My child is a high school freshman, and thus far, our homeschool experience has not gone well where writing is concerned. Every program we’ve tried seems to fall by the wayside by Christmas break. Normally, she’s an independent worker who does well with most self-directed assignments—except for writing. We just never finish.
Does this sound familiar? If your child’s writing efforts have fizzled, here’s a bit of sound advice to help you and your student get back on track!
Parent Involvement vs. Student Independence
I’m all for fostering independence. As students enter their middle- and high school years, it’s wise to train them to become more responsible for their own schoolwork. This means teaching them to break assignments into chunks, work on multiple projects, and stick to deadlines.
But even if self-directed teens are successful in most academic subjects, they may still be floundering when it comes to self-directed writing assignments. This is largely because, for most students, writing must be taught. Good writing is the result of a partnership between a parent/teacher and the student.
Do you need to be more involved with writing?
When students rarely finish a writing assignment, you can’t leave them to learn writing on their own. Clearly, this approach is failing them. If this is true of your own tween or teen, you may need to step in and become more involved in teaching, guiding, editing and grading. While older students may not appreciate your “interference,” something needs to change if they’re not succeeding on their own.
Begin by working closely with your kids to introduce, model and teach new concepts. After that, let them work independently on their assignment. If they continue to struggle, miss deadlines, or fail to give their best effort, recognize that you’ll need to spend more one-on-one time together while they write. As they throw themselves more fully into assignments and redouble their writing efforts, you can start backing off again.
Is it time to stick it out?
Sometimes a curriculum just isn’t working and you need to take a different approach. But if you keep abandoning ship—specifically where writing is concerned—it’s time to ask yourself why. This is especially important if you’ve tried several writing programs but you never seem to finish any of them.
Is it a character issue—or an academic one?
Does your student:
- Complain about other subjects, sports, music lessons, or chores—or just about writing?
- Put up enough of a fight (about anything) that you toss up your hands in despair and give in to her complaints?
- Make such a fuss over writing in particular that it’s easier to give up without finishing the program?
If this describes your home, consider working on the character qualities of diligence and perseverance. Students need to learn that sometimes, even though a curriculum is less than ideal, they can’t just quit as soon as it gets too hard.
In the real world, they won’t always have choices, but if they’ve gotten into the habit of abandoning something partway through when the going gets tough, it will be hard for them to practice stick-to-itiveness in the future. (For example, they’ll be more likely to drop a college class the minute it begins to get challenging.)
Even if this stop-start-stop-start habit only applies to writing, I would still encourage you to decide on a course of action and commit to seeing it through. You’ll probably agree it’s time to make follow-through a priority.
Taking a Different Tack
If your tween or teen’s writing efforts have tanked, perhaps you simply need a new approach to teaching writing. It’s a legitimate possibility that their learning style just hasn’t meshed with other writing programs you’ve tried in the past. In this case, WriteShop might genuinely help you overcome the hurdles you’ve experienced.
For one, WriteShop I & II expect parent involvement yet foster independence. Furthermore, lessons promote the writing process through:
- Prewriting activities that set the stage for the writing assignment and get creative juices flowing.
- Brainstorming worksheets that help students develop ideas before it’s time to write.
- Step-by-step instructions for writing that never leave them wondering what, exactly, they’re supposed to do.
- Short assignments (rarely longer than a paragraph) so that they can work on sentence and stylistic skills.
- Activities and assignments that are broken up into bite-size portions over two weeks per writing lesson so as not to overwhelm a student.
- Detailed, lesson-specific self-editing checklists that enable students to proofread their own work and make corrections before handing their paper in to you.
- Parent checklists and grading keys that help you give objective feedback.
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
WriteShop I and II are great programs for teaching and reinforcing the steps of the writing process to your junior high and high schoolers.
Step-by-step instructions and self-editing checklists help them grow in their independence, and parent rubrics ensure that you’re assessing their writing objectively!
Have your student’s writing efforts fizzled?
Here’s the good news: Past writing failures don’t have to be accurate predictors of future success. With a few adjustments in attitude and/or method, your teen can get back on track—and with time to spare.