any ideas for writing program/aids for rising 8th grade

Hello,

What I have found to be extremely helpful in the situation you describe is to simply tell your daughter that there are three parts to a composition -

1 - Beginning

2 - Middle

3 - End

The beginning is an introduction. She introduces the topic she is going to talk about - just the way she would introduce a topic to someone she is going to speak to on the telephone. (End of paragraph).

The middle - give her a piece of scrap paper and tell her it’s time to “brainstorm.” Tell her to write just 3 words - one word for each idea she would like to include on the topic. Have her write one sentence about each word. (End of paragraph).

The ending - tell her to make a wrap-up comment - just as she would close a telephone conversation. (End of composition).

When you start with this simple formula, she will have a sense of organization in her mind. Follow it every time until it becomes clear to her how to proceed. Later you can build on it by writing longer compositions.

Hope this helps. I got these tips on Online Reading Teacher.com and they have worked very for me.

Carrie

I teach writing to seventh graders part-time at a college prep school for students with ADD and LDs. I recently ran across this website that I think might be useful, particularly if you sit down with your daughter to go through the various lessons and complete the exercises. The website is designed to teach expository writing to ESL students at the community college level, but I found that, with minor modifications, my seventh graders got a good deal out of the presentations with my commentary. I didn’t use everything at the site, but was found the lessons on thesis statements and introductory paragraphs very helpful. Here’s the link:
http://www.virtual.yosemite.cc.ca.us/lumanr2/English_25/index.htm

Karyn

I like the site and will use it. However she is being asked to write different genres-a short story, a folk tale. an acceptance speech, etc. Its frustrating, her English/geography teacher assigned her a folktale and the assigment outline …”1. Include the five characteristics of a folk tale 2. Include the cultural geography of the region.” However, when the teacher was asked what are the 5 characteristics of a folk tale, the teacher sent the student to Ask Jeeves. And don’t even ask what happened with ‘cultural geography’

I’m back at grade 4 when she could verbalize but could not map/plan/brainstorm writing on paper.

Her teacher’s idea of a writing conference is to talk about indenting paragraphs and double-spacing and maybe some misspellings. How do I get her to focus on the pre-writing and revising for organization or ideas? We seem to be back to “what’s the main idea?”

Yea, personally I think I would give all this teacher’s assigments the credit they deserve and trade off over-the-top assistance with them, with actually useful work learning writing. After all, this teacher’s approach is to do whatever it takes to look like you’ve done your assignment [ which is to Have Lesson Plans And Assignments] — but doesn’t feel responsible for understanding it. How on earth does s/he expec tthe students to? Well, doesn’t matter, long as good grades are given out so parents don’t complain, eh? Oh, and the assignments look Utterly Enriched.
This is a time to cultivate true independent learning — and the utterly rebellious concept of thinking for yourself.

mmm,

You wrote:

I’m looking for a writing program to do over the summer - sort of the SRA kit of writing!! Hopefully something that will address summarizing, paraphrasing, organization, word choice,….. Any ideas????

For a summer program, my suggestion would be to try Institute for Excellence in Writing. You could buy the student intensive workshop on DVD, and she could do it herself with you checking her final work. It definitely addresses all of the things you have named above. The Workshop has four lessons. If you look at them with her, you can supplement with similar examples. (This is advised by the author.) IEW also offeres a course for those who have finished the workshop and is more advanced. The website is www.writing-edu.com. It is not a very user friendly website, but you can view video clips of the courses on it.

Another alternative you may wish to look at is Writeshop, which many homeschoolers use (as is the case with IEW). This has all the lesson plans laid out, so some prefer it.

Some of the teachers here like Stepup to Writing by Sopris West, but I have heard that this is harder for a parent to implement.

mmm - being a devil’s advocate here — the teacher may be trying very hard to do on-grade-level assignments. By Grade 8, students are *supposed* to have been taught the fundamentals of getting things on paper, and of researching, and if things were going as they should, now the teacher would be trying to get the students to experiment with different ways of expressing themselves and to expand their repertoire of writing skills. Telling the student to research something to do with the assignment can be a way to encourage independent work, or a remimder that if things are taught or presented in class (one hopes they were actually taught) then it’s the student’s responsibility, not the teacher’s, to make up things that were missed.
I don’t know you and I don’t know the teacher, so trying to tread a fine line here and look at both sides. From your side the teacher is handing out assignments without much support and focusing on mechanical details. From the other side, the teacher may be trying to get students to write more independently; a lot of kids come out of elementary with all sorts of stuff on paper and no real skills because they have had so much help they never really learned much. And as a person who likes the mechanical stuff clean so that you can find the message, well, I also correct that kind of thing first.

I love the program Step Up To Writing. It is great. See www.stepuptowriting.com.

ALso, there is this new tool I just found. It is a user friendly BLUE BOOK of tips/writing templates, suggestions, that is in a small thin book designed to go into a 3 ring notebook. It is super.

[email protected]

Write to Dr. Paslay at the above email and ask about the blue book. I think it is WONDERFUL. It is not a full program but I sure wish I would have had one when I was in school. A great addtion for any student. I showed them to the 6th grade teachers at lunch and they want them for all their kids next year.

Michelle AZ

Thanks folks, I am looking at your sites. Feel feel to throw more my way.

I’m leaning toward Writeshop just because it appears comphrensive-vocab, fluency, genres AND organization. And its self-contained (ie. the SRA approach) The website for step up to writing details mostly the main idea-supporting details- conclusion process. Is step up to writing more than the website represents?

Sue - you are right on the money. Her classes finished a huge project on an assigned country that took the month of March. When we returned after spring break they were handed the outline for another huge project for the remainder of April and most of May. This one is a magazine that includes puzzles, a short story, a non-fiction piece, a speech, etc, etc. The class doesn’t know the mechanics of a short story but are handed a bulleted list of elements to include but never mind. Of course, the last project isn’t graded yet after 2plus weeks. The magazine project has been going a couple weeks but they got the folders yesterday.

I could deal with all that, what’s making me crazy is that after much work and tutoring at the 2nd/3rd/4th grades my child has been managing quite well at grade level on her own (minimal accomodations - mostly spelling not counting til final drafts and extra time on tests if necessary). She is very, very bright and has worked hard to work around her LDs. Now we seem to be back two years. Grrrrrr. 4 more weeks.

Hi, I am also looking at options to help my 7th (to-be-8th) grader w/ her writing over the summer. In beginning to peek at one of the websites mentioned, a question immediately came up, which is this: Since she’s lagging so far behind where I feel she “should” be (ideally) in her writing skills currently, would I be better to start her off at, say the 6th grade level, rather than where she actually is in terms of her grade?

She has great ideas, but has very little concept of how to sequence them, and struggles w/ the writing process as a whole.

Thanks,
Lei

It is the underlying skills she needs to develop for organization, which is another problem that kids with Executive Functioning deficits struggle with. Her deficits are impacting her ability to organize her thoughts for writing.

What I would recommend to help her learn these organization skills is Anita Archer’s Skills for School Success. It has exercises that are sequential in nature so she can learn and gain information from reading and writing in various contexts. We used this in a Lab Class at a Clinic I used to work at. and it is a very good program.

Gotta toss in a plug for Diana King’s “Writing Skills for the Adolescent” — it’s not a program but is full of really good ideas for structuring things.

Also, Priscilla Vail’s “Clear and LIvely Writing” has such things.

The most important part of learning to write is WRITING — but writing as if something is going ot be read by somebody, as opposed to talking to yourself.

Great resources, thanks. You ladies are a huge help.

Yes, executive functions are always a concern for the middle school/jr high ‘normals’, not just our LD kids. And executive functions are concerns in more than just writing. I see Step up to Writng working more on the organization skills - Michelle, correct me if I’m wrong. I will look at the Anita Archer’s book, too.

I have found the Six Traits of Writng to be helpful in teaching writing skills. But I have to admit I was looking for the pre-prepared and portable for the summer. so it may Writeshop but I am collecting these ideas for the old bag o’tricks!

Love your suggestions,

mmm