Output/written work? How necessary is it? Is it mostly busywork? Do you think it's important, or can it be gotten around?

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I've been thinking a lot about this lately due to some concerns I've had about my oldest DD (11 in two months). Oldest DD thrives on a collaborative environment, where we talk everything to shreds. She's very thoughtful, very analytical, very incisive. It makes her quite funny, actually, because she can cut right through to the heart of something very quickly if she's engaged.

 

In my thread about her being unmotivated, I noted that she hangs on my every word and would be happy for me to fill her ears with knowledge, but she doesn't want to provide too much output for the most part. In that discussion, Ellie asked, "Why does she have to 'produce' anything?" This is something I've often asked myself. Often, there will be a workbook page connected with something, or a student page will include lots of writing down answers rather than answering aloud (we just came across this very thing in Life of Fred, actually), or...I don't know, a literature guide will have lots of questions to answer (and I think to myself, "Why wouldn't I just ask her these questions?", and so on.

 

How necessary do you think all of this is? The LoF instructions talked about how important it is to write your answers as well as think them or speak them, because it gives your brain two ways to learn. Is this more true for some kids than others? If I talk through most of this with my DD10 rather than require her to write it, am I doing her a disservice? At what point do you feel like there's a changeover to where a student should be writing lots more? She has always struggled with not wanting to write things out, to the point where I've pretty much let writing slide in favor of discussion with the exception of WWS (used to be WWE too) and note-taking when reading history (which is new to her anyway, since she's really, IMO, only just barely hit logic-stage work).

 

I guess I'm trying to decide whether I'm copping out and shortchanging her by letting her off the hook, and she really should be writing much more by this point, or whether she's able to learn just fine without all the (unnecessary?) writing that a lot of curricula would have her doing.

 

What do you think? I'm sorry if I'm not expressing myself too clearly here. I'm trying to straighten all this out in my own head too!

[Mandy in TN]

In my thread about her being unmotivated, I noted that she hangs on my every word and would be happy for me to fill her ears with knowledge, but she doesn't want to provide too much output for the most part. In that discussion, Ellie asked, "Why does she have to 'produce' anything?" This is something I've often asked myself. Often, there will be a workbook page connected with something, or a student page will include lots of writing down answers rather than answering aloud (we just came across this very thing in Life of Fred, actually), or...I don't know, a literature guide will have lots of questions to answer (and I think to myself, "Why wouldn't I just ask her these questions?", and so on.

 

How necessary do you think all of this is? The LoF instructions talked about how important it is to write your answers as well as think them or speak them, because it gives your brain two ways to learn. Is this more true for some kids than others? If I talk through most of this with my DD10 rather than require her to write it, am I doing her a disservice? At what point do you feel like there's a changeover to where a student should be writing lots more? She has always struggled with not wanting to write things out, to the point where I've pretty much let writing slide in favor of discussion with the exception of WWS (used to be WWE too) and note-taking when reading history (which is new to her anyway, since she's really, IMO, only just barely hit logic-stage work).

 

I guess I'm trying to decide whether I'm copping out and shortchanging her by letting her off the hook, and she really should be writing much more by this point, or whether she's able to learn just fine without all the (unnecessary?) writing that a lot of curricula would have her doing.

 

What do you think? I'm sorry if I'm not expressing myself too clearly here. I'm trying to straighten all this out in my own head too!

 

I think you, at least partially, answered your own question. ;)

 

You can also view output as documentation.

 

Another reason would be that appropriate output provides a place to stretch the mind and use higher order thinking skills. It sounds like your dd is really using the information in discussion and spending time determining what it means and what she thinks about it. That is fabulous. There are many days that I can only dream of my ds being so engaged. Producing something incorporating that information is just a nice capstone. It certainly doesn't have to always be a written project nor does it need to be something that is completed daily. Obviously, the product to learning about yarn and learning how to knit is to actually make a scarf and not to write a paper on knitting... and you don't knit a scarf every day.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Corraleno]

Keep in mind that discussion is "output." The copious amounts of written output in PS generally serve one of four basic functions:

 

1. Busy work

2. Assess which kids (in a class of 30+ kids) are "getting it" and which aren't

3. Provide a basis for grading, since a PS teacher can't teach to mastery — the class has to move on whether all the kids get it or not

4. Teach/practice a skill

 

IMHO, only #4 is relevant to homeschoolers. I think that, in most cases, discussion is much more effective and meaningful than filling out a worksheet. If a writing assignment is teaching or practicing an important skill, then it's useful. If it's just "make work," I would (and do) skip it.

 

Jackie

[Arcadia]

How necessary do you think all of this is? The LoF instructions talked about how important it is to write your answers as well as think them or speak them, because it gives your brain two ways to learn. Is this more true for some kids than others?

 

 

Firstly, there are people, both adults and children, who do need to write down to remember or even to think clearer. Kind of like grocery lists and other stuff.

Secondly, the process of writing comes into play if and when your daughter have to sit for a written (not color the bubble) test. My older can talk about a topic but will take a much longer time putting thought to paper. He has a state writing test next year so we have to work on that skill so that he can pass the standardized test.

[Crimson Wife]

Have you ever had her tested for any kind of learning disabilities? It is very common for "twice exceptional" (gifted + LD) kids to have their LD's masked by the giftedness, and vice versa.

 

The physical act of writing has always been an issue for my oldest. I usually have her type up her answer and then if I need to have it handwritten for whatever reason, I have her take the typed answer and copy it into her own handwriting. I'm not thrilled about the extra step, but for whatever reason she uses so much of her brain just in forming the letters properly (and we've been working on cursive for 4 years now!) that it's like there is nothing left to focus on the composition aspect.

[Farrar]

I think one of the central things wrong with schools today is a focus on output or product. I think most education is process and that schools have lost sight of that as even being on their radar as a concept. Written output can, of course, be part of process and usually is, in part because that's how many people think and learn. But there are other ways - discussion, reading, trying things out.

 

I try to keep our perspective in our homeschool focused on process.

 

However, I'm aware that interspersing that with end products also helps mark our learning and make us feel that progress. It can also be really worthwhile. I like the way Brave Writer comes at this. Everything you're doing for writing all week is process oriented - freewriting, dictation, poetry teas, reading books, etc. But once a month, you're supposed to create something really worth showing off - a writing product that you've put time and effort into revising.

[Ellie]

IIRC, my comment questioning the necessity of "output" had more to do with what you thought she should be putting out, rather than whether output was actually necessary.

 

Not all written work is busywork. Worksheets for the most part are busywork, IMHO. There are other, better ways to help children remember what they learn and to demonstrate that they have actually learned anything. OTOH, depending on what we're talking about, it doesn't always matter that they demonstrate anything *at that time,* because some things need to be repeated multiple times, multiple different ways, to really stick in the brain cells. And sometimes it's ok that it doesn't seem as if anything is sticking. The experience itself was valuable.

[happypamama]

I think it depends. Sometimes I will admit to doing something that is busy work, mainly because it makes my portfolio easy; it's worth it to me to have the kids take 5 or 10 minutes to do a worksheet or two to prove that we covered fire safety yet again. (I usually do tell them that I know it's busy work and just for the portfolio, we roll our eyes, and they do it.)

 

Sometimes, like with WWE or math, the writing is practicing a skill. I try to limit those to things that are actually truly useful, and sometimes the skill isn't just the math but the practice of lining up problems, learning to follow through the entire problem, etc., which will serve them well for the rest of their lives. I saw tremendous improvement in one child's organizational skills this past year, brought on by consistently practicing math problems, and that is at least as important to me as whether that child learned the math operations themselves.

 

Sometimes writing is for *my* benefit, because sometimes I just don't have time to do everything orally with them. Latin, we do orally, at this point, only occasional written things for a change of pace and to put as a keepsake in our portfolio, even though it's not a required subject; it's my DD's favorite subject, so years from now, I want her to have that as a keepsake. But I don't always have time to do math orally.

 

Sometimes (and my son seems to be this way) writing helps cement the proper spelling and information; it's one more way to reinforce it in their brains. But every child is different, too.

 

I do think it's worth asking ourselves what the purpose of a particular assignment is. Sometimes it's okay to say that it's busy work because it meets a portfolio need or because it makes it easier on us as teachers. But I know I am making some changes this year to how we approach grammar and spelling; we've done workbooky stuff for that in the past couple of years, but I questioned whether they were truly useful or if they were too busy workish. I think it's good that we ask ourselves these questions.

[8filltheheart]

 

I guess I'm trying to decide whether I'm copping out and shortchanging her by letting her off the hook, and she really should be writing much more by this point, or whether she's able to learn just fine without all the (unnecessary?) writing that a lot of curricula would have her doing.

 

I agree with others that their is necessary productive output and there is busywork output. The 2 are not equivalent.

 

Discussion is absolutely valid output. Think about Socrates and his students. His students were not filling out workbook pages. ;) I think Plato must have succeeded in learning. Socratic questioning/discussion must lead to engaged learning. There are many universities that still use oral exams as a form of evaluation even today.

 

I have 2 differing POV on written output. For math.....I require written output including steps leading to answer. It is the one subject that I don't allow oral work to suffice with the exception of some geometry inductive proofs.

 

For all other subjects up until high school, my kids' output is mostly verbal with written output alternating between history, science, and lit in weekly research papers or essays.

 

That isn't to say they never do other written work or projects, just that they don't do workbook/activity pages for those subjects. For example, I started writing my 6th grader's lesson plans for the fall. She will be studying ancient Egypt. The first Friday of the school yr she will make a salt dough map of Egypt. Why? B/c she will enjoy it b/c that is the type of student she is. Only one of my older 6 kids ever did anything like that b/c that is the type of busy work that would have driven them crazy and is completely unnecessary. Tell them to spend a few minutes sketching a map, drawing the Nile, labeling the main areas of the major kingdoms, etc. and they would be good to go and that would be all that is necessary. It is all that would be necessary for this child as well, but she will enjoy the salt dough map more and so making the map and painting it will be her approach.

 

Conversely, we could do a big project with desert projects (her first science topic of the yr to accompany our ancient Egypt study), but we won't. She will research the different types so deserts and write a report. ;) That report will be not just science but her English writing as well.

 

HTH

[carriede]

Just a thought, as I have no experience with this at all.

 

I agree that discussion is a form of output and a way to gauge your DD's knowledge. If you don't always have the time to discuss things to her satisfaction, perhaps consider having her record her thoughts on the computer if you have a microphone. Or have her answer the worksheet/ discussion questions out loud in the same way.

[Harriet Vane]

It is true that discussion is valid output. Lots of discussion is definitely a good thing.

 

However, it is a skill to learn how to express your thoughts on paper. That skill is needed in college and in the adult world. It is a disservice to our children to not give them lots of opportunity to hone such a necessary skill.

 

Writing and speaking effectively are both skills that are built through practice, just like sports. When I was in high school, I learned how to play the game of basketball by doing a lot of skills drills in practice, and also a lot of scrimmaging to integrate those skills into a game situation. Writing and speaking are the same. Also, the skills of writing and speaking bolster each other--you will be a much better speaker if you are also a competent and logical writer, and vice versa.

 

So yes, output is essential. However, busywork is not necessary.

 

Your daughter should do some non-verbal skill building (worksheets or whatever tool you feel accomplishes the purpose), and she should write a lot both for the sake of learning to write, and for the sake of synthesizing what she has learned. If the curriculum's suggested output meets either of these goals, then embrace it. If the curriculum's suggested output seems like busywork that will not actually teach or reinforce a skill, then skip it or replace it with a better alternative.

[Nan in Mass]

I think it is important to write enough that it becomes easy and things like punctuation become automatic. I think it is important to learn to do various types of writing, like being able to write a letter, write a literary essay, write a report, write a persuasive paper, keep a lab notebook, take notes and summarize, etc. I think it is important to do enough of these things that they can be done fast and don't seem like a huge impossible task to be dreaded. I also think it is important to be able to write things like the steps for math and write out a Latin translation excersize (so one can teach oneself as an adult). I think discussion is important, also, as is being able to give an oral presentation, defend a position, give a speech, etc. I think being able to draw is another important means of communication. Even when one student's main way of processing and learning is by talking about something, it is still important that they learn to write. The same with a person whose main way of processing is drawing. The writer needs to learn to make an oral presentation as well. I think your student is at the age where it is important to start practicing these other, less natural to her methods of communication. You should be able to explain that to her so she understands. That doesn't mean that you won't continue to use her prefered method for the bulk of her work, just that you will also require her to do enough of the other sorts of output that they become easy. If she hasn't had enough practice writing for things like forming the letters to come easily, you may have to push pretty hard to do this. There is a sort of a hump that you have to get over: writing is hard because it is so slow that it is hard for the student to get enough practice for writing to become easy. Once you are over that hump, things become easier. Learning disabilities make the hump harder to get over but they also make it more important to deliberately teach writing rather than just assuming that the student will pick it up by themselves (the way many of us were taught to write), and it might make it more important to start early. It also might make it more necessary to separate learning other things from learning to write and not trying to combine them. That puts you back doing things that seem more like busy work, like a workbook that teaches how to write a paragraph or a proofreading workbook. It sounds as though you are doing a writing program, though? WWS? If she CAN write but just prefers to learn via discussion, then I don't see why at her age she can't do mostly discussion and just write for her history notes, writing program, and math. When she is older, she'll have to start practicing those different types of things I mentioned. I think, anyway. Just keep REchecking to make sure she is able to write at a level appropriate for her age.

 

Mine did many things orally at that age. They mostly learned to write by writing their Latin excersizes, their math, their nature journals (very brief), and their writing program. In middle school, they outlined Kingfisher and wrote a weekly history report (about a paragraph). That was it. It was a bit of a step up to high school level writing, but I would do that part the same way if I could do it again.

 

Nan

[Pen]

I've been thinking a lot about this lately due to some concerns I've had about my oldest DD (11 in two months). Oldest DD thrives on a collaborative environment, where we talk everything to shreds. She's very thoughtful, very analytical, very incisive. It makes her quite funny, actually, because she can cut right through to the heart of something very quickly if she's engaged.

 

In my thread about her being unmotivated, I noted that she hangs on my every word and would be happy for me to fill her ears with knowledge, but she doesn't want to provide too much output for the most part. In that discussion, Ellie asked, "Why does she have to 'produce' anything?" This is something I've often asked myself. Often, there will be a workbook page connected with something, or a student page will include lots of writing down answers rather than answering aloud (we just came across this very thing in Life of Fred, actually), or...I don't know, a literature guide will have lots of questions to answer (and I think to myself, "Why wouldn't I just ask her these questions?", and so on.

 

How necessary do you think all of this is? The LoF instructions talked about how important it is to write your answers as well as think them or speak them, because it gives your brain two ways to learn. Is this more true for some kids than others? If I talk through most of this with my DD10 rather than require her to write it, am I doing her a disservice? At what point do you feel like there's a changeover to where a student should be writing lots more? She has always struggled with not wanting to write things out, to the point where I've pretty much let writing slide in favor of discussion with the exception of WWS (used to be WWE too) and note-taking when reading history (which is new to her anyway, since she's really, IMO, only just barely hit logic-stage work).

 

I guess I'm trying to decide whether I'm copping out and shortchanging her by letting her off the hook, and she really should be writing much more by this point, or whether she's able to learn just fine without all the (unnecessary?) writing that a lot of curricula would have her doing.

 

What do you think? I'm sorry if I'm not expressing myself too clearly here. I'm trying to straighten all this out in my own head too!

 

I think learning to write well is important. Writing should be good enough, at least, for whatever she will want to do in life. I had a friend who was quite brilliant (Math Olympiad etc.) but could not write essays and ended up having to change colleges to somewhere that was a lesser echelon school with mostly multiple choice final exams. The school he went to for most of K-12 changed its policies and began to require writing after that, realizing that they had failed their students in that regard, since it had previously been the case that if someone liked writing they did that, and if not, not, and so he had managed not to do it and to substitute other forms of output instead, which only caught up with him at the college stage. This was before the SAT had the written section.

 

Ordinary life may also require letters of inquiry and complaint and so on, even if one is in a field more dominated by oral presentation or numbers or art. So, I think that even if she is not planning to go to college, some writing would be important.

 

OTOH, much writing in workbooks etc. is unnecessary IMO--and may not even lead to being able to write well. We do not even do literature guides, so that issue would be moot. But I do require my son to do an increasing amount of writing each year, mainly in the form of a research paper, and some shorter essays so far.

 

Since he seemed to be a very "reluctant" writer--much perhaps like your dd--we did an online Brave Writer class last year to get him over the hump.

 

This summer he is doing the Jousting with Armadillos Intro to Algebra for his math and that requires writing, which I think is helpful. For LOF he did answers orally, but the level he was at was too low for him anyway--the right upper elementary or middle school ones had not yet been published when we tried it. But to the extent he got anything mathematical from it beyond the funny story, I think the oral answers did fine, basically. OTOH, knowing how to do the brackets for sets in set theory notation would be furthered by actually writing them. His other math he usually did written out, whether that be MM or MUS etc.

[Pen]

Have you ever had her tested for any kind of learning disabilities? It is very common for "twice exceptional" (gifted + LD) kids to have their LD's masked by the giftedness, and vice versa.

 

The physical act of writing has always been an issue for my oldest. I usually have her type up her answer and then if I need to have it handwritten for whatever reason, I have her take the typed answer and copy it into her own handwriting. I'm not thrilled about the extra step, but for whatever reason she uses so much of her brain just in forming the letters properly (and we've been working on cursive for 4 years now!) that it's like there is nothing left to focus on the composition aspect.

 

 

 

Similar experience here.

 

We do not focus on handwriting at all. I was thinking writing in the sense of composition was what OP was asking about.

 

We have recorded the oral discussion on subjects of interest and then let that become the beginnings for a written composition research paper. All typed, no cursive step at all.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

My gut is not telling me there's an LD issue. I believe it's more a "lazy kid" issue. She asked for cursive handwriting books for Christmas a few years ago and taught herself cursive. She then preferred to go back to print primarily (which was fine with me). She has no problem writing nice, long penpal letters and birthday cards and so on. She just doesn't see why she has to do it for schoolwork when she could just TELL me the answer or figure it out in her own head (the "writing the steps" issue for math, I know there's no getting around that one). And sometimes, I don't disagree with her!

 

I guess my initial question was not so much about the content areas, like composition. I know all of that is necessary. In all the examples I can pull up in my memory, the writing does seem to be busywork--single-word answers, comprehension questions, things like that--or else things that we'd cover in a discussion. She does balk hard at more extensive writing too, though, and I know that's something we need to be working on. Taking notes or outlining from her history spine is pure torture for her. She'll do WWS with much foot dragging. I have some ideas for how to move this along in the coming year. Hopefully I'm successful!