17 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Writing: Tips #1-7

By Terri Hessler

It might surprise you to find out that one of the last large writing studies conducted determined that students spend very little time in school on paragraph-length or longer writing (Applebee, 1981). It is common for longer writing pieces to be assigned to be written out of class because of the time constraints of the classroom. Without providing students time to write in the presence of an instructor or peers from whom they can gain feedback, direction, and/or support, students miss out on the social aspect of writing and opportunities to improve their writing. It is clear to me that I’m going to have to supplement the writing experiences of my child throughout her academic career so that she is prepared for the rigors of college writing. Here is a list of ways to improve a child’s writing as she progresses through elementary and middle school. I think that summer is an especially good time for supplemental writing activities because it promotes the maintenance of an academic routine.

Most of these tips are grounded in a finding from a large scale study conducted on written expression outcomes during the 70’s and 80’s. Hillocks (1986) found that longer writing received higher scores/grades/marks than shorter writing. Unfortunately, many students with written expression deficits write very little. While it is counterproductive and naïve to think that writing more words will produce a better writing piece, it is the first step in getting students to write higher quality pieces. These tips can be easily implemented at home and center primarily on the idea that writing more helps children (and adults) write better. If you are interested in improving your own writing, several of these can be adapted for your use (e.g., #1, #3, #6, #7, #8, #12, #13, #15). Next month’s column will contain the remainder of the tips.

1. Schedule daily writing time
Get your child used to the idea that a writing assignment doesn’t necessarily have to be completed in one sitting and that, in fact, it may seem less insurmountable to “attack” a writing task a little bit at a time for several days instead of all at once.

2. Use fully developed prompts
Providing explicit instructions will both increase the amount a student writes and the quality of the written product. A typical writing prompt might read something like this: Write a 3-5 page paper on the use of submarines in the Civil War. This type of prompt gives the student little direction and encompasses a topic so large as to be daunting. How much more focused and organized the resulting paper would be if the student is instructed instead to write a 3-5 page paper on the use of submarines in the Civil War. Be sure to include information on a) how submarines were constructed at that time in history, b) which side utilized them to a greater degree and did either have any help from other countries, and c) how the outcome of the war might have been different without them.

Even for younger children, providing direction/advice in the prompt can be helpful. Tell about a time you were embarrassed could be replaced with Tell about a time you were embarrassed. Who was around? Where were you? What happened?

3. Teach your child to self-graph
Self-graphing the number of words written can be motivating for some students (Brigham, Graubard, & Stans, 1972). A child could also count and graph number of correctly spelled words and number of new or different words. Public posting of graphs could encourage him or her to beat previous scores for a “personal best.” Friends and relatives (e.g., grandma, primary teacher, older brother) can be recruited to notice and praise “personal bests.”

4. Teach strategies with mnemonics
Many writing process strategies involve easy-to-remember mnemonics that can be posted on a wall or ‘fridge, or printed on laminated cards for portability. Some examples are:
TREE
develop Topic sentence
include Reasons to support premise
Examine the soundness of each supporting reason
create an Ending for the paper (Graham & Harris, 1989)

PLAN
Pay attention to the prompt
List main ideas
Add supporting details
Number your ideas (De La Plaz, 1999)

For simple editing, teach children to use COPS for checking
Capitalization
Organization (paragraphing)
Punctuation
Spelling

5. Let child choose own topics
Allowing students to write about what they know may result in more text and in students caring more about the final product.

6. Use a topic jar
For some kids, deciding what to write is a big part of the problem. For them, use a large mouth Mason jar to hold writing topics written by both kids and adults. There are various commercial products available that provide lists of writing topics (e.g., The English Teachers Book of Lists). Allow child to both add to and pick from the jar.

7. Support and encourage brainstorming
The more time spent actively brainstorming, the better the finished product likely will be. Brainstorming can be adult-directed and merely conversational, or it can be more structured by using various graphic organizers, like webbing/bubbling, T-charts, or Venn diagrams.

"Recovering Charles" by Jason F. Wright

By Jaylene Scott

I recently finished reading "Recovering Charles" by Jason F. Wright, the author of "The Wednesday Letters" and "Christmas Jars." I have to say that I really enjoyed it. It is a story of a young man named Luke who distanced himself from his drunken father after tragedy struck his earlier life. He goes on to live life, not really thinking about his father, until he gets a phone call shortly after Hurricane Katrina. His father had moved to New Orleans and was among the people missing shortly after the disaster. Luke has to decide whether it's time to go searching after his father and unearth some pain and sorrow he'd had hidden for so many years, or to ignore pleas for help from his father's friends.

Wright uses a series of flashbacks to help the reader understand the trials that Luke and his family faced. Luke has to sort through his feelings, but decides that the right thing to do is to go to New Orleans to look for his father. The book continues by telling of Luke's journey to and through New Orleans in search of the man that he used to know.

Glenn Beck said about this book:"Recovering Charles is a riveting story of hope, healing, and, above all, faith. I was profoundly touched by seeing my own struggles reflected in its pages and inspired by its message that life can always have a second verse."

This book was a quick and pleasant read, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good story that helps you reflect on the truly important things in life.

Characteristics of Young Adult Literature

By Lonica Rowley

Young adult and adult fiction often overlap boundaries. Part of the difficulty, historically, with getting publishers and literary critics to acknowledge this literary genre lay in actually defining the genre. In fact, even today, well after young adult fiction has been recognized by many critics, there are many works of fiction which continue to vacillate between the two categories. However, there are certain characteristics that continue to appear and define the young adult genre; the following are some of the most significant.

1. Stories are told from the viewpoint of young people. Most young adult fiction is told from a first person perspective and is written from the eyes of a young adult. There may be multiple perspectives or plot lines in a single work, but they will all most likely be told from the perspective of a teenager. Essentially, teenagers like to read about other teenagers. Even if the story doesn’t necessarily center on a young adult, it will often be told from a youngster’s perspective. For example, you could easily argue that To Kill A Mockingbird is really an adult story that revolves around Atticus and Tom Robinson’s court trial, but since the story is told from the perspective a Scout, a young girl, young adults relate more easily to the tale.
2. Young adult stories often get rid of all adult figures. This often allows the young adult to shine in center stage and receive credit for all the work they accomplish throughout the story. Adults are often missing or only play a minor role. An incredible number of stories eliminate any and all adult figures, take Lord of the Flies for example. Certainly, the boys in the story would not have started hunting one another had an adult figure been around to guide and lead them. If, by chance, an adult does figure into the story, they are rarely a parent of one of the characters. More often, any adults in a tale will be more of a mentor figure that the teen has sought out and approaches on their own terms.
3. Young adult literature is fast-paced. Many teens struggle to read for enjoyment at all, let alone willingly plow through a lengthy novel on their own initiative—of course, the Harry Potter series was a ground-breaking work on this front. Most young adult fiction is quick to read and quick to develop. In order to accomplish this task, the young adult genre is often marked by a limited number of characters and narrative events. Furthermore, the language flows naturally and changes and develops with the current times—popularity in speech and trends is often important in young adult fiction.
4. Young adult literature includes a variety of genres and subjects. While I often refer to it simply as “fiction,” the genre is really more than that. Young adults take interest in non-fiction, poetry, drama, science fiction, historical fiction, and even graphic novels, to name just a few. In fact, all types of literature are now being written to appeal to a young adult population. Teens’ tastes vary just as much as adults; they like to read about a variety of subjects and issues in a number of different literary forms. On the same front, young adult authors can feel comfortable writing about other cultures or customs. Not all stories need to be told from a well-understood, American middle-class perspective. Certainly, teens’ interest is piqued by learning about a different experience. In part, that’s one of the greatest values of literature—learning about places and people unlike you. Teens recognize that and can thoroughly immerse themselves in expanding their horizons. Indeed, educational research shows that the teen years are a great time, developmentally, for teens to learn about life outside of themselves.
5. Young adult books are optimistic and characters make worthy accomplishments. Adults often get turned off by a teenaged protagonist that acts like they know more than adults, but in fact this is a major appeal to teens. The ability to succeed on their own terms and in their own way really appeals to young adults. In fact, change and growth is perhaps the most common theme appearing in young adult literature. All works of literature in this genre explore the theme to some extent. In most cases, the protagonist loses innocence as part of the passage from childhood to adulthood. This gaining of maturity would, potentially, affect them for the rest of their lives. The inherent need to learn, grow, and overcome appeals to teens of all ages.
6. Young adult novels deal with real emotions. At a time in life when hormones often rule, teens take particular interest in emotions and want to see them accurately represented in the fiction they read. Often books deal with similar emotional struggles: acquiring more mature social skills, achieving emotional independence from parents and other adults, developing a personal ideology and ethical standard, achieving a masculine or feminine sex role, etc. By following the development of these feelings in a fictional character, teens are often able to work out their own angst and emotional struggles.

While this is only a brief view of young adult fiction, these defining characteristics often help to establish and corral the genre. Certainly, once you are aware, it becomes easy to see the reoccurrence of these characteristics when reading young adult literature.

Much of this information is taken from the book Literature for Today’s Young Adults by Kenneth Donelson and Alleen pace Nilsen. Certainly, if you are interested in learning more about this thriving literary genre, this is one of the most highly-reputed texts in the field. I would strongly recommend this entertaining and informative text to anyone curious about the field.

The Alchemist

By Lisa Hymas

I just finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and I really enjoyed it. The book was first published in 1988 in Portuguese and has since been translated into 67 languages. It has sold more than 65 million copies in more than 150 countries, becoming one of the best-selling books in history.
 
After the first few pages, I knew I would enjoy the simple writing style. This book in not about religion, but about spirituality and the main character's, Santiago, journey to fulfull his peronal legend.
 
I think it would be a good first book for someone wanting to read something soul searching, intriguing, and yet very easy to read and makes you smile at the end. The content was clean and took me only a few days to finish (and I'm not a fast reader).
 
from Amazon.com:
 
"The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream. Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams."

Let us know what you think...

In trying to improve this blog, it's helpful to get an idea of how you feel about it. Please let us know what you think by answering the following polls. Don't worry, all your responses will be anonoymous.

You can go here to participate in a short (and easy) survey.

Continue Sending in those Book Reviews...

One thing I've always had lots of requests for when speaking with others about this blog, is to include lots of book reviews. While I read a lot, I know that I'm not the only one out there reading. I would love to have your book review contributions!

As a result, I'm going to extend last month's challenge to write a book review for our literacy blog.

The winning prize will still be the book, Long After Dark, as described here.

I would love to see an in-pouring of books reviewed for our perusal. I think there may be a couple things holding people back.

Many people have expressed the sentiment that, "I hope this book will be good enough to review." One thing I hope you understand is that you can feel welcome to review a book that is mediocure or even not good at all. Certainly, we all want to read good books, but it can be just as helpful to know which books to avoid. In other words, if there is a book you've set aside because you decided it didn't fit your expectations (whatever those may be), let us know, so that we don't also waste our time and effort on pusuing the same novel. Whatever your opinion of the reading material, feel free to share it with us so we can be forewarned about what to expect.

Second, you know need to feel like a stupendous writer to write a review. Reviews can be simple and easy. A basic review can include nothing more than:

1. Your opinion of the novel.


2. Two or three sentences describing the plot (without ruining it).


3. Who you would recommend the book too.

You don't need to know all about the author or the literary discussions experts might be having on the novel, all you need to do is express your opinion.

Thirdly, sending in your review is easy. You can either submit it to lonica2.blogforliteracy@blogger.com (as part of the body of the e-mail, rather than an attachment) or e-mail it to me directly at Lonica.rowley@gmail.com. I can always attach an image of your book, if you'd like.

Hopefully, we can help each other out by recommending good (or not-so-good) books we've read. Don't be shy! Send in your book reviews!

At the Writer’s Block

by Anita Fairbanks

There it is again, the white emptiness, my own cliff of Dover, the dead impasse that blocks all progress. Scattered words, flung carelessly, bounce off the screen without sticking. I scroll to the bottom of the page, my chisel poised: nothing. “You can’t edit until you’ve written something,” I chide myself in a maternal tone.

Didn’t I leave my writing phobias behind me when I graduated? I remember, with some remorse, those long days and all-too terminable nights at my computer that I spent scratching my scalp for words, for sentences, for any idea really that felt remotely original. Sunrise would find me through the dim glass of the computer lab, finally clucking away, muttering out loud, and gobbling peanut M&M’S, one per paragraph. I don’t miss it; why then, with the deadlines put to rest, do I find myself stifling urges to self-inflict my time with writing assignments?

Yes, there were the rare, clarifying moments on the library balcony, where I “found” my topic, and more importantly, where I experienced a genuine encounter with truth. I was never the source of this truth, but seemed to fall upon it through patches of sunlight, like sensing a deer in the woods, one whose eyes have been tracking you all along. It was during these moments, with my pen aside and my sight fixed on a horizon somewhere inside me, that I could silently gaze at the idea I hadn’t written yet. I reveled in these experiences, academic as the books which bound them, but spiritual because of the means by which they occurred, “the same light that quickeneth your understanding,” the light of Christ (D&C 8:11). My agnostic companions, and even my theistic ones, spoke excitedly of similar experiences, not knowing, however, what I had been practicing since Primary, that “by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5, emphasis added).

Perhaps I miss the encounters with truth that I gained during the writing process, perhaps the pride of accomplishment, but it doesn’t change the fact that writing is harder now. It’s harder to find an uninterrupted moment, as is evident by the yelling baby in my lap currently dismantling the stapler, and pounding typos faster than I can delete them; it’s harder when you don’t have a professor expecting something by morning. Why continue writing? In Ether chapter 12, Moroni hints that it may be more essential to my character than I first thought when I exchanged schooling for motherhood. “When we write,” he states (and I’m applying this to the general human experience), “we behold our weaknesses, and stumble because of the placing of our words” (vs. 25). He nailed it—my writing phobia, in a nutshell. I hate seeing my flaws on paper. Somehow, the faults I see lie not only in a poorly written expression, but with my weak understanding, my inability to communicate, to think, to create.

In verse 27, we learn that these fears, brought on by the writing process, are purposeful. In fact, the Lord gives us our weaknesses, that we “may be humble.” We are shown our weaknesses when we “come unto [Him],” and writing is one way to exercise that. Then, through humility and faith, the Lord “makes weak things become strong.” I could call this blessing “editing,” but that would flatten its meaning. While it’s true that I have prayed over essays and thereby improved them, sometimes I improve myself along the way. For example, after struggling with an assignment in French class on Flaubert’s “Un Cœur Simple,” I found myself choosing the topic of confession and obsessing over a resulting essay five times the required length. I can only conclude that perhaps there were a few things in my life that I needed to repent of. Over and over, I find that my writing reflects the issues that are of greatest personal concern to me. The topics have weight; they seem alive and jump from book to book, following me until I resolve them, or at least record them, on paper.

Moroni’s instructions are clear and his implications haunting. We have weaknesses. They can be made into strengths through faith in Christ, the ultimate Word. But we need to be humble about them, and sometimes, a blank page can help. I’ve decided to get started on that children’s book I’m trying to write, not because it will be any good, not because I want others to read it, but because I want to challenge my weaknesses. I’ll find them in my own writing and in the characters I create. My chisel is poised.

Rhymes & Reasons

By Vilo Westwood

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man . . .

Rhymes are often one of the first things we share with our babies. They're fun, easy to remember, and children respond enthusiastically. For all these reasons rhymes are vitally important to children's further success with language. If children develop the ability to rhyme, it helps them read (looks like dime, it must be TIME!) and even spell. Most importantly, rhymes are fun. Word play creates warm, fuzzy feelings about language that makes children and adults want more and more.

Since they are easy to remember rhymes help children as they begin to talk.

Also, the classic nursery rhymes are building blocks for a lot of further literature experience. Kindergarten and first grade classes refer to these rhymes in many activities. Agatha Christie used nursery rhymes as starting points for many of her mysteries.

Feel you don't know many rhymes? Most libraries have anthologies of nursery rhymes (some with CDs) and some collections of action rhymes (ones that have motions and gestures). There are at least two collections of Spanish rhymes (also in English).

How Do We Judge Literature?

By Candace Rowley

“We are often admonished to beware the evils of pornography. How do we judge literature to be good or bad when we occasionally find questionable inferences and explication in literature that is thought to be great—such as found in Shakespeare, Fielding, Flaubert, and others?”

Brother Richard Cracroft answers this question in the article you can download here. Some of my favorite comments…

We are mindful of the Savior’s admonition in the Sermon on the Mount that “the light of the body is the eye,” that it is the eye that can fill our souls with light—or with darkness. When we turn our eye to literature, then, it is with a knowledge that use or misuse of literature can, as with anything that really matters, fill our souls with light or with darkness. It is up to us; we have our free agency.

The key to the problem of how one judges literature lies, then, in our own spirituality and not in a simplistic rejection of all literature. We must learn, as Francis Bacon advises us, that “some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” We must select carefully among the vast menu.

Reaching a solution through the Spirit, it seems to me, leads us to realize that because life and time are short, we will be able to read only a few thousand books in our lifetimes. When we pick any book, we are ruling out hundreds and thousands of other books. How important it is, then, to choose time-proven great books that will foster the Holy Spirit and enable us to rise to greater levels of truth and beauty and insight and understanding, and hence, spirituality. Many great men and women have found that a steady, systematic approach to literature has enabled them to fill their beings, in a lifetime of good reading, with the great thoughts of men and women of all the ages, for through reading great books we are put in touch with the great minds of all time, and we become their spiritual and intellectual heirs.

We know as well that much of the literature of the world springs from the promptings of the Spirit of the Lord and that our libraries are full of works written by men and women not of our faith, but “who have contemplated deeply,” President Young once said, “on various subjects, and the revelations of Jesus have opened their minds, whether they knew it or acknowledged it or not” (Journal of Discourses, 12:116). In our own reading programs we need to look into the inspired writing of such men and women, remembering, as Elder Adam S. Bennion often reminded us, that “good reading is a great guarantee of spiritual enrichment” (The Candle of the Lord, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1958, p. 266).

If you read widely and thoughtfully, and retain the companionship of the Holy Spirit as you progress from level to level in your development, you will find yourself seeking the good in everything you read, and you will not be disappointed. You will be responding, wholeheartedly, to the Lord’s injunction to “seek … out of the best books words of wisdom” (D&C 88:118), and he will reward you abundantly.