Help! Need better writing and composition skills

[Weirdo4Christ]

My teen is great in math and science. In English he's terrible. His compositions are el stinko.

He's been taught the rules of grammar, vocabulary and how to structure a sentence. But when it comes to report/writing time it seems all that learning goes out the window and the reports look like a 3rd grader did them. How can I improve his writing?

I'm working with the text books

Elements of Writing
A Beka Writing & Composition
Lifepac Language Arts.


But is there anything else I can do to get him up to grade level? (he's in high school) His writing should be far better than what it is. Even his handwriting is terrible. It's very rushed, small and archaic. He HATES writing reports and doing research papers. He always gets a bad grade if he just uses up space on the paper to make a report look long enough. I think it's just laziness on his part and yet in subjects like math, science and history he's super.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks. :)

[BelovedChild]

Is it posible to hire a male tutor who comes with excellent recommendations. Sometimes teachers know who to recommend.

I recommend male, because your son may have some problems with writing etc as not being masculine. The tutor should be willing to show you how to help your son on the days that he is not there.

If a tutor is out of the question, could you get Dad or Grandad or other trustworthy relative to hel,p your son.

[Weirdo4Christ]

Is it posible to hire a male tutor who comes with excellent recommendations. Sometimes teachers know who to recommend.

I recommend male, because your son may have some problems with writing etc as not being masculine. The tutor should be willing to show you how to help your son on the days that he is not there.

If a tutor is out of the question, could you get Dad or Grandad or other trustworthy relative to hel,p your son.

Well his grandfather is a scientist (hence how well he does in Science and math). I could ask him to see if he notices why there's a weakness in writing.

He LOVES history so this is why he also does well in that subject.

Now my teen speaks correct grammar so SOME of this must be rubbing off on him. I'm wondering if it doesn't come easy he just doesn't put forth the effort.

Thanks for the suggestion. :)

[NewWorldOrder]

Have you tried Writing Strands? It's especially written to the student. Although your son is in highschool, he would probably start in book 3, and then move to the next book after that. It doesn't cover a lot of grammar, it's just the writing process.

My teenage daughter also hates grammar, so I order The Grammar Key, and we're going to try it for her. I only paid $30 for it, and it covers 4th through 12th grade. I started a thread here about it, if you want to check it out. I'll be using it with my 4th grader next year as well.

[Weirdo4Christ]

Have you tried Writing Strands? It's especially written to the student. Although your son is in highschool, he would probably start in book 3, and then move to the next book after that. It doesn't cover a lot of grammar, it's just the writing process.

My teenage daughter also hates grammar, so I order The Grammar Key, and we're going to try it for her. I only paid $30 for it, and it covers 4th through 12th grade. I started a thread here about it, if you want to check it out. I'll be using it with my 4th grader next year as well.

Thank you! I'll definitely look into those!

[netters]

Check out http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/.

I am going to use it next year with ds. My friend use writing strands and she loves it.

net

[Weirdo4Christ]

Check out http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/.

I am going to use it next year with ds. My friend use writing strands and she loves it.

net

Thanks.

The link wouldn't work but I will definitely check into the Writing Strands. I see them on ebay. :)

[farmgirl]

Does he type these papers on the computer or write by hand? I have two sons and a brother that have alot of trouble writing things by hand. They hate anything involving a large amount of handwriting. This led them to seem lazy, but when they were able to type the same assignments their attitudes improved and the results were significantly better. Now that handwriting was no longer an issue we could start refining the writing process.

[Weirdo4Christ]

Does he type these papers on the computer or write by hand? I have two sons and a brother that have alot of trouble writing things by hand. They hate anything involving a large amount of handwriting. This led them to seem lazy, but when they were able to type the same assignments their attitudes improved and the results were significantly better. Now that handwriting was no longer an issue we could start refining the writing process.

I've never thought of that. He hates writing things by hand too. I'll try that. He has a report due at the end of the week.


Check out this site:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/677/01/

I teach freshmen in college, and that's where I send them for help. There are great FREE resources for kids from the 7th grade on...lessons and handouts for all kinds of writing situations.

Sounds like his problem is organization, not grammar, so I'd concentrate on teaching him the writing process, and the different modes (types) of essays.

Thank you!

[Bernardd]

Ahhhh yes! I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. I teach English/Composition and last year even taught an advanced writing class for college-bound Juniors and Seniors, and I can't tell you just how shocked I was (and always am) at the level in which these kids can write (or CAN'T write). This is like an epidemic.

Let me start off by saying that penmanship is vital. If your son can't write legibly, I would seriously consider fixing that before he moves on to college or gets into the workforce. And I also despise the way students rely on “spell-check.” If it were up to me, I’d never accept another word-processed paper again. The point is that penmanship is a direct reflection of who we are. You don’t go to a job interview dressed in overalls because it makes a poor impression. Likewise, if you can’t write legibly, it detracts from your talents. The little things can make or break a potential hiring in the job market. But I digress…

I think his situation is a result of laziness and inexperience, but I certainly don’t blame him. After all, writing in school is not exactly a thrilling subject. And trying to teach a student to write just for the sake of writing is useless to say the least (at least with some students).

NEVERTHELESS, desperate times call for desperate measures and it appears (since he’s already in high school) that we’re now in desperate times. It’s time for Boot Camp Writing. It’s time to write, write, write and then write some more. If what he’s working on doesn’t meet YOUR standard, mom or dad, then it’s time to do it again. REmember, the SAT's are coming and unlike the days when you and I were taking them, they now require an essay.

Of course, you’re going to need to make sure he understands the basics: the 5 paragraph essay, the topic sentence for each paragraph, the dreaded thesis statement, and how to make an outline.

In my own experience, I had my under-achievers spend the entire class time writing basic 5-paragraph essays. Their homework assignments were typically to come up with a thesis statement and a very rough outline so they could spend class time writing. Then, they’d exchange papers to see if they could literally decipher each other’s work. What really interested me was that most of them thought that their own work was satisfactory. But what they failed to realize is that writing is a process of communicating one’s ideas to another person. Thus, the ideas have to be organized and developed in order to be understood. Otherwise the message is lost. But they didn’t realize their message was chaotic until their peers were like, “WHAT! HUH! This makes no sense.” Sure, YOU know what you want to say and it all makes sense to YOU. But your message is lost in translation from your brain to your paper.

Also, add at least one PROPER footnote to each paper and at least one source in the works cited page.

I know; everyone’s looking for a quick fix and everyone want to be Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting (or some other corny unrealistic teacher movie). My advice is to roll up your sleeves (or you son’s sleeves) and get busy. Get the basics down and go for broke.

Here’s some paper, here’s a pen; call me when you’re out of ink.

If your lucky, you might be able to get him involved in some kind of writing venture. Perhaps writing short stories or even letters. It really helps if the student actually has an interest in the content. In fact, that might just be the most important aspect of the whole process.

You might consider speed writing drills in which the student has a short time 3-5 minutes to write whatever's on his mind.

Write a chapter story together. He writes a chapter, you read it and you write a 2nd chapter, he reads it then writes a 3rd chapter, and so on. Whatever, anything he finds interesting. Writing Movie Reviews, Sports reviews. Write the local paper/respond to the op-eds. Keeping a journal. As long as he's writing with some interest he'll only improve.

I doubt this issue will or can be fixed at school and am therefore assuming any improvement will have to begin at home. But if he's good in his other subjects, I suspect you'll see improvement very soon.