Outlining and rewriting

[laundrycrisis]

Our 11 yo was tested 2 yrs ago and found to have a "disorder of written expression".  It has been very challenging for him to learn how to get words down on paper or on a screen, and do it well.

 

I bought a book (one of many) about teaching writing (I am always researching this) and a technique in this book is to have the student take a well-written essay, deconstruct it, create a "kernel essay" from it, and then using only the kernel essay for information, write the essay themselves.  

 

BTW, this is the book: 

http://www.amazon.com/Fun-Size-Academic-Writing-Serious-Learning/dp/1452268614/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411771243&sr=8-1&keywords=bernabei

 

Anyway, a whole essay is still a bit much for him to deconstruct - he is doing Verticy Green and still working on paragraphs.  Today the workbook had a really nice example paragraph, so I gave it a try - had him make an outline from the paragraph, so he could see how every sentence fit into the structure; and then had him take his outline to the laptop and write his own paragraph from the outline.  

 

He did very well - his new paragraph reflected his own emerging writing style, and he threw in a little humor as well.  He didn't have to struggle with what to write, since it was all in the outline, which he was given the information for...but it wasn't copywork either.  Copywork never did much for him.   I see this as a step toward him being able to create outlines of his own topics, dig up the information himself, and then turn them into paragraphs, and eventually essays. 

 

Anyway, I was wondering if others here who are teaching kids with this type of challenge have used this approach ?

 

 

 

 

[Heathermomster]

Are you familiar with IEW?  There may be some similiarities there. 

[PeterPan]

Sorry you didn't get more replies!  I was on the road all day Friday.  Here's a bump for you.   :)  I'm with Heather that what you described is the whole point of IEW.  Writing Tales also does it.  I also agree with you that it's wise and reasonable to bump the interest level and cognitive process with materials that are more, ahem, engaging than IEW is for some kids.  If IEW is swimming for your kid, awesome, but it's not going to be for all kids.  So you're right that bumping it up and using say Muse magazine articles (what we did at that stage) can be very good!  

 

Go for it!  You're doing great!!

 

Also consider parallel writing, where both of you do the task then discuss (not pick apart, just discuss) each others' work.  It's something you could carry over to any type of writing.   :)

 

Have you seen 180 Days of Writing?  He's just about at the right stage for it.  It's another thing you can do together.  It has some fun exercises like making BAD writing, hehe...

[laundrycrisis]

Thank you.  I have a coupon and I was thinking about a subscription to Muse - I think I'll go ahead and do that.  Some of the starter topics Calvert suggests are not interesting to him, but we're running out of his own ideas.  

 

I haven't tried IEW.  I remember looking at it once, but something about it put me off (but now I can't remember what).  The paragraph we used was in the Writing Skills 1 workbook that comes with Verticy.  It was a paragraph about things people are superstitious about, so it was interesting starting material.  

 

I think what I liked is that he never seemed overwhelmed while we were doing this.  I want to make structured writing not be a mystery to him.    I think this deconstructing-rebuilding technique may really help.  

[kathkath]

What is 180 days of writing?