Monday, September 15, 2008

Non writers teaching writing?

I don't think of myself as much of a writer. I come here and jot down some of my thoughts but it doesn't make me a writer. When I was younger and in school I always had a hard time when the teacher assigned papers. I could complete a one or two page paper no problem, but expand that to a 3-5 paper and I was stuck. So, now I find myself in the teachers position. How do I develop writing skills in my kids? How do I get them to like to write? I've ordered a writing curriculum


and am waiting for it to arrive. Hopefully that will help.

In the mean time my daughter is working in her Wordly Wise book.


This book focuses on vocabulary and my daughter likes all of it except one part of the lessons. She likes the multiple choice, the fill in the blank and the crosswords. What happens when I open up to the page where you have to answer in complete sentences?

ATTITUDE. Bad, sulky, why oh why do I have to do this page. ATTITUDE.

So, please tell me, is there something I can do that might change her mind or is this simply a discipline area? I want her to like it, I want her to do well, but I don't want to have her working begrudgingly everyday.

The weirdest part of this though is that when you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she says, "a writer".


5 comments:

EEEEMommy said...

I don't know if I have any answers, but I can totally relate. My oldest daughter has very cleary decided what she likes to do and what she doesn't, and when she's assigned something that she doesn't like, all I get is attitude. I want her to enjoy doing her schoolwork too, but I can't give in to the bad attitude. The best I can do is compromise and make her do half and if that is done correctly she doesn't have to do the other half, but if she still has an attitude after I offer the compromise, then she's doing the whole thing. And Em thought she was a mean mom...;)

Monica said...

It hard. Not every subject is for every student, but each student needs to learn the basics at least.

I've been using and love, The Institute for Excellence in Writing.

Now spelling- that's another story altogether. I'd love to know what you're using for this and if it's working well.

Gayle @ thewestiecrew said...

I wish I knew the answer here because I get grief anytime I ask my boys to write anything.

My daughter, so far is better about it, but they are really hard to deal with over composition

Kimmie said...

Maybe it is the format of the book or how they ask the questions?
I consider myself as a nonwriter...actually I truly consider myself as a 'writer wannabe,' if truth be told.

My oldest feels God is leading her to write...she currently has two books written, one ready for an editor (if we can locate one who will get back to us!)...honestly, it wasn't anything I pushed...we just focused on reading excellent (godly) books and the rest all just came with time.

Kimmie
mama to 6
one homemade and 5 adopted

momanna98 said...

I wouldn't make her do it. You could have her answer the questions orally. You could write them for her so she sees sentence structure. You could have her write out one answer. And then after awhile, two. School shouldn't be full of tears. But, like eeeemommy said, if she complains about the compromise, remind her of the alternative. :-)