s/o of a s/o: implementing ideas for preparing our kids for college-level writing

[g1234]

The thread "s/o College/University writing instructor rants on high school writing instruction..." has exploded into an unbelievably high-level and intelligent thread! Many thanks to everyone there. It is also deeply satisfying to me, since like many of you I have spent years looking at various writing curricula and not thinking they would be a good fit for my kids. This is helping tremendusly to move my thinking along.

 

I wanted to start a new spinoff because I found myself excited to run with some of these thoughts, but with a few practical questions. I didn't want to hijack that thread, though.

 

Here are my three questions:

 

1. I feel a renewed desire for good models for various kinds of essays. Economist and WSJ, mentioned in the old thread, sound like one kind of good source. OhElizabeth mentioned a book of nature essays that I couldn't find when I googled it, but I'd love to find it. I know someone (maybe llewelma?) started a thread similar to this topic recently, but it didn't seem to come up with too much that I thought would help us. Does anyone have any other ideas to toss out?

 

2. This is hard to admit, but I feel unequal to the task of coming up with specific writing ideas that will move my kid toward college kinds of writing. Call them prompts, or assignments, or topics....I agree with comments in the old thread about how prompts are often problematic, but I have such a block about helping my kid come up with a worthy start, even if we have read a good book. Once we have a start, I feel pretty good about guiding her in the writing process, but getting past that first step is so hard for us. For instance, WttW's idea (most of WttW wasn't a good fit for us, but this one part was useful) of analyzing the author's use of suspense in a short story was helpful and led to a good essay analyzing the use of suspense in ch. 28 of To Kill A Mockingbird. I feel silly saying it, but I wouldn't have come up with that idea on my own. But we can't spend the next few years just analyzing suspense in book after book! I wish I had a list of some good general ideas that we could use or take inspiration from. Any ideas?

 

3. OhElizabeth mentioned making a template from a good essay, like from the Economist, and having the kid fill it in as an exercise in modeling good essays. This sounds interesting, but I honestly don't know exactly what this is. What does it look like?

 

I hope this isn't covering too much territory in one post. I'm just so energized by the old thread!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Nice idea to pursue.

 

Essay open prompts. These are questions taken from old AP lit exams that are designed to apply to many works of lit. http://sb169.k12.sd.us/Prompt%20list%20for%20IR%20with%20AP.htm

 

Essay scoring rubric. http://www.mahs.org/apps/download/DVErmuLpj3tgb7MoDQa8SUxO4dVGzsNNJypyR4vanNkW08Mc.pdf/AP%20Generic%20Rubric.pdf

 

I don't think ap lit is the end of writing mastery but it's an interesting glimpse at what some have agreed college level analysis and writing might look like.

 

One thing I've noticed with my sons is that it helps to have discussion before sending them off to write. I had an intense conversation with one son Friday concerning the characters in Dracula and if there was a single protagonist. He is pretty convinced that several characters fill this role. I think there is a topic here worth exploring and defending.

[lewelma]

I have been on the same hunt as you. We plan to read and seriously discuss the writing of one essay per week. This is what I have come up with:
 
Essays sorted by rhetorical topic (definition, compare/contrast, example, etc,) with science, political science, anthropology, pop culture, etc examples in each category. Essays come from excellent sources like The New Yorker and Nature:
The Norton Sampler
Student examples in about.com
 
Current events
The economist
 
Debate/ argument
The economist Debates online http://www.economist.com/debate/upcoming
The Saturday Essay in WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304149404579322560004817176?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304149404579322560004817176.html
NYTimes Room for Debate (many are poorly written with loads of fallacies, and we have loved critiquing them) http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate

 

Science
Scientific American opinion section for argument and rest for expository
Best American Science and Nature Writing series http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=best%20american%20%20science%20and%20nature%20writing%20book&index=blended&link_code=qs&sourceid=Mozilla-search&tag=wwwcanoniccom-20
NY times science (you have to pick and choose, some are essays and some are just newspaper articles) http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/
 
Biographical
The economist Obituaries 
 
Literary analysis
I'm really struggling to find published examples of literary analysis essays, the kind that we expect our students to write with a thesis and support/quotes.

This site has some student samples: http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng104/midtermexamples.htm

Some interesting writing here also http://www.danagioia.net/essays/elongfellow.htm
 
Prompts
SAT prompt exemplars http://www.majortests.com/sat/essay-sample1.php
prompt archetypes: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/764514-sat-essay-prompt-archetypes-5.html
500 examples of HS student's responses to prompts http://www.englishdaily626.com/high_school_english_essays.php?302

 

Fully analysed essays from the point of view of Rhetoric

Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student Corbett http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Rhetoric-Modern-Student-Edition/dp/0195115422

 

Good to get it all in one place. HTH.
 
Ruth in NZ
 
 
x-post from Lisa from my other thread:


These are my two favorites for the earlier years of high school:
 
The Brief Bedford Reader –Kennedy - I prefer my kids to study essays done by professional writers versus peers in order to understand how to write an essay. This particular volume isn't very big, but it offers a lot of instruction and it probably one of my favorite high school English resources. The first part of the book talks about reading critically, writing effectively and using and documenting sources. The second section talks about the different methods for writing essays: narration, description, example, comparison and contrast, process analysis, classification, cause and effect, definition, argument and persuasion. So for comparison and contrast, you will read about the writing process and then read Suzanne Britt's Neat People vs. Sloppy People. At the end of the essay, there are several questions for discussion regarding the topic and the writing strategy. This is followed by essay topics and finally the essay's author gives their own thoughts on writing.
 
50 Essays: A Portable Anthology – Samuel Cohen - another small, but indispensable volume with a wide variety of authors: Maya Angelou, George Orwell, Frederick Douglas, Langston Hughes, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dave Barry. There are questions for discussion and writing at the end of each selection.
 
This is the volume my ds (15) is currently using for his AP English Language course through PA Homeschoolers (which I highly recommend):
 
The Language of Composition – Shea -This is another multi-talented volume that offers a great introductory section on rhetoric, a close-reading section, and the incredibly helpful section on synthesizing sources.  I find the Exploring the Text questions to be deeper than most English resources.
 
Next year we will be using the following resources as part of ds's English and biology classes:
 
<a data-ipb="nomediaparse" data-cke-saved-href="http://www.amazon.com/Everythings-Argument-Readings-Andrea-Lunsford/dp/0312407246/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1388422956&sr=8-9&keywords=everything" href="http://www.amazon.com/Everythings-Argument-Readings-Andrea-Lunsford/dp/0312407246/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1388422956&sr=8-9&keywords=everything" s+an+argument"="">Everything’s An Argument – Lunsford - More essays, a lot of solid instruction on argumentation. Often used in AP Lang. courses. Another favorite.
The Nature of Life: Readings in Biology (I like science essays and am looking for  collections for chemistry and physics)
 
 
 

[swimmermom3]

Ruth, are you looking for student samples for literary analysis?

 

"Must you have student samples?" says Swimmermom3 with dismay.

 

Why?

[lewelma]

No, NOT student samples. I want my son to read real literary analysis *essays* written by real adults in the field, but they only seem to write books. I also need these 'real' examples to still use a thesis and argument with quotes if that is what I expect my son to do. So the website I linked to above with literary analysis by an author is not quite suitable because my son must make a quoted argument to pass, and thses essays don't use that approach. I am all ears to suggestions but got none that met these requirements on the thread I started a few days ago.

 

Why in the world do we want our students to write something that does not exist as an independent written form in the real world?

[swimmermom3]

Oh. Thank goodness. No student samples.

 

Try contemporary author's blogs; writers like to write about other writers and the art of writing.

 

Also, if you are reading a classic work like The Scarlet Letter, read what Poe has to say about Hawthorne, or what Henry James has to say about Walt Whitman.

 

One resource I like to use for teaching short stories is The Story and It's Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. The first 1300 pages are devoted to the stories themselves. In the table of contents you'll see related commentaries that are in the back portion of the book: Willa Cather on Katherine Mansfield, John Updike on Kafka, and Eudora Welty on Anton Chekov.

 

When Sailor Dude was in 5th grade, we used MCT's Voyage level. Everything was perfect for my son except for Essay Voyage. We did the easy parts and left most of the classical essays for the coming years when we both had gained a bit more maturity. That book got us going down the essay path which seemed to be know to everyone but us. Essays, short stories and poetry are some of my favorite tools for teaching writing. Essays written by the pros have the additional benefit of teaching your student how to think.

 

ETA: Sorry, Ruth. I didn't see that you had already linked Dana Gioia.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I think that book reviews would fit the bill of literary analysis essays.

 

Not book reports, which tend toward plot synopsis.

 

Book reviews, like you find in Wall Street Journal, and other serious newspapers and journals.  Hmm, WSJ seems to be subscriber only.

 

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yep, I love book reviews by Michael Dirda, and essays by George Orwell, Italo Calvino, and Christopher Hitchens.  They write about literature as well as about politics and "current" events.

[regentrude]

To see what a literary essay can be, I recommend Tolkien The Monsters and the critics on Beowulf.

[swimmermom3]

To see what a literary essay can be, I recommend Tolkien The Monsters and the critics on Beowulf.

 

Head-slap. This is  a great essay.

 

Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I've had some success with anthologies of essays on popular science fiction and fantasy series. My favorite is the book Mapping the World of The Sorcerer's Apprentice which is about Harry Potter.

 

The essay on why HP isn't sexist is very good. So is the one about what would have happened if Voldemort HAD killed Harry. Caveat there is one essay about fan fiction that explores the trend in fan fiction toward erotica. I suggested my kids skip that one.

[1Togo]

The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing - Accessible college text with excellent examples of assignments as well as insight into the writing and editing process.

 

BJU Companion to College English - Good discussion of lit analysis for college students.

 

Bravewriter's H4HS does a bit of this as well.

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

I recently got a copy of Bravewriter's Help for High School that 1togo referred to above.  I really like the looks of it.  I think it will be a very wonderful and gentle introduction to essay writing.  With my students, I've found they track a couple of  years ahead of the standard BW categories, and I'm thinking this will be a nice pre-LAoW intro to essay writing for 7th/8th grade around our house.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

More short literary analysis: the introductions to many classics (Bantam, Signet and Penguin classics often have these). These are 4-15 pages about the work often by a notable author.

 

Norton Critical Editions. These are special editions of classics with several literary essays included.

[PeterPan]

The thread "s/o College/University writing instructor rants on high school writing instruction..." has exploded into an unbelievably high-level and intelligent thread! Many thanks to everyone there. It is also deeply satisfying to me, since like many of you I have spent years looking at various writing curricula and not thinking they would be a good fit for my kids. This is helping tremendusly to move my thinking along.

 

I wanted to start a new spinoff because I found myself excited to run with some of these thoughts, but with a few practical questions. I didn't want to hijack that thread, though.

 

Here are my three questions:

 

1. I feel a renewed desire for good models for various kinds of essays. Economist and WSJ, mentioned in the old thread, sound like one kind of good source. OhElizabeth mentioned a book of nature essays that I couldn't find when I googled it, but I'd love to find it. I know someone (maybe llewelma?) started a thread similar to this topic recently, but it didn't seem to come up with too much that I thought would help us. Does anyone have any other ideas to toss out?

 

2. This is hard to admit, but I feel unequal to the task of coming up with specific writing ideas that will move my kid toward college kinds of writing. Call them prompts, or assignments, or topics....I agree with comments in the old thread about how prompts are often problematic, but I have such a block about helping my kid come up with a worthy start, even if we have read a good book. Once we have a start, I feel pretty good about guiding her in the writing process, but getting past that first step is so hard for us. For instance, WttW's idea (most of WttW wasn't a good fit for us, but this one part was useful) of analyzing the author's use of suspense in a short story was helpful and led to a good essay analyzing the use of suspense in ch. 28 of To Kill A Mockingbird. I feel silly saying it, but I wouldn't have come up with that idea on my own. But we can't spend the next few years just analyzing suspense in book after book! I wish I had a list of some good general ideas that we could use or take inspiration from. Any ideas?

 

3. OhElizabeth mentioned making a template from a good essay, like from the Economist, and having the kid fill it in as an exercise in modeling good essays. This sounds interesting, but I honestly don't know exactly what this is. What does it look like?

 

I hope this isn't covering too much territory in one post. I'm just so energized by the old thread!

Ok, I'll be a little different.  :)

 

Yes I have my dd reading essays this year, but I care MUCH more that she's engaged and really thinking about them than what the level is or whether we're discussing them.  She's the sort who takes in lots of pieces of information over time and synthesizes.  I have no doubt that if she reads a genre of essays for a year, at the end she'll have some opinion on how good ones are written, what style they should be written in, what the tone should be, etc.  I gave her a feedback/log form.  So to me, the engagement, the pleasure she derives, the fact that she's READY to interact with them and ENJOY them is what's important.  Timing.

 

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013  I think Lewelma linked to them, but I'll give you the link again just so you can see it.  I went through and got a bunch of the back issues from previous years for a song ($4-ish apiece!).  I counted them out with sort of the intention that if she read a couple a week, we'd get through all the volumes in two years, which seemed adequate to me.  I picked these volumes because I thought she'd find the content of them engaging.  Amazon has samples, so look at them and use your discretion.  I make NO claims that there's one set or a prescribed list of what they should read.  Before this we read Muse magazine for a similar purpose.  Muse is engaging, curious, non-fiction, and makes you think.  That's good enough to me.  

 

Btw, can we be utterly clear that I don't have her reading a textbook this year?  Like seriously, I'm not sure I have her reading any textbooks this year.  You can't do EVERYTHING, nor should you even try.  Children need down time to process and ponder and explore their own interests.  I didn't ADD this onto her requirements; I REPLACED requirements with other ones.  So no textbook, yes books of essays and whatnot.  That's a choice.  You can't look at someone and pull out one thing they're doing and replicate it and say voila now I'll be doing great!  You really have to look at the totality and whether adding that task puts you over the top, enhances what you're doing, is timely, or maybe is just disinteresting busywork for your dc.  My dd actually LOVES these essays right now.  Soembody else's kid might read Scientific American and other things for pleasure, in which case this wouldn't even be a worthwhile thing to specify, kwim?  

 

Have YOUR OWN MIX of what creates the language-rich, thought-provoking environment you want.  That's my only two cents.

 

I have people back channel telling me literary analysis, as described here on the boards, is not a hill to die on.  Take that as you will.  There are more opinions about how it can be done, what needs to be done, etc.  I can tell you the people I talk with who aren't on the boards but who actually have taught college lit think it's described too narrowly around here.  You might not be engaged with the lit, might not be hitting that lit at the right time, might be rushing the process (need more time to read), or might (shudder) benefit from switching your analysis to something besides lit.  

 

Sorry, that point about the Economist was my mind thinking through something I think would work for my dd.  I wasn't really prescribing it for anyone else.  I tend to connect lots of approaches and make leaps and do my own thing.  WWS/SWB espouses a topoi approach, so basically I think it's possible to analyze the articles that way and imitate.  I know someone who does her analysis and discussion this way, and it works for them.  I think the more I get on top of this, the more I'll feel confident about doing whatever.  No phd or expertness here, sorry.  :)

 

I don't think too many people retorted the prompt thing, because we didn't want to be impolite.  That's not my experience at all, and prompts can be exceptionally useful as starting points, especially when they allow for creativity and rabbit trails.  I think the worst ones are really prescriptive or trying to give the student a thesis that he possibly doesn't even agree with.  SAT/exam prompts are their own genre and would be studied differently.  My student can't churn out stuff that quickly, so that's not going to be her reality.

 

You know, I think it's very curious that some of the people here on the boards who've gotten kids into the most elite schools have the most laid-back, communication-driven approach to writing.  You'd think they'd be cracking the whips and telling us to write x number essays a week and this many term papers and this and that, and instead they talk about interest-driven projects, contextualized writing (harnessing something the kid is already doing), focusing on discussing, upper level reading, and writing for a purpose.  I'm where you are, so who am I to say xyz approach is bad or good?  I can say my kid can't TOLERATE the rush of mind-numbing assignments WTM would want to prescribe.  That's just not her physical reality.  If some child responds well to that, awesome for them.  I have to think more in terms of what is really necessary for my student to get her the ability to do everything she can do, the ability to express everything she can express, without wearing her out in the process.  That's us, and that's how I filter my choices.  

 

So I guess start with your student and just look at what's going to bring something good out of them, what's going to make them THINK, what's going to help them make the next step in effective communication, then take it.  :)

[8filltheheart]

I stopped reading the other thread and only sort of skimmed this one.  :tongue_smilie:

   

I love the quote from Peter Kreeft where he says he refuses to give his students their essay topics b/c that is 1/2 the work.   I agree.  We spend a lot of time learning how to develop a strong contention.   A strong thesis really drives a paper forward.   So if students are able to develop an excellent thesis, developing the argument is that much easier.   A weak bleh contention is more difficult to work with.

[Nan in Mass]

I don't have much to contribute to this thread because although I worked really hard on writing with my children simply because I HAD to, my goals were different than most people's goals here.  Maybe?  Both of them wound up writing rather well, but I still wouldn't necessarily trust them to write a really good argument or a literary analysis paper.  We used Writing Strands (which despite its awfulness actually WORKED) and lots of reading, story-telling, and trying to speak clearly, and then later, in high school, I cheated lol.  I picked specific types of REAL writing that we both KNEW they were going to have to do during their lives and focused on that.  This was mostly technical writing - lab notebooks, abstracts, research papers, reports, etc..  There usually was a real reason for the writing.  They made up their own experiments, read articles I was interested in and didn't have time to read, invented things they wanted to tell people about, had ideas about their reading they wanted to explore, or investigated things they wanted to know about.  They did other types of writing (travel logs, letters, stories) and did them very well, but I didn't have anything to do with that other than to read them.  When they wrote the letters, it was to tell me what was happening to them.  When they wrote the travel logs, they were traveling and had things they wanted to remember when they were old.  When they told stories, they were outside school and had an audience that really wanted to be entertained with a story.  One of those types of "real" writing was fake academic writing, writing just to show a teacher or prof that you know something or have thought about something.  That was the hardest thing to teach because it required stating the obvious or talking about themselves, both of which they considered very very stupid.  Then I told them that they weren't prepared for a literature class at a good college and that under no circumstances were they to take an art history class that required writing, and I graduated them.  But anyway...

 

I have a few suggestions when it comes to teaching writing:

 

-Half the battle is thinking of a thesis statement so I don't think it is a good idea always to start with a prompt.  Instead, try to find a general set of questions to discuss FIRST and while you are discussing, see if any interesting ideas crop up.  For literature, you can use TWEM.  At one point on this board, people came up with a set of history questions and primary source questions.  I think a good set of questions to think about or discuss will start with the concrete (when was this written, what else was going on in the world), move through to the more abstract (what is the theme, what if this were taken to the extreme), and then will move into the realm of opinions and personal applications (have you found this to be true).  I found that if the questions were specific to a piece of literature or an event or a topic, they tended to make it harder to find something to write about rather than easier.  Maybe this is where OhElizabeth's observation about elite schools comes in?  It is harder to work from a set of general questions at the beginning, but in the end, the questions are internalized and noticing things and being curious about things becomes easier.

-To teach organization, it helps to snip up the rough draft into sentences, talk about what sort of sentence each is - topic statement, detail, hook, transition, conclusion, etc., and what other sentences it belongs to, and then rearrange the whole batch.

-Fix papers from big things to little things.  It isn't worth working on sentence wording until after you've fixed the organization and it isn't worth fixing the spelling until after you've fixed the wording.  A proofreader can fix the spelling.  If you haven't spent hours fixing the wording, you are much more willing to reorganize it.

-Some of our best discussions about writing have been the result of me just saying "why" over and over.  Why did the author choose to write about this topic?  Why did the writer choose to organize the paper this way?  Why did the author choose to emphasize that?  Why did the author choose that word?

-You can increase the value of good examples by also supplying some dreadful examples.  I discovered this accidentally when we tried to listen to an audiobook on a long drive.  I had chosen it because the back cover made it sound like I might like it (housewife main character) AND my teen boys might like it (something about hunting down evil somethings).  I spent the trip listening to my children rip apart the writing from the back seat.  I had no idea they could do that.  The point is that they COULDN'T if what they were reading was well written.

-It is much easier to write if the writing is real.  It is hard to do a good job if you are writing essays to a prompt just to show that you have read the assigned reading or that you understand a concept.  There isn't point and it is hard to decide what to include and what not to include.  That sort of deciding is important to learn.  You can't take a science test without being able to write that sort of essay.  But it is easier to learn that sort of writing by beginning by trying to tell someone something they DON'T already know and then move into practising telling someone who DOES know.  If that makes sense.

-It might be better to outsource if you can't take the time to figure out what exactly is wrong with your child's writing and how to fix those particular things.  I found that in high school, it didn't really work to decide that my son couldn't write well and pick a writing program for him to go through.  We tried that.  The writing program didn't fix the writing because there were specific things wrong with the writing and the program didn't get to those things for a long time and when it finally did, it spent too little time on them, not knowing that those things were a problem for this particular person.

-For examples, you can look at real examples of writing used for that purpose, but be aware that unless it was done by a writer, it isn't necessarily going to be well-written.  The scientist or historian who writes up his findings may do an adequate job but might not be someone to emulate.

 

Nan

 

 

 

 

[Dana]

I've had some success with anthologies of essays on popular science fiction and fantasy series. My favorite is the book Mapping the World of The Sorcerer's Apprentice which is about Harry Potter.

 

The essay on why HP isn't sexist is very good. So is the one about what would have happened if Voldemort HAD killed Harry. Caveat there is one essay about fan fiction that explores the trend in fan fiction toward erotica. I suggested my kids skip that one.

 

I swear, hanging out on these boards costs me more money....

 

 

 

 

Btw, can we be utterly clear that I don't have her reading a textbook this year?  Like seriously, I'm not sure I have her reading any textbooks this year.  You can't do EVERYTHING, nor should you even try.  Children need down time to process and ponder and explore their own interests.  I didn't ADD this onto her requirements; I REPLACED requirements with other ones.

 

I need to keep reminding myself of this.

The problem is I WANT to do everything :)

[yvonne]

Not sure this is exactly what you're looking for, but it does have some sample lit analysis student essays. I'm finding it interesting. Or this one?

[Chrysalis Academy]

I stopped reading the other thread and only sort of skimmed this one.  :tongue_smilie:

   

I love the quote from Peter Kreeft where he says he refuses to give his students their essay topics b/c that is 1/2 the work.   I agree.  We spend a lot of time learning how to develop a strong contention.   A strong thesis really drives a paper forward.   So if students are able to develop an excellent thesis, developing the argument is that much easier.   A weak bleh contention is more difficult to work with.

 

Right, but haven't I read you saying that when your student is first learning to write essays (like your current 6th grader), you do provide them with topics?  I know this is the high school board, but since I'm not there yet, I find myself thinking a lot about how to create a bridge for my student from where she is to the place where she can write a great essay with an interesting thesis entirely independently. 

 

In the spirit of not asking a student to do too many hard new things at the same time, it makes sense to me to sometimes provide them with a topic to write about, and to even help them turn an idea or a statement into a thesis, so that they can focus on organization or strong word choice or some other aspect of the writing.  During the learning process, maybe not every assignment needs to be about everything?  

[8filltheheart]

Right, but haven't I read you saying that when your student is first learning to write essays (like your current 6th grader), you do provide them with topics?  I know this is the high school board, but since I'm not there yet, I find myself thinking a lot about how to create a bridge for my student from where she is to the place where she can write a great essay with an interesting thesis entirely independently. 

 

In the spirit of not asking a student to do too many hard new things at the same time, it makes sense to me to sometimes provide them with a topic to write about, and to even help them turn an idea or a statement into a thesis, so that they can focus on organization or strong word choice or some other aspect of the writing.  During the learning process, maybe not every assignment needs to be about everything?  

 

Right, every assignment should be really about working on old skills while focusing on just a few new skills.

 

That said, my goals are basic paragraph writing in early elementary school.   Solid report writing in late elementary and early middle school.  Basic essay writing (which would originally give the contention and have leeway for lots of errors when first incorporating supporting evidence)  should be introduced in middle school.

 

By 9th grade, I  would like to see that they have mastered basic essay writing and should be starting to discuss thesis statement ideas with me.

 

I want high school to be spent exploring different levels of complexity of essays.   (cause/effect, compare/contrast, literary analysis) 

 

Oops, I meant to say that they can focus on organization or strong word choice or some other aspect of the writing imho should have been mastered long before high school and should be a regular part of every writing assignment.   The focus should be on developing their argument by this pt.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Right, every assignment should be really about working on old skills while focusing on just a few new skills.

 

That said, my goals are basic paragraph writing in early elementary school.   Solid report writing in late elementary and early middle school.  Basic essay writing (which would originally give the contention and have leeway for lots of errors when first incorporating supporting evidence)  should be introduced in middle school.

 

By 9th grade, I  would like to see that they have mastered basic essay writing and should be starting to discuss thesis statement ideas with me.

 

I want high school to be spent exploring different levels of complexity of essays.   (cause/effect, compare/contrast, literary analysis)

 

Makes sense.  I do realize I am on the high school board!  :lol: Just trying to make sense of what everyone is saying in terms of where I'm at right now, KWIM?

[PeterPan]

Right, but haven't I read you saying that when your student is first learning to write essays (like your current 6th grader), you do provide them with topics?  I know this is the high school board, but since I'm not there yet, I find myself thinking a lot about how to create a bridge for my student from where she is to the place where she can write a great essay with an interesting thesis entirely independently. 

 

In the spirit of not asking a student to do too many hard new things at the same time, it makes sense to me to sometimes provide them with a topic to write about, and to even help them turn an idea or a statement into a thesis, so that they can focus on organization or strong word choice or some other aspect of the writing.  During the learning process, maybe not every assignment needs to be about everything?  

Chrysalis, I thought you were pretty happy with WWS?  What happened to that?  I finally sat down and went through WWS2 last night, since it doesn't seem like anything else is appearing to do the job, and I think I can get it to work.  Dd at least did her chunk today without complaining.  You might spend a lot of time trying to reinvent the wheel, or you might find wheel production goes a bit better with an older workman.  Sorry for the terrible metaphor.  Seriously though, my dc was sort of idiotic at 11.  I would have been leading her by the nose through things she intuits with ease and with JOY and aplomb now.  If the right option isn't appearing, go do creative writing or something for a while and come back to non-fiction.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Right, but haven't I read you saying that when your student is first learning to write essays (like your current 6th grader), you do provide them with topics?  I know this is the high school board, but since I'm not there yet, I find myself thinking a lot about how to create a bridge for my student from where she is to the place where she can write a great essay with an interesting thesis entirely independently. 

 

In the spirit of not asking a student to do too many hard new things at the same time, it makes sense to me to sometimes provide them with a topic to write about, and to even help them turn an idea or a statement into a thesis, so that they can focus on organization or strong word choice or some other aspect of the writing.  During the learning process, maybe not every assignment needs to be about everything?  

 

When I taught a coop lit class last year, there was a definite progression in skills.  One of the first assignments was to take a suspenseful short story and write two paragraphs about two ways the author created suspense.  So in this case, the topic of the paragraphs was given to them. They were only writing the body paragraphs.  They could choose any aspect of the story that contributed to suspense (and we had discussed about a dozen possible ways an author could do this).

 

When they wrote their first full essay, it took several weeks to walk through the writing process (this was definitely longer than it had to be if we'd been working at home, but even without the coop schedule, I would have taken several steps for it).  The first task was to choose a thesis. We discussed that the thesis needed to leave them something to prove or a position to support.  Then they worked on writing paragraphs that demonstrated the evidence of the thesis (and if possible, countered likely objections to it). They had to use evidence from the text. Then they wrote a full introduction leading to the thesis and a conclusion that brought things to a close (I like to refer to the conclusion as the "so what" paragraph. It leaves the reader with the feeling that the point was made and that the point of the essay has some wider significance.) [Which reminds me that I've seen people mention that they had their kids work on note taking skills by listening to sermons at church. Could also be a good lesson in essay writing - since a sermon is largely an essay on a particular topic or text. And those I've heard usually have a good conclusion.]

 

A couple things I noticed kids struggle with.

 

The thesis was a statement they struggled to defend. I told students that they were free to take any stance on the writing -- so long as they could back it up with evidence from the text.  If they wanted to write that Jane Eyre was a poorly written piece of work with trite, overblown metaphors standing in the place of well crafted writing, that was fine. But they had to show the evidence for that stance.  If their evidence wasn't supporting the thesis, they had the option to either choose better evidence or to alter the thesis phrasing or the entire thesis.

 

Paragraphs didn't hang together. Just as the paragraphs ought to build on and support the thesis, the sentences of the paragraph ought to relate to the topic of the paragraph.  Some students didn't know when to leave something out, provide more evidence or split an idea into another whole paragraph.

 

Using quotations within a paragraph.  I had several students who knew they had to find proof in the text, but really struggled with how to present it in the paragraph. They tended to give me a statement in one sentence. Then a long quotation that might or might not relate. Then another (possibly related) statement. Then another long quotation.  These paragraphs lacked connecting transition words. They did not weave between the third person outside perspective of the essay writer and the evidence of the quotation. So I might get something like:

 

The tree was a symbol of Jane and Rochester. "The giant oak stood before me, burned and disfigured from lightening. The import of this transfiguration was not yet known to me." The tree is love.

 

when what I was looking for was something more like:

 

Having associated the giant oak tree with Rochester's strength of will and protection when he proposed under its "sweeping spreading branches", Jane cannot help but associate its destruction by the "wrath of the ferocious storm sent from heaven above" with an as yet unknown doom for their impending marriage.  She sees the tree trunk split in two and "burned and disfigured from lightening" and worries that the destruction foretells some tragedy "not yet known."

 

[All of the quotations above are invented, faux Bronte quotes.]

 

One student had a tendency to write really well crafted, emphatic essays that were based on a misreading of the text.  He is a really bright student who writes well. But he has a tendency to lead his reading with the foregone conclusion and misunderstand some subtleties of the text. Sometimes this had him attributing an attitude to one character that they (the character) were really reporting as the attitude of another character. So for him, I double checked quotations to see if he'd really gotten the sense of the scene at hand. This was pretty rewarding as he was ready for a deep reading of the text and was open to see where he might be misunderstanding it. 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Sebastian, that's awesome! Thanks for articulating how you break it down.

[swimmermom3]

I stopped reading the other thread and only sort of skimmed this one.  :tongue_smilie:

   

I love the quote from Peter Kreeft where he says he refuses to give his students their essay topics b/c that is 1/2 the work.   I agree.  We spend a lot of time learning how to develop a strong contention.   A strong thesis really drives a paper forward.   So if students are able to develop an excellent thesis, developing the argument is that much easier.   A weak bleh contention is more difficult to work with.

 

 

Right, but haven't I read you saying that when your student is first learning to write essays (like your current 6th grader), you do provide them with topics?  I know this is the high school board, but since I'm not there yet, I find myself thinking a lot about how to create a bridge for my student from where she is to the place where she can write a great essay with an interesting thesis entirely independently. 

 

In the spirit of not asking a student to do too many hard new things at the same time, it makes sense to me to sometimes provide them with a topic to write about, and to even help them turn an idea or a statement into a thesis, so that they can focus on organization or strong word choice or some other aspect of the writing.  During the learning process, maybe not every assignment needs to be about everything?  

 

 

Right, every assignment should be really about working on old skills while focusing on just a few new skills.

 

That said, my goals are basic paragraph writing in early elementary school.   Solid report writing in late elementary and early middle school.  Basic essay writing (which would originally give the contention and have leeway for lots of errors when first incorporating supporting evidence)  should be introduced in middle school.

 

By 9th grade, I  would like to see that they have mastered basic essay writing and should be starting to discuss thesis statement ideas with me.

 

I want high school to be spent exploring different levels of complexity of essays.   (cause/effect, compare/contrast, literary analysis) 

 

Oops, I meant to say that they can focus on organization or strong word choice or some other aspect of the writing imho should have been mastered long before high school and should be a regular part of every writing assignment.   The focus should be on developing their argument by this pt.

 

Chrysalis and Eight, thank you for clarifying Eight's first post above. I initially had a bit of a knee-jerk response to the post because, while I agree with it in theory, Sailor Dude and I had a difficult time with it in practice. We spun our wheels for a couple of months when he was first learning to write essays because coming up with topics took forever. I finally started using prompts for history, literature, and sometimes science. I am not sure what you all think of as a prompt, but I would give him something along the lines of "Compare and contrast 2 of the ancient river valley civilizations." This is not a thesis on a silver platter. The student is left with plenty of thinking to do, but within much narrower parameters.

 

My son (maybe this is a fluke applicable only to us) needed to write a bunch of essays, read a bunch more, and study more rhetoric before he really understood the purpose of an essay and how it worked. By giving him space to develop his understanding, he began to figure out for himself what a good thesis looked like. Practice and lots of it allowed him to see a good working thesis in a TC lecture, in a Jon Stewart episode, or in one of Shakespeare's plays.

 

So we started out writing theses the wrong way, but he now has no problem writing his own theses or completely answering a prompt. We achieved the goal, but with different methodology.

 

ETA: mentioned wrong poster

[Chrysalis Academy]

Lisa, this is exactly the path I see us following:  at this point, I'm giving her a topic like you describe, and not requiring a thesis - she is focusing on gathering the evidence, organizing it, and saying it well.  So recently she wrote a paper comparing and contrasting the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin.  There wasn't really a thesis, it was just about gathering the information from multiple sources, synthesizing it, organizing it, and communicating it.  Once she can do this with ease, I can see giving her a topic, but asking her to develop a thesis like you described above.  Promptless essay writing with a well-developed thesis is still several years in our future!  It's good to articulate these steps, though, and see examples of how others are helping lead their students through them.

[8filltheheart]

Chrysalis and Eight, thank you for clarifying Eight's first post above. I initially had a bit of a knee-jerk response to the post because, while I agree with it in theory, Sailor Dude and I had a difficult time with it in practice. We spun our wheels for a couple of months when he was first learning to write essays because coming up with topics took forever. I finally started using prompts for history, literature, and sometimes science. I am not sure what you all think of as a prompt, but I would give him something along the lines of "Compare and contrast 2 of the ancient river valley civilizations." This is not a thesis on a silver platter. The student is left with plenty of thinking to do, but within much narrower parameters.

 

I'm not sure why you had a knee jerk reaction, Lisa.   I quoted Kreeft and said "We spend a lot of time learning how to develop a strong contention."

Learning to write a thesis statement is literally 1/2 the work.   They have to LEARN how to do it.  Don't know what I wrote gave you the idea that I was suggesting otherwise???

[swimmermom3]

I'm not sure why you had a knee jerk reaction, Lisa.   I quoted Kreeft and said "We spend a lot of time learning how to develop a strong contention."

Learning to write a thesis statement is literally 1/2 the work.   They have to LEARN how to do it.  Don't know what I wrote gave you the idea that I was suggesting otherwise???

 

:blushing: I think in my quick reading I came away with the idea that one never uses prompts, perhaps because the first part of the Kreeft quote mentioned that he never gives his students prompts. It seemed to be a "yeah" or "nay" proposition.

 

"Learning how to develop a strong contention" was problematic for my son until 9th grade.Most writing curriculum that deals with writing essays, starts with an extensive section on choosing a topic and then developing the thesis. This makes sense from the logical progression of writing a paper, but sometimes it doesn't always make sense from a developmental standpoint. Some kids have trouble distinguishing clearly between an essay and a report (some teachers do too). My son needed to write the essays first using a partially-written thesis or a prompt, then he was able to generate topics on his own.

 

Perhaps we are backwards, since we had to work on synthesizing sources nearer the end of the process than the beginning. Ds wrote his essays from one source and developed his own topics long before I had him use multiple sources. Until early this year, I think his head would have exploded from pulling it altogether.

[8filltheheart]

:blushing: I think in my quick reading I came away with the idea that one never uses prompts, perhaps because the first part of the Kreeft quote mentioned that he never gives his students prompts. It seemed to be a "yeah" or "nay" proposition.

 

"Learning how to develop a strong contention" was problematic for my son until 9th grade.Most writing curriculum that deals with writing essays, starts with an extensive section on choosing a topic and then developing the thesis. This makes sense from the logical progression of writing a paper, but sometimes it doesn't always make sense from a developmental standpoint. Some kids have trouble distinguishing clearly between an essay and a report (some teachers do too). My son needed to write the essays first using a partially-written thesis or a prompt, then he was able to generate topics on his own.

 

Perhaps we are backwards, since we had to work on synthesizing sources nearer the end of the process than the beginning. Ds wrote his essays from one source and developed his own topics long before I had him use multiple sources. Until early this year, I think his head would have exploded from pulling it altogether.

Ummm, I still don't think you understand what I am saying. First, keep in mind that Kreeft is a college professor and I was posting under the premise of getting our kids to college level writing.

 

Second, what you are describing as what you do with your ds is really no different than what I do. I give them their thesis statements when they first start (or more typically I give them several to choose amg.) They start of with very simple essays and progress to more difficult ones. For example, I think compare/contrast essays are easier than cause and effect essays. (Edited to change the more difficult to easier.....multitasking leads to fingers and brain not communicating correctly ;) ) Fwiw, I would never choose either of those for a beginning essay writer. A beginning essay writer might write something about what is the symbol of X in poem Y. Very simple and short for pulling in any supporting quotes, etc.

 

Is that the only correct way? Obviously not. It is simply what works here. FWIW, my kids don't come up with their own thesis statements until they have mastered essay writing b/c it is 1/2 the work. ;)

[swimmermom3]

Ummm, I still don't think you understand what I am saying.   First, keep in mind that Kreeft is a college professor and I was posting under the premise of getting our kids to college level writing.

 

Second, what you are describing as what you do with your ds is really no different than what I do.   I give them their thesis statements when they first start (or more typically I give them several to choose amg.)   They start of with very simple essays and progress to more difficult ones.   For example, I think compare/contrast essays are more difficult than cause and effect essays.   Fwiw, I would never choose either of those for a beginning essay writer.   A beginning essay writer might write something about what is the symbol of X in poem Y.   Very simple and short for pulling in any supporting quotes, etc.  

 

Is that the only correct way?   Obviously not.   It is simply what works here.   FWIW, my kids don't come up with their own thesis statements until they have mastered essay writing b/c it is 1/2 the work.  ;)

 

Sigh of relief. I figured I had lost something in translation.

 

What you described is pretty much what I have done here, but I suspect it didn't take you years of blowing through expensive writing programs to arrive at that methodology. :tongue_smilie:

 

I think the only reason Sailor Dude can write half way competently is because I got tired and developed ADD. Everything I bought had so many steps and took soooooo long. Now, I decide what written output I want for a particular class, review if he has the needed skills to complete the task and if there where items on recent papers that needed to be addressed, then it's kind of "writing instruction on demand."

 

We may not cover "everything," but I was pleased to see that at least he can currently handle the task list on the University of Chicago writing site and we have two and a half more years to polish those skills and add a few more.

 

Oh, and I'll admit to checking to see what your kids are doing. ;)

[g1234]

I can't believe it has taken me this long to get back here and thank everyone warmly for all the great ideas! There is so much food for thought here.  This is such an interesting subject with so many possible approaches.  It's great to hear about lots of different ideas and resources.  Many thanks to everyone!

[flyingiguana]

I stopped reading the other thread and only sort of skimmed this one.  :tongue_smilie:

   

I love the quote from Peter Kreeft where he says he refuses to give his students their essay topics b/c that is 1/2 the work.   I agree.  We spend a lot of time learning how to develop a strong contention.   A strong thesis really drives a paper forward.   So if students are able to develop an excellent thesis, developing the argument is that much easier.   A weak bleh contention is more difficult to work with.

 

I disagree with this -- at the least, possible topics are not something to withhold until the student is at the most advanced stages.  A lot of times, the student can write well, but no one can tell, because they have NO IDEA what to say.  So then the instructor tears their hair out trying to teach them the very basics, figuring that's the problem.  This wastes a bunch of time, and can annoy both student and instructor so much that the very idea of writing looks like torture.  If the student at least had a topic, that may help.  Sometimes even feeding them some supporting arguments is necessary.

 

Another problem with writing literary essays is that it's mostly all been said.  It takes a lot to come up with something new, and that may only happen occasionally even to professional writers  (how many essays does one professional writer actually write in a year?  In a career?).  If the goal is to teach the student to write, then you have to bend these rules about making sure they come up with their own topic.

 

Also, an awful lot of college writing is just spitting back information on tests in a coherent manner so the teacher can tell they actually learned something.  For my own kids, this sort of writing has been much more important than literary analysis.  Typically, there's been a comp course where some lit analysis has been done, but then the next 4 yrs go by with no more lit analysis.  So all the focus on lit analysis in the high school years?  My guess is that you could totally skip it.  (We mostly did, purely because my kids refused.)  Lots of writing practice is good, but there's no reason ANY of it needs to be about lit. 

 

Coming up with a logical argument and supporting points for any idea the student has is an essential skill.  BUT, this doesn't even need to be coupled with writing.  It can be done verbally.  If enough of this is done, this eventually just seeps into the writing, although you can certainly speed it along with more directed instruction.  Problem is, if you ask a kid to come up with logical support for an interesting thesis AND WRITE IT ALL DOWN all in one fell swoop, I think a lot of kids are going to fail.  That's why it's always seemed better to me to develop the logical argument capability verbally first, THEN add the extra step of writing it down.  So it really does make sense to talk back and forth about hypotheses and supporting ideas, even if the student is getting a lot of ideas from the instructor.  My experience is that it's really ok to send a kid off to college with the writing mechanics down and the ability to talk through an argument, even if they never got around to putting those arguments down on paper.  (It wasn't what I would have chosen, but that's how it worked out -- my oldest still got an A in comp, still was told she was one of the best writer in the comp class, never had a problem with her writing in any other classes)

 

Truth is, when they get to college, most instructors are perfectly happy to help students develop a thesis, and will even suggest one if the student is having trouble.  I don't know that my kids, college or otherwise, have ever come up with a thesis statement without at least chatting about it with someone else (if they weren't given the prompt to begin with).  My guess is that Kreeft, well, may not be the best teacher.  His teaching would seem to consist of, here, I hope you already know how to do this, because I'm only going to grade you on it, not guide you through how to do it.  That's not teaching.  If a kid already knew how to do all that he wanted, then why the heck are they even taking a class from him?  So I don't think it was a kneejerk response to that quote.  There may have been some later backpedalling on this, but the quote itself did say he basically didn't teach.  And I can completely understand people finding that, at the very least, odd.  And not very helpful.

 

Most important of all, I've discovered, is to read.  If college writing is what you're aiming for, it's better to read modern writing than older stuff.  Students are going to be expected to produce something modern (what people would call "readable" these days), so it's best to have those examples in front of them from the start.

 

If you're looking for good examples, I'd just read lots of editorials in the NYT or someplace like that.  They tend to be pithy, and that's what you're aiming for.  Articles in places like The New Yorker and Atlantic have a tendency to go on and and on about nothing in particular, and that is not a habit you want your college bound students to pick up.  (Although reading bad writing can actually be a very helpful exercise, if the badness of it is discussed)

 

Added benefit of reading editorials is that it may motivate the student to have an impassioned opinion, which you can talk over with them.  If you're lucky, maybe you can get them to write their thoughts down in a coherent essay.

[flyingiguana]

In response to the OP, though, if your student can write as well as you can, they're not going to have any problems in college writing.  You stated a problem, summarized some information, and used that as a jumping off point for your question.  Any kid who could do that in college would be fine.

 

If you can just teach your kids that, you don't need anything else.  Style and all that is overrated.  It's getting the point across that really matters.

 

 

[8filltheheart]

I disagree with this -- at the least, possible topics are not something to withhold until the student is at the most advanced stages.  A lot of times, the student can write well, but no one can tell, because they have NO IDEA what to say.  So then the instructor tears their hair out trying to teach them the very basics, figuring that's the problem.  This wastes a bunch of time, and can annoy both student and instructor so much that the very idea of writing looks like torture.  If the student at least had a topic, that may help.  Sometimes even feeding them some supporting arguments is necessary.

 

Another problem with writing literary essays is that it's mostly all been said.  It takes a lot to come up with something new, and that may only happen occasionally even to professional writers  (how many essays does one professional writer actually write in a year?  In a career?).  If the goal is to teach the student to write, then you have to bend these rules about making sure they come up with their own topic.

 

Also, an awful lot of college writing is just spitting back information on tests in a coherent manner so the teacher can tell they actually learned something.  For my own kids, this sort of writing has been much more important than literary analysis.  Typically, there's been a comp course where some lit analysis has been done, but then the next 4 yrs go by with no more lit analysis.  So all the focus on lit analysis in the high school years?  My guess is that you could totally skip it.  (We mostly did, purely because my kids refused.)  Lots of writing practice is good, but there's no reason ANY of it needs to be about lit. 

 

Coming up with a logical argument and supporting points for any idea the student has is an essential skill.  BUT, this doesn't even need to be coupled with writing.  It can be done verbally.  If enough of this is done, this eventually just seeps into the writing, although you can certainly speed it along with more directed instruction.  Problem is, if you ask a kid to come up with logical support for an interesting thesis AND WRITE IT ALL DOWN all in one fell swoop, I think a lot of kids are going to fail.  That's why it's always seemed better to me to develop the logical argument capability verbally first, THEN add the extra step of writing it down.  So it really does make sense to talk back and forth about hypotheses and supporting ideas, even if the student is getting a lot of ideas from the instructor.  My experience is that it's really ok to send a kid off to college with the writing mechanics down and the ability to talk through an argument, even if they never got around to putting those arguments down on paper.  (It wasn't what I would have chosen, but that's how it worked out -- my oldest still got an A in comp, still was told she was one of the best writer in the comp class, never had a problem with her writing in any other classes)

 

Truth is, when they get to college, most instructors are perfectly happy to help students develop a thesis, and will even suggest one if the student is having trouble.  I don't know that my kids, college or otherwise, have ever come up with a thesis statement without at least chatting about it with someone else (if they weren't given the prompt to begin with).  My guess is that Kreeft, well, may not be the best teacher.  His teaching would seem to consist of, here, I hope you already know how to do this, because I'm only going to grade you on it, not guide you through how to do it.  That's not teaching.  If a kid already knew how to do all that he wanted, then why the heck are they even taking a class from him?  So I don't think it was a kneejerk response to that quote.  There may have been some later backpedalling on this, but the quote itself did say he basically didn't teach.  And I can completely understand people finding that, at the very least, odd.  And not very helpful.

 

Most important of all, I've discovered, is to read.  If college writing is what you're aiming for, it's better to read modern writing than older stuff.  Students are going to be expected to produce something modern (what people would call "readable" these days), so it's best to have those examples in front of them from the start.

 

If you're looking for good examples, I'd just read lots of editorials in the NYT or someplace like that.  They tend to be pithy, and that's what you're aiming for.  Articles in places like The New Yorker and Atlantic have a tendency to go on and and on about nothing in particular, and that is not a habit you want your college bound students to pick up.  (Although reading bad writing can actually be a very helpful exercise, if the badness of it is discussed)

 

Added benefit of reading editorials is that it may motivate the student to have an impassioned opinion, which you can talk over with them.  If you're lucky, maybe you can get them to write their thoughts down in a coherent essay.

 

 

I stopped reading the other thread and only sort of skimmed this one.  :tongue_smilie:

   

I love the quote from Peter Kreeft where he says he refuses to give his students their essay topics b/c that is 1/2 the work.   I agree.  We spend a lot of time learning how to develop a strong contention.   A strong thesis really drives a paper forward.   So if students are able to develop an excellent thesis, developing the argument is that much easier.   A weak bleh contention is more difficult to work with.

 

Kreeft is a philosophy professor, not an English comp teacher.  And I agree with him completely.   A college student should not need their hand held in coming up with a topic to discuss for a subject they have been studying.  

 

For high school, yes, they should be given a lot of support to learn how to write with a thesis and then spend time learning how they go about developing their own.  High school students are capable of learning to write their own thesis statements and developing their own arguments.   It should be the purpose of high school writing instruction.

 

FWIW, I have no idea why you ranted toward me about writing focused on literary essays?? 

 

[OneStepAtATime]

I can't believe it has taken me this long to get back here and thank everyone warmly for all the great ideas! There is so much food for thought here.  This is such an interesting subject with so many possible approaches.  It's great to hear about lots of different ideas and resources.  Many thanks to everyone!

I have been silently following along and just wanted to say "thanks" for starting the thread.  I have learned a lot from the responses.

 

Best wishes...