Kate Coombs

Education with Imagination

Writing

Yes, writing is my specialty! I've developed my own version of the writing process for kids (and adults) which I call the Organic Writing Process. I'll share a few of the most important steps with you here.

Chunking

Writing is hard for most adults, and it's even more daunting for children. Yet we give writing assignments which may seem next to impossible to our kids. This is one of the reasons they're prone to plagiarizing.

There are a lot of ways to make writing easier for children to access. One important way is to be sure that the task is broken into smaller pieces.

But first: I do not recommend having a student write an outline before beginning to write! This tends to locks kids in, and the content becomes stagnant before it is even generated. It is one of the main reasons children are unwilling to revise.

Instead, have kids start with a brainstorm list. This is assuming they've done some brainstorming for topic selection. It's very important that the topic is something of high interest to the child. Once a topic is selected and refined, the student can generate a new brainstorm list of possible subpoints to explore in her writing. I sometimes suggest another point or two when something major seems to have been omitted. I do this as casually as I can, using questions rather than direction. My role is as much guinea pig reader as teacher!

Next, I assign the student to write one paragraph about the brainstorm list item of her choice. When we're getting started, I make a point of defining a paragraph as 5-6 sentences to forestall incomplete work. Each night, I assign the same task, letting the student select the points in random order, until she has written a batch of paragraphs. (The exception to the random rule is narration, which has a built-in chronological structure. Here I am primarily describing expository assignments.)

Once the paragraphs have been written, then the student can organize the chunks into a logical format and add transitions as needed (another lesson we work on together, though the student does most of the decision-making). Though I won't go into those steps in detail here, I will say that this approach results in organization and transitions that emerge from the student's logic rather than being artificially imposed.

Basically, I've found that students will write a lot more, and with a lot less resistance, when I have them postpone outlining and use the chunking approach.

Proofreading in Its Place

Any writer worth his salt will tell you that revision is vital to good writing, yet even when revision is supposedly taught in schools, students don't seem inclined to do it. There are a couple of reasons for this. As mentioned above, the practice of installing an outline early in the writing process tends to prevent the contents from being dynamic. Furthermore, I've discovered that most teachers don't actually teach revision; they teach proofreading, or maybe editing. Revising is about developing the content of a piece of writing. Unfortunately, most adults are so easily caught up in the structure of the writing—grammar, spelling, and punctuation—that kids quickly learn that written conventions are the only thing that really counts. They come to believe that correcting spelling mistakes is revising.

Before you get all worried on me: yes, of course I want children to improve their grammar, spelling, and punctuation. But these things are the icing on the cake of content. First and foremost, the writer's ideas must be well developed, presented clearly and expressively to readers. Then—and only then—we can fiddle with conventions.

The most effective approach starts with parents and teachers resisting the urge to comment on grammar, spelling, and punctuation until the content is fully formed. This is very hard to do, partly because it's easier to mark up convention errors than to coax a young writer into building content! It will help you to stick to your guns to telegraph your intentions to your students. You might say, "First let's work on the most important part—getting the paper written and your ideas expressed. Then at the end, we'll take a separate look at things like spelling and punctuation." This will probably come as a big relief to these young writers, who may already have a phobia about red ink.

Now, when the writing is finished, and a second round of details and development has taken place—true revision—it will be time to take a look at grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Here's where teachers have another tradition that's a little strange, educationally speaking. That is, in other subjects, you would normally teach one or two major points at a time; otherwise, you worry that you will overwhelm students and they won't remember any of it. But when it comes to a piece of writing, teachers will blithely mark up 10-20 different types of error in a single piece and expect students to learn to correct each type of error all at once! It shouldn't surprise you to learn that when I taught college writing, I found that most students were still making certain standard errors that they had no doubt been making for a good 15 years. Think how many teachers had marked those mistakes over time—so why did the instruction never take? My guess is that these kids tuned out the bombardment of correction their teachers threw at them.

The solution is to work on one or two key problems at a time—what I call "error trends." And let the other problems wait for the next project. The goal is, after all, to actually teach something about writing. It is not to produce an essay that looks like it's been edited and proofread at Simon & Schuster! So, for example, I might notice that a student's biggest problem is run-on sentences, and that he tends to confuse your and you're. Those are the things we'll work on this time around.

I teach students to correct a problem like run-ons by modeling self-correction. I'll say, "In this first paragraph, I see one sentence that probably should have been two sentences. Can you find it?" One of us will usually read the paragraph aloud (exactly as written) to help check. That's how we start looking for run-ons. I've found that most students can identify a run-on when it's presented like this. Next we talk a little about correction options, and the student decides on a solution. We repeat this process a couple of times, and then I ask the student to look for more run-ons as a homework assignment. If he's still confused, I may tell him exactly how many run-ons I found, or I might do more of the work with him. But you'd be surprised how many students, even less skilled writers, can comfortably apply this method. They may miss one or two run-ons, but if they find three or four others, they are making good progress!

As for spelling, on a different day we'll discuss the target spelling words (e.g., how to differentiate between your and you're), and my student will note them at the top of the first page of his paper. Then I'll ask him to look for those words and try to correct them throughout the paper for homework. I may note one other misspelling that occurs repeatedly in the essay, perhaps a topic vocabulary word such as octopus. (Of course, spell check also helps, though it's not infallible.)

The next time my student writes an assignment, I will refer back to the previous project, reminding him to watch out for run-ons and reviewing a little as needed. But we will then target a new error trend.

A final note about grammar, spelling, and punctuation: if you can turn your reluctant reader into a reader, his writing will also improve over time. This is because he will see hundreds, even thousands, of examples of sentences written using proper conventions. He'll start recognizing the right patterns—and the wrong ones—in his own writing on the basis of these myriad models.

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