Writing Evaluation

[happyhome]

Ok, so here's the background....DD, 7th grade, is a pretty good writer. This is our second year homeschooling and,over the last couple of years, I've wanted to sure up some holes on the academic writing side. She completed IEW B and the continuation course last year. This year, she completed WWS 1 and will finish 2 by the end of the summer. I do her academic writing instruction and I gave her Cover Story this year as a creative outlet. She self teaches that one and she loves it. Next year, we plan to do WWS 3 (taught by me) and The One Year Adventure Novel (self taught.)

 

With that background, I'm wondering if anyone can help me out. I have no problem keeping up with the schedule/rubrics of academic writing at this level and we've made a lot of progress. Writing seems to come easy to her and she has learned a lot. However, creative writing is her passion and she is overwhelming me with the amount of stories she is writing and needing feedback on. On a regular basis, this kid is giving me 20-30 page story intros of "book ideas" she has, short stories she wrote, characters she's invented and profiled, etc. In the beginning, I was keeping up and providing the feedback she needed. Her stories are great and she's developed her understanding of sequence and description. But I am reading her latest 80 pager and, with two other kids and a hubby who works from home, it has simply become too much. I just don't have time to read this much work outside of our normal coursework (I feel kind of guilty saying that :()

 

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone knows of a writing evaluation service that we can hire to read her work and provide the necessary feedback and direction. That would free me up to read maybe every fourth story so she feels my encouragement, while also continuing to work with her (and the other two) on our scheduled coursework.

 

I know I'm posting on the HS board, but I thought it might be easier to get recs on writing evaluation on this side rather than the K-8 side. Please let me know if I'm in the wrong spot. Thanks.

[Sunshine State Sue]

I used Write at Home Pay Per Paper Service one year to evaluate several papers at the end of the year.  I was pleased with the service and found them reasonably priced.

 

ETA:  I have a ds who is clear and concise to a fault (takes after me) - no doubt that helped my idea of reasonably priced.  ;)

 

HTH! 

[Mom22ns]

Perhaps the OYAN forums will give her enough feedback. The kids can post pieces of stories and get feedback there. 

 

I do not give my creative writer feedback on everything he writes. You are brave to have tried. Unless you are quite wealthy you are not going to want to pay to get her feedback on "20-30 page story intros" or "her latest 80 pager" either. To get feedback, she is going to have to write a short story or select a scene from a longer work that she likes or is struggling with and let someone read that. She is old enough to start learning to give you what is most worth reading or she most needs suggestions on, not every word that flows from her wonderfully creative mind.

 

Don't feel bad. My ds is hoping to go to college to pursue a writing degree in another year. I have read only a small portion of what he writes. He has done some online classes, such as Bravewriter's. He did OYAN two years ago and this year the follow up, Other Worlds (I have read those novels). He has entered some flash fiction contest and gotten some feedback there. Sources of feedback can be many and carried, but some work will just go unread until she is ready to start publishing and pulls it out, brushes it off and makes the fortune that you get to retire on... well here's hoping for you. :)

 

[yvonne]

Your student is probably old enough, but just a heads-up that the student must be at least 13 years old to access the OYAN forums. I didn't realize this until after the fact, and my daughter was disappointed to have to wait.

 

My daughter loves creative writing, too. I picked up the OYAN for her when the Homeschool Buyers Co-op had it on sale. (She did not want the Cover Story program, and, since she's doing the creative writing on her own, I let her go with OYAN.)  She loves OYAN and has worked through most of it already. I found that it really helped focus her writing. Before she was writing reams and reams of stories, character profiles, story ideas, etc, like your daughter. After a couple months with OYAN, her writing is so much better, much more focused. Whereas before she had an infinite number of unnecessary details and tangents, now her stories are wonderfully tight and so much more interesting. It's almost like she was free associating before.

So, when you start OYAN, you may find that the sheer volume of your daughter's writing goes down, in a good way. My daughter spends as much time writing as she used to, but now she works and re-works chapters of her stories to get them to the point she wants them.

[EndOfOrdinary]

Have you considered finding her a writing partner? Professional writers use writing partners for the very thing you are talking about. Each person trades work for feedback. Our library also has both poetry and writers groups which provide one another feedback in the manner you are describing.

[happyhome]

I used Write at Home Pay Per Paper Service one year to evaluate several papers at the end of the year. I was pleased with the service and found them reasonably priced.

 

ETA: I have a ds who is clear and concise to a fault (takes after me) - no doubt that helped my idea of reasonably priced. ;)

 

HTH!

Thanks Sue. This looks promising. I couldn't afford it for everything she writes, but for a couple of pieces? Sure. That would at least point her in the right direction. Did you find their feedback to be meaningful and accurate? Did your son take their classes too? They sound interesting.

[happyhome]

Perhaps the OYAN forums will give her enough feedback. The kids can post pieces of stories and get feedback there.

 

I do not give my creative writer feedback on everything he writes. You are brave to have tried. Unless you are quite wealthy you are not going to want to pay to get her feedback on "20-30 page story intros" or "her latest 80 pager" either. To get feedback, she is going to have to write a short story or select a scene from a longer work that she likes or is struggling with and let someone read that. She is old enough to start learning to give you what is most worth reading or she most needs suggestions on, not every word that flows from her wonderfully creative mind.

 

Don't feel bad. My ds is hoping to go to college to pursue a writing degree in another year. I have read only a small portion of what he writes. He has done some online classes, such as Bravewriter's. He did OYAN two years ago and this year the follow up, Other Worlds (I have read those novels). He has entered some flash fiction contest and gotten some feedback there. Sources of feedback can be many and carried, but some work will just go unread until she is ready to start publishing and pulls it out, brushes it off and makes the fortune that you get to retire on... well here's hoping for you. :)

Thanks Debbie. Yes, we are looking forward to the OYAN forums. She does math with AoPS and those forums have saved me many a time, and she's made some really nice friends along the way. I hadn't thought about contests. She won a poetry contest recently and she really enjoyed that process. I'll look into that. I also like the idea of her giving me small pieces of her writing. She starts every piece with a thorough story chart so, looking at that, I could ask for the "description of the setting" or the "character sketch of Penelope," a different part of each one.

 

I don't mind paying someone to give solid feedback on one piece every now and then. You're right, if I paid for everything she writes, I couldn't send her to college to do anything with it!! That said, she writes every day for a few hours, so feedback is important to me so she doesn't keep going with a bad habit. Maybe she can choose a short story for evaluation and keep her manifestos for the box that goes to her editor some day!!! Good ideas!

[happyhome]

Your student is probably old enough, but just a heads-up that the student must be at least 13 years old to access the OYAN forums. I didn't realize this until after the fact, and my daughter was disappointed to have to wait.

 

My daughter loves creative writing, too. I picked up the OYAN for her when the Homeschool Buyers Co-op had it on sale. (She did not want the Cover Story program, and, since she's doing the creative writing on her own, I let her go with OYAN.) She loves OYAN and has worked through most of it already. I found that it really helped focus her writing. Before she was writing reams and reams of stories, character profiles, story ideas, etc, like your daughter. After a couple months with OYAN, her writing is so much better, much more focused. Whereas before she had an infinite number of unnecessary details and tangents, now her stories are wonderfully tight and so much more interesting. It's almost like she was free associating before.

 

So, when you start OYAN, you may find that the sheer volume of your daughter's writing goes down, in a good way. My daughter spends as much time writing as she used to, but now she works and re-works chapters of her stories to get them to the point she wants them.

Yes, she's 13 so the forums will work. Cover Story has helped focus her content and tighten her style too. We're really looking forward to OYAN for that reason.

[happyhome]

Have you considered finding her a writing partner? Professional writers use writing partners for the very thing you are talking about. Each person trades work for feedback. Our library also has both poetry and writers groups which provide one another feedback in the manner you are describing.

A writing partner!! She loves this idea! We have a pretty big library system. I'll have to see if they have any teen groups that might work. I'll also check with our local homeschool groups. Thanks!

[Sunshine State Sue]

Did you find their feedback to be meaningful and accurate? Did your son take their classes too? They sound interesting.

 

I found their feedback worthwhile.  Actually, I just found the returned essays we submitted.  If you PM me with your email address, I would be happy to share them with you.  Ds never took their classes.  We wasted money on 3 session of Home2Teach and used Laurel Tree Tutorials in 10th grade.  Highly recommend LTT, though I hear rumors about pregnancy and hiatus now...

 

At the end of 8th grade, I used Cindy Marsch at Writing Assessment Services.  She was expensive, but quite good.  You might want to investigate more.  I got the impression of very high quality, but I have very little personal experience.  I can't even find the 3 essays she evaluated.  For my purposes and my unenthusiastic writer, Write at Home, which we used at the end of 9th grade, was a better value.

 

HTH!

[Sunshine State Sue]

Neat idea in this thread:

Services for evaluating writing?

[Hot Lava Mama]

 

At the end of 8th grade, I used Cindy Marsch at Writing Assessment Services.  She was expensive, but quite good.  You might want to investigate more.  I got the impression of very high quality, but I have very little personal experience. 

 

I have (and still do use Cindy) for assessments.  She is AWESOME!  Very helpful with feedback and has turned my average writer to a really strong writer.  Mostly because it wasn't "mom" giving the criticism.  I think having to please someone else made him more competitive.  I highly recommend her!

Hot Lava Mama

[happyhome]

 

Neat idea in this thread: Services for evaluating writing?

Oooooo, a grad student. Great idea! We have some very good schools around us. I'm going to look into this one! I'll also PM you my email regarding the other post. Thanks so much Sue!

[happyhome]

I have (and still do use Cindy) for assessments. She is AWESOME! Very helpful with feedback and has turned my average writer to a really strong writer. Mostly because it wasn't "mom" giving the criticism. I think having to please someone else made him more competitive. I highly recommend her!

Hot Lava Mama

I've put Cindy on the list. DD has been asked to compile a sampling of her best writing to submit for an evaluation of some kind. With that feedback, we'll decide what to do next. It will be helpful to know where we're at first before we decide if unassigned creative writing needs this much attention!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

You might look into the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Project. There are some Camp NaNoWriMo months in the spring and summer. The idea is to write a full story or novel in a month. The free downloadable workbooks are very good.

[happyhome]

You might look into the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Project. There are some Camp NaNoWriMo months in the spring and summer. The idea is to write a full story or novel in a month. The free downloadable workbooks are very good.

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. We moved so the month got a bit crazy and I'm now getting caught up on older posts. Sebastian, can you explain NaNoWriMo? I've looked at the website and I can't figure out the process. She wanted to do One Year Adventure Novel next year as a creative outlet but I suppose this would replace that right? She's going into 8th grade. Also, NaNoWriMo is for creative writing, not academic writing right? I like the forum and writing community thing. That's very AoPSish and that is what she wants for writing (hence my other thread).

[happyhome]

Thanks to everyone for your help. We've decided to take a bit from everything here. Once a week, she will give me a short excerpt of what she feels is her "best" writing from the week and I will use that to encourage, correct and direct. Once a year, she will choose one piece to be professionally and fully evaluated. She is pulling some friends together to begin a small online writing group where members can continually post and read each other's work throughout the year.

 

Again, we will do this only for her writing that is outside of what I assign as a way to cultivate her passion and keep the fire burning. Thanks again to all. I think we have restored sanity!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. We moved so the month got a bit crazy and I'm now getting caught up on older posts. Sebastian, can you explain NaNoWriMo? I've looked at the website and I can't figure out the process. She wanted to do One Year Adventure Novel next year as a creative outlet but I suppose this would replace that right? She's going into 8th grade. Also, NaNoWriMo is for creative writing, not academic writing right? I like the forum and writing community thing. That's very AoPSish and that is what she wants for writing (hence my other thread).

 

NaNoWriMo is whatever you make of it. The workbooks in the Young Writers Project are good. There is a month when lots of people try to write and hit their word goals. That might dovetail well with One Year Adventure Novel or replace it, depending on what you/she are trying to do.  If November is too busy (it's always a tough month for me to write), you could try Camp NaNoWriMo which is in April or July.

 

The forums might or might not be helpful. I tend to stay away from them, because I spend too much time posting and that takes away from my writing time.

 

However, I did find it fun to have several writing buddies and compare word counts and generally cheer each other on.

[happyhome]

NaNoWriMo is whatever you make of it. The workbooks in the Young Writers Project are good. There is a month when lots of people try to write and hit their word goals. That might dovetail well with One Year Adventure Novel or replace it, depending on what you/she are trying to do. If November is too busy (it's always a tough month for me to write), you could try Camp NaNoWriMo which is in April or July.

 

The forums might or might not be helpful. I tend to stay away from them, because I spend too much time posting and that takes away from my writing time.

 

However, I did find it fun to have several writing buddies and compare word counts and generally cheer each other on.

Thanks for that. I'll look at OYAN a little more closely with dd and see if taking November "off" to do NaNoWriMo makes sense. I think it might. At the very least, we'll consider the camps. Thanks.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Thanks for that. I'll look at OYAN a little more closely with dd and see if taking November "off" to do NaNoWriMo makes sense. I think it might. At the very least, we'll consider the camps. Thanks.

 

You might also think of NaNoWriMo as an intensive writing period in which to practice/apply what has been learned in OYAN.

[happyhome]

You might also think of NaNoWriMo as an intensive writing period in which to practice/apply what has been learned in OYAN.

Very good point. That's where I'm headed. I just have too see where she'll be in OYAN around November. Thanks.