7th grade composition

[Kuovonne]

Here is a composition from my 7th grade DD. The assignment was to write about something she learned from science.

We spent about 7 hours on it, spead across 3 weeks. We spent about one week together picking the topic, brainstorming ideas, and forming an outline. The second week was spent coming up with an intro & conclusion and drafting. The final week was spent revising and editing. I was very involved in everything but the initial drafting.

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In the woods, a fluffy, white rabbit leaps into the bush. A slimy, green frog hops near the stream. A sleek, blue bird rushes through the trees, and a human walks on the path with animals surrounding him. The fluffy rabbit, the slimy frog, and the sleek bird all have something in common with the human. These creatures are all chordates.

Chordates are animals with common characteristics not shared by other types of animals. Their bodies are bilaterally symmetrical, and they all reproduce sexually. In addition, chordates share body elements and a development processes. When a chordate is at the embryo stage, it has a hollow nerve tube in the head and a notochord below the nerve tube, and a tail. When the embryo starts turning into a fetus, the nerve tube becomes a brain, the notochord makes the spinal cord and backbone, and the tail makes the butt. Although chordates all share those key body elements and factors, each type—fish, amphibian, reptiles, birds, and mammals—have their own characteristics.

Fish are a type of cold blooded chordate, meaning they don’t produce their own heat. They have many specific adaptations to their life. Since they live in the water, they have gills to breathe. Scales help for movement and protection, since they cover almost the entire body. All fish reproduce with eggs, a common feature throughout many chordates. Some examples of fish are bass, goldfish, and angelfish.

Another type of cold blooded chordate are amphibians. Amphibians live both on land and in the water. Their early life is solely in the water when they are tadpoles. Later, after developing legs and lungs and loosing their gills, they live more on land. At this stage, they are now adults. Amphibians have skin as their only covering while all other chordates have scales, fur, or feathers. Some common amphibians are frogs, toads, and newts.

More cold blooded chordates are reptiles. Most reptiles live on land. Sea turtles are an exception, since they always live in the sea. Common features for all reptiles include lungs, even for the aquatic creatures. They either have scales or shells in addition to skin. And they reproduce with eggs. Some common reptiles are lizards, chameleons, sea turtles and snakes.

Fish, amphibian, and reptiles are all cold blooded, but birds are not. Birds are warm blooded, meaning they can produce their own heat. They go between living on land and traveling through air. To be able to fly, birds have wings and lighter bones. Birds also have feathers, which streamline their body as well as provide a layer of protection and warmth. Birds also have lungs, even as little chicks. They reproduce using eggs. Some types of birds are bluebirds, owls, and pelicans.

The last warm blooded chordates are mammals. Most mammals live on land, although whales (a type of mammal) live in the water. They all breath with lungs. Their bodies are covered in fur or hair. These chordates do not reproduce with eggs; the baby is born without egg covering. Some examples of mammals are rabbits, bears, and even people!

Chordates are specific animals who reproduce sexually, have a backbone, and have an endoskeleton. This group contains the animals fish, amphibian, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Fish, amphibian, and reptiles are cold blooded while birds and mammals are warm blooded. Secondly, fish have gills and live in the water, while the others have lungs and live mostly on land. Next, they have a variety of skin coverings and textures. Lastly, all chordates lay eggs, except mammals. These animals are easily spotted around daily life, not only the woods, but everywhere in nature.

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I’m not sure what type of feedback I want on this, especially since we won’t be spending any more time on this specific piece. Maybe I want to know if this piece is age/grade appropriate level work, both in terms of quality of writing and length of time to produce?

I wish that she could produce something like this in a third of the time with less help from me, but she is where she is, and rushing her won’t improve her writing.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Kuovonne

[Kuovonne]

Paradox5, thanks!

She was very heavily coached! 

[Kuovonne]

Here is another composition. It took DD about 12 hours spread across an entire month to produce it. I coached her very extensively at each stage of the process, especially with the brainstorming, outlining, and revising. She did convert the outline to a first draft by herself.

This composition is very heavily influenced by the Lost Tools of Writing, because DD and I spent a semester on LToW last spring. However, I would not consider it to be a LToW essay.

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Johnny was the best apprentice silversmith on all of Hancock's wharf, but he did not treat people with respect or kindness. In Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, he called people “squeak pig”, “you lazy good for nothing dish mops”, and “pig-of-a-louse”. He was constantly being rude and unforgiving to people. Johnny, easily annoyed, threw insults without thought, judged people harshly, and was mean to innocent people.

Two men, Mr. Lapham and Rab, tried to change Johnny’s cruel habits. Mr. Lapham tried to change Johnny’s horrible ways by asking him to be more patient. Mr. Lapham wanted Johnny to accept some people’s mistakes without yelling at them. Although Mr. Lapham’s intentions were good, he did not make a lasting effect on Johnny’s horrid behavior.  Rab, on the other hand, wanted Johnny to be kind, genteel, and forgiving to everyone who makes a mistake. Rab wanted Johnny to think about his words, small or large, before saying them. Johnny tried Rab’s way and was more polite. Rab was more successful at changing Johnny’s behavior for four reasons: different circumstance, different method of teaching, different events after attempting to change, and differences between Mr. Lapham and Rab. 

One reason Rab made a more lasting effect on Johnny was that Johnny was surrounded with different circumstances at the Laphams compared to the print shop. At the Lapham’s Dove and Dusty needed to be forced and pushed to get any work done. Without Johnny’s constant bossyness, the shop would have failed due to poor work. In the Lapham household, it was necessary for Johnny to boss everyone around whereas at Rab’s print shop Johnny had no one to look after. He was at the bottom of the pecking order. Johnny had a different perspective at this point; most people had the authority to boss him ruthlessly, yet they did not. Everyone treated him with respect and kindness, so no fights or anger broke out. Because of Rab’s nurturing environment, Johnny was more motivated to change. 

Another reason why Rab was more successful was because Mr. Lapham and Rab had different teaching approaches. Mr. Lapham was much more direct, clear cut, strict, and bossy. Mr. Lapham liked to embarrass the boys as they learned their lessons. Johnny had to read bible verses saying that pride was bad. Rab, on the other hand, hinted, suggested, and questioned Johnny more. He asked Johnny why he went out of his way to make people feel bad without telling Johnny it was wrong. Mr. Lapham’s commanding strict way of teaching didn’t affect Johnny as well as Rab’s gentle coaching did. 

The next reason why Rab was more successful than Mr. Lapham was because the events after attempting changing his ways were vastly different. Just after Mr. Lapham tried to change Johnny’s behavior, Mr. Hancock asked for a prestigious basin, which required a lot of work and attention. The new project only made Johnny bossier as he tried to get everything perfectly finished. While hard at work, Johnny was sabotaged by his co-workers and his hand was forever crippled. After taking up Rab’s advice, Johnny got new friends, Sukey and Sam Adams, and enjoyed time with them while eating pie. With his new attitude, Johnny got better rapport with the customers he encountered. Trying to change for Mr. Lapham resulted in a worse situation, but changing for Rab made Johnny’s life better. 

The last reason why Rab was more successful was because Rab was more similar to Johnny than Mr. Lapham was to Johnny. Mr. Lapham grew up in different times, and generations from Johnny. He could have been Johnny’s grandfather! Mr. Lapham was not very successful and his shop was suffering, so Johnny did not see a reason to follow in his footsteps and take his advice. However, Rab was only a few years older than Johnny. In addition, Rab was a good role model because did not slack on his work, and helped a successful business. Johnny did not follow Mr Lapham’s advice because Johnny did not want to end up like him, unorganized, poor, and lazy while Johnny followed Rab’s teaching because he was a hard working, smart boy, more similarly aged to Johnny. 

Although, a hard smart worker, the best on Hancock's wharf, Johnny clearly needed to change his attitude towards customers, co-workers, and people. Rab was able to change Johnny’s behavior when Mr. Lapham could not for four reasons: different circumstance, different method, different events after attempting to change, and differences between Mr. Lapham and Rab. If your teaching isn’t working, try a more supportive approach like Rab. He hints, suggests and rewards unlike Mr. Lapham who bosses, lectures, and punishes.

[Farrar]

The first composition is just lovely. She has such a great writing voice. The way she transitions from descriptive language in the hook to start the piece to explanation in the body of the essay, is just perfect. It's essentially a definition paper, and a really good one.

The second one still has beautiful sentences, excellent descriptions, and solid organization, but it was a sort of odd piece. It just describes the book. I suppose it was a narration? It felt to me like it wanted to be a literary paper answering a question that's something like, who was the biggest influence in helping Johnny become a better worker? However, it doesn't have the right voice to do that.

She obviously has skills that are at the upper end of her age and grade. So to your original questions - yes, totally great writing and appropriate time spent to get there. I think it's completely fine that you're supporting her so much through the process too. I guess the thing I'm questioning is more the point of the second assignment and whether that's grade appropriate. I know a lot of people here do a lot more work with summaries than I have ever taught with writing, so if that's your goal, then I think you're meeting it. But this reads to me like she's ready to tackle some literary criticism or some thesis-based papers.

[Kuovonne]

Farrar, thanks for the feedback.

I”m glad you liked the intro for the first composition. That intro puts together a lot of concepts that I’ve been working on with her: brainstorming, types of intros, parallel structure, and old-new flow. The intro probably took a quarter to a third of of the entire time to write the entire composition.

The second composition was supposed to be answer a question DD came up with—“Why did Johnny adhere to Rab’s teaching and not Mr. Laphams?” Basically, DD recognized that both Rab and Mr. Lampham tried to get Johnny to be a better person, but Mr. Lapham failed while Rab succeeded. I didn’t think of the composition as literary criticism or thesis-based, but it was supposed to be more than a summary. Do you have any suggestions for making the purpose of the composition clearer?

[Farrar]

I think the purpose isn't clear in the first paragraph anywhere. So then the second paragraph reads like it's just a continuation of talking about the book. So it wasn't until the third paragraph that I realized, oh, this is talking about how Rab was successful in changing Johnny. That's pretty far in for the reader to not know the purpose of the paper. I think her style at the start threw me off. It felt like I was reading narration just talking about Johnny's character and the people who influenced him. When I look at it now, I can see the thesis in the second paragraph at the end. It's just that it didn't feel clear to me at that point in reading that this was a thesis statement. I think because by that point she had spent just as long talking about Johnny being rude and about Mr. Lapham, so it felt like yet another piece of information she was exploring instead of, oh, this is the whole topic of the paper. I think I'd move it up and just emphasize the purpose of the paper from the get go. Introductions are just very tricky - you want to do what she did and give a lot of background information when needed. But here it undermined understanding the purpose of what I was about to read. The rest is actually very well organized around that statement. She's really an excellent writer. I would say that this clearly is a lit analysis paper, by the way. It's not some sort of magic formula to make one. Any time you have a clear and organized answer to a question about the whys and hows of literature, that's lit analysis. I know it's not exploring it through concepts of "theme" or other lit terms, but that doesn't undermine the purpose. This is a perfect essay to build for high school down the road.

[Kuovonne]

Farrar,

Thanks for the feedback! I find it so helpful to get someone else’s views on DD’s writing. I know that she is on the right path; I just don’t know how far along she is compared to her peers.

In the second composition, it sounds like tightening up the first two paragraphs into one would have made the purpose of the composition more clear. I think two things added to the bloat in the intro: she couldn’t decide between two different opening hooks and tried to incorporate both, and she is still new to figuring out how much background info to include. DD tends to have long rambling sentences that say the same thing in multiple ways. It sounds like she still needs more pruning.