I want my kids to be good writers but we can’t afford private-suggestions for Hs?

[Anonymous]

^I apologize for the typos haha. Computers will never replace good old traditional teaching of grammar and spelling. The computer never warns me before I submit a comment online!

[Anonymous]

Inexpensive writing classes are available on Outschool. If I were you I would find one where you are expected to turn in work for the teacher to comment on.

What he/she needs is practice and revision with comments. Sounds painful but it’s not. One page a week is fine. If you can’t pay for tutoring, mark up her paper yourself and give comments. Do it over and over and over the course of even half a year, you will have a different writer.

No pain no gain. If you can’t pay, and you don’t want to work, then no gain.

[Anonymous]

I’m the OP. I should mention that spelling and capitalization are definitely not the issues. Maybe some grammar issues. I meant structuring essays correctly, etc

[Anonymous]

Yes, you can correct for all those things. Talk to her and take the time to explain how she should structure. Don't make it a huge project.

This is my experience. My kid in the aap program brought home writing homework every week. There were 4 prompts per week, basically. Each prompt could be 3 sentences or a fulll page. He does his first draft. I read it literally while cooking dinner after a long day at work. I am cranky at this point and trained him to bring the paper and pencil and eraser and marking pen every time so I'm not running around for those things while reading while holding a spatula. I corrected it very quickly and I talked to him about the structure and maybe have him correct it structurally too but not massively. I only describe it so next time he writes, he can apply it. He does the final copy and turns it in. After two semesters, he understood what my suggestions would be and what needs to be corrected before I get there. He is a changed writer.

My experience through the FCPS school system, TJ, and Ivy college pretty much gave me the same thing. There were lots of small assignments and going through the revision process. Someone sitting down and explaining, look you start with introduction. Then you write three points. Then you conlude. Practice that over and over. While I'm no author, I think it prepared me professionally and academically.

There is nothing a highly paid tutor will do that you can't do yourself with some effort. You have to do the work. If you can't do the work, then you can hire someone but that tutor will not be teaching rocket science. They do not have a magic bullet, no matter how expensive they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Encourage them to 1) read a lot, and 2) join the school newspaper staff. Writing for the newspaper really taught me how to be clear and concise, and it gives you the opportunity to write in different ways than class papers (straight news, features, opinion, reviews, etc).

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Encourage them to 1) read a lot, and 2) join the school newspaper staff. Writing for the newspaper really taught me how to be clear and concise, and it gives you the opportunity to write in different ways than class papers (straight news, features, opinion, reviews, etc).

This.

There are lots of free resources available for your kids to be good writers. Encourage reading and writing in your home, the earlier they start the better but it its never too late. This is a great time to start journaling, online or manually. I have an 18 year old, he is an amazing writer. It started innocently enough with my encouragiing him to read Harry Potter when he was in middle school. He was firmly against it and said he though the premise of the story was dumb. I asked how he would write the story differently and this started a journey of us cowriting a book about a boy who discovers time travel. We wrote the book on and off for about 3-4 years. We just dusted it off, for the first time in about 3 years, last month. He typed up with we had hand written and has been adding to it almost daily since then. It is so good, I can't wait until it is done, I am definintely going to get it published.

[Anonymous]

One bit of serious advice. Get them a copy of Steven Pinker, "A Sense of Style". Done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading does not make you a great writer.. just stop.

Hire a writing tutor. Your child will have plenty of writing assignments in your public school but they will never be taught how to write.

The tutor can help them through the process for each paper and slowly they will become more independent when it comes to writing.

Literally every writing teacher or good writer I have ever heard says the opposite. If you want to be a good writer, you should read good writing. It's not sufficient, but it's incredibly important. Read things that are well-written. The New Yorker is a great resource, because the writing is good and well-edited. Find other good writers, both fiction and non-fiction -- essays and articles are helpful because they are closer to what students are expected to write: James McPhee, Rebecca Solnit, George Orwell, Marilynne Robinson, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, etc.

Don't worry about the ten-page papers to start. Start with the well-organized five-paragraph essay. A tutor will help, as long as they teach both organization and editing/revision. No one is a good writer without a good editor, and learning to be a good editor makes you a better writer.

I agree with you here, PP. Good writers usually have done a lot of reading, but being a great reader is not sufficient. As earlier posters have said, some of us have avid readers who score in the 99% in reading comprehension with their arms tied behind their backs and they still have issues with writing. Executive functioning difficulties and anxiety often play a part. So, reading is the foundation, but some very bright kids still need something more to become great writers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading does not make you a great writer.. just stop.

Hire a writing tutor. Your child will have plenty of writing assignments in your public school but they will never be taught how to write.

The tutor can help them through the process for each paper and slowly they will become more independent when it comes to writing.

Literally every writing teacher or good writer I have ever heard says the opposite. If you want to be a good writer, you should read good writing. It's not sufficient, but it's incredibly important. Read things that are well-written. The New Yorker is a great resource, because the writing is good and well-edited. Find other good writers, both fiction and non-fiction -- essays and articles are helpful because they are closer to what students are expected to write: James McPhee, Rebecca Solnit, George Orwell, Marilynne Robinson, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, etc.

Don't worry about the ten-page papers to start. Start with the well-organized five-paragraph essay. A tutor will help, as long as they teach both organization and editing/revision. No one is a good writer without a good editor, and learning to be a good editor makes you a better writer.

I agree with you here, PP. Good writers usually have done a lot of reading, but being a great reader is not sufficient. As earlier posters have said, some of us have avid readers who score in the 99% in reading comprehension with their arms tied behind their backs and they still have issues with writing. Executive functioning difficulties and anxiety often play a part. So, reading is the foundation, but some very bright kids still need something more to become great writers.

Cannot agree more! I was a well-read student. My urban public school teachers in junior high never taught me the mechanics of good writing. Grammar was relegated to foreign languages. Yes, I was able to crank out essays and term papers. Because I was never shown the nuance of how to compose succinct, elegant, and well-planned writing, I found writing too effortful. I went to Harvard for undergrad. This could be a stereotype, but New England prep school graduates seem to be able to write about anything at all with ease. I envied their confidence in writing. Were they better writers than I? Probably not. But someone showed them how writing works, and they clearly had more guided instruction and opportunities for honing those skills year after year. I shied away from fields with heavy writing requirements.

Decades later as a parent, I am convinced writing is the most important skill for lifelong learning and career advancement. I don't think this is a public vs private school disparity per se. It's a pet peeve of mine when my DC's progressive lower school teachers imply that love of reading is sufficient to make a good writer, and all they do to 'coach' writing is having kids freestyle in their daily journals with occasional 'publication party' after peer editing. I'm curious if there are state-wide standards that public schools have to cover every year? Do Catholic school teachers give more explicit instructions? I have no basis for this assumption other than knowing Catholic schools tend to still offer 'old school' type of workbooks on vocabulary and grammar...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a mom of a reluctant writer. He has an avid reading with an incredible vocabulary. He has hated writing since kindergarten. He's now in middle school. His private school has shied away from "teaching" writing. Teachers assume writing will happen spontaneously.
Reading and writing are different skill sets. Reading or watching is more passive consuming. Just because I enjoy eating doesn't mean I know how to cook! I've heard so many early childhood teachers say, "Love of reading is the most important thing for literacy and writing. Have a lot of books lying around." They mistakenly think teaching mechanics of writing somehow kills creativity.

Writing requires many executive functioning and cognitive skills that might need explicit teaching or support, depending on the students' learning style.
If teachers don't have the time to give individualized instruction or feedback on sentence or paragraph composition, I agree with the value of writing tutors. I also highly recommend Killgallon's Sentence Composing and Paragraph for Middle School, etc. There are different levels for elementary, middle, and high schools.

Spoken like someone who is not a writer.

I went to terrible public schools the majority of my schooling, and a big flagship state school DCUM parents would only consider acceptable for <3.0 GPA students. And actually, I got in with a <3.0 HS GPA. However, I graduated college magna cum laude with a double major in journalism and political science. Why is that relevant? I was a crap student in MS/HS, in part because of undiagnosed inattentive ADD and (drumroll please...) executive functioning issues! Of course, such diagnoses didn't exist back then. I'm almost 40 and I still struggle, but at least there are resources these days.

Anyway, I was never taught how to write in school. I never got "individualized instruction or feedback on sentence or paragraph composition" (though I'm sure DCUM will weigh in with some now). I did, however, start reading voraciously at an early age -- starting in grade school with Babysitter's Club, Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley High, R.L. Stine...then later, Elmore Leonard, John Grisham, James Lee Burke, Dan Brown, James Patterson, Sue Grafton. On my own, I started writing related short stories (today they'd be considered "fanfic," I think).

OP, do your kids have any natural writing ability, or are you trying to coax blood from a stone? I won't tell you I became a successful professional writer solely because I read a lot; I think I always had a natural ability. That ability was nurtured not by any academic intervention or supplementation, but by constantly reading lots of different kinds of books. My parents didn't push me to do read, though it helped that we had an extensive home library when I was growing up. As a result, in middle school, I simultaneously read Ulysses and a random book about pregnancy

Would I be better off if I attended better schools, had private writing tutors, or took advanced writing classes? I really don't know. I've managed to have a pretty successful writing career (even changing career fields, but still writing) without any of those luxuries. If money is a concern and your goal is for your kids to excel at writing, you're in luck. The library is free. Encourage your kids to read anything and everything that interests them. I hated the classics but devoured murder mysteries. I didn't love non-fiction, but I really loved doing book reports when I did read it. Use books and reading as a tool to understand, examine, and encourage good writing. If you think a tutor is the best way to do that, go for it. You know your kids best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Encourage them to 1) read a lot, and 2) join the school newspaper staff. Writing for the newspaper really taught me how to be clear and concise, and it gives you the opportunity to write in different ways than class papers (straight news, features, opinion, reviews, etc).

This.

There are lots of free resources available for your kids to be good writers. Encourage reading and writing in your home, the earlier they start the better but it its never too late. This is a great time to start journaling, online or manually. I have an 18 year old, he is an amazing writer. It started innocently enough with my encouragiing him to read Harry Potter when he was in middle school. He was firmly against it and said he though the premise of the story was dumb. I asked how he would write the story differently and this started a journey of us cowriting a book about a boy who discovers time travel. We wrote the book on and off for about 3-4 years. We just dusted it off, for the first time in about 3 years, last month. He typed up with we had hand written and has been adding to it almost daily since then. It is so good, I can't wait until it is done, I am definintely going to get it published.

Can you suggest some resources for middle school?

[Anonymous]

I'm someone who excelled at reading and writing. College BA English. I went to top public schools but I don't recall "learning" how to write per se. I think there's all different kinds of good writing. Professionally I write quite a bit by way of presentations. I studied journalism and there's a lot of writing for the ear there. I don't know that you can teach someone to be a good writer. I have actually gotten jobs because my employers loved my writing style - this was an ad exec and a corporate senior marketing exec. I think you can teach the mechanics of writing which essentially is draft and multiple revisions. You can teach grammar for sure. But in terms of putting words together that engages the audience, that comes from a love of words and reading great books - a lot of classics - and reading a variety of great writing styles. You need a bit of that even if you're not doing creative writing. Writing is the execution of thought so yes, executive functioning does play a part. Generally a solid education in humanities will train your mind for the ability to communicate and write. There's various styles and most would agree that on a practical level, most people place high value on persuasive writing but good writers are able to write in all styles. Like anything you have to have a bit of talent - it's an art not a science. My point is that to a degree you can't learn how to write. You can learn techniques and grammar but ultimately it comes down to the individual - how educated (not school but a love of reading great books and a love of the sounds of words put together). I read a lot of great speeches when I was young and loved it. George Will is an amazing writer. There's really very few truly great writers - there's just a lot of writers. So when you say you want your son to learn to write - in what capacity is my question? Teaching him mechanics is pretty easy but you sound like you want him to write well. That's really up to him. You don't have to teach it as much as let him read great writers.