you could maybe have him do a scavenger hunt for extraneous commas in the paper. If you haven't hit it much yet, I'd probably just leave it alone for now and make a note to yourself to study comma usage in grammar.

 

I agree with this.

 

But I think in answer to the post title, just, "Excellent work, I especially liked ______, and ________, and _______."