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Excellence In Writing
by Andrew Pudewa
Q: I have a 10-year-old son. He does not want to write at
all. So far I have been pretty relaxed about it, but at what age
should I force him to begin writing? What if he never wants to do
it?
I think that children can (and probably should) start learning to
write when they are able to read (somewhat independently), copy
words (somewhat independently), and attempt to make sentences. This
usually happens around the age of ten, but not always. Until then,
be sure to encourage the child to dictate to you: letters, stories,
poems, whatever they might want to say but don’t have the maturity
to really write themselves. This is very important for nurturing the
enjoyment and confidence that creative “writing” will engender later
on. Be their secretary, and get excited about what they want to tell
you.
One of the big problems, however, with young boys and writing is
that their brains are so much faster than their hands. This is a
good problem, of course, because we would not want our son to have a
brain as slow as his hand, but it can create frustration when we
feel like we really must get him to write more, and if we don’t
start soon, there won’t be much time left before he’s all grown up,
and it’s too late! Let me suggest two possible ideas, which are
somewhat connected.
First, allow him to use some existing stories as a starting
point. One of the common things we hear from reluctant writers is “I
don’t know what to write!” This need not be, however, an impediment,
because thinking of what to write is not a prerequisite to learning
how to write. If a child feels like he has to “make up” a completely
original story, he may be easily overwhelmed with the task of
imagining a story, having to “tell it to himself,” hear what he’s
saying in his mind, write down the words, and remember how to spell
and make letters correctly. That much complexity can overwhelm
anyone. What’s the solution? Borrow a story. Let him read an Aesop
fable or other short, interesting myth or tale, and then retell that
same story, either as a summary or as something he can play with.
For example, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” could easily become “The Wolf
who Cried Boy” or “The Soldier Who Cried Enemy.” This type of
retelling will allow even the most reluctant of writers a chance to
“use” an existing plot line to be successful, while allowing for
originality and creativity.
A second idea to help motivate boys to write is to find things
for him to write about that are intrinsically interesting to him;
for a boy this would generally include anything dangerous,
disgusting, humorous or violent. Start with the hagfish, which
vomits slime to suffocate its enemies, or the female praying mantis,
which will actually start to eat the head of her mate while they are
mating! These things, while appalling to most mothers, are
guaranteed to excite a boy.
In both these cases, a short “key word” outline will help
greatly. When your son reads the fable or interesting article, help
him take some notes by choosing two or three key words from each
sentence—words that will help him remember the basic idea of the
sentence. They can be numbered by sentence and separated with commas
like this:
Hare & Tortoise
1. H. teasing, slow T.
2. T. annoyed, challenged, race
3. H. laughed, agreed
4. Owl, judge, “Go!”
5. H, ahead, relax, sleep
6. T. plodded, persistently, finished
7. H. awoke, ran, lost
8. Slow, steady, wins!
Now the boy can easily remember what he is thinking about, and
can pay attention to the writing of it. Notice that this story could
easily become a race between any two characters—a brother and a
sister, or even a PC and a Mac!
Once you can show a boy how to separate the complexity of
figuring out “what to write” and the writing of it, you will find
that even the most reluctant and struggling of young writers can
experience success—and that will facilitate a huge attitudinal
shift.
Dear Andrew:
Q: My daughter comes up with these wild, wonderful stories.
Her spelling is terrible, and her punctuation is terrible. Have I
missed the boat? Is it too late?
What a wonderful problem to have, and yet frustrating at the same
time. It is very important not to stifle the creativity and
excitement of your young writer, while simultaneously strategizing
ways to help her improve the mechanics of her writing.
First, let’s talk about spelling. Many times a child will, when
writing stories, misspell words she probably knows, and so the
challenge there is to encourage her to go back and find and fix
them. The best way to do this is to make it a game. Count up the
words that you think she could find and correct if she tried, and
tell her how many there are. Then set up some kind of game, with
M&Ms, or pennies, or whatever you like, and challenge her to find
them all to win a certain prize. The more she finds, the bigger the
win; the fewer, the smaller the prize. This is appropriate for a
younger child, but sometimes even an older student will find the
challenge of a game more appealing than the obligation to
“proofread.”
For words that she would not know, those can get added to a
weekly spelling list, which should be practiced verbally throughout
the week, until mastered. When appropriate, add in some explanation
of the spelling of the word, either because it follows a phonetic
rule, is similar to another word, or has a Greek or Latin root. The
errors in composition will become the most relevant of possible
spelling words, since those are likely to be her “favorites” and she
will be more motivated to practice spelling them correctly.
Now, what about punctuation? Well, two things need to be done.
First, you want to establish the culture where she writes her story.
Next you “edit” (not “correct”) it for her as a favor, and then she
copies it over or types it out. This way, she will internalize the
punctuation lesson by example rather than by lecture. The
difference, by the way, between a “mom” and an “editor” is that an
editor will hand back a “corrected” paper with all the improvements
made, and no lecture attached. Secondly, you will, at some point,
probably want to use some kind of editing practice book (Fix-It!
from IEW, Editor-In-Chief from Critical Thinking Press, Great
Adventures in Editing, or some similar set of punctuation and
proofreading lessons. It’s a funny thing, but almost all
children—and most adults as well—can find other people’s mistakes
more easily than they can find their own!
With continued encouragement, consistent spelling practice, and
an occasional grammar/editing text, even the most rapid writer and
wildly creative speller can learn the skills she will need to do
justice to those great, imaginative stories.
Dear Andrew:
Q: Is it possible to have a child who has no creative
ability at all? Is creativity as important as structure? If my child
is like that, what do I do?
Yes, I suppose it is possible for a child to have no creative
ability at all, but highly unlikely. The way to get a totally
uncreative child is to let him or her watch TV all day and play
video games all night. Then he or she will have an empty mind and
creativity will be virtually impossible. On the other hand, to give
a child the best possible chance at developing creativity and
imagination, kill your TV, throw out your video games, keep simple
toys like Lego® bricks or wood blocks, and read to your child from
excellent books for many hours a day.
Many people misunderstand creativity, thinking that it is the
ability to be completely original, or to make something that no one
has ever made before. This is a misnomer. Only God can produce
something from nothing; the rest of us are pretty much stuck with
what we’ve got. Thinking and creativity is, at its basic level,
getting stuff out of your mind—and the good and bad news is that you
can’t get something out of a mind that isn’t in there to begin with!
In actuality, creativity is about the combination and permutation of
previously existing concepts into new and often unique syntheses.
Creativity does not always mean originality. Even Stephen King, one
of the most unique of modern writers, explains in his
autobiographical book On Writing that all his book ideas come from
something he had seen, read about, or heard of at some time.
Natural and wild imagination is wonderful (and usually the result of
being exposed to a huge amount of literature), but even those of us
without a powerful imagination can still experience the thrill of
creativity in retelling facts or stories we didn’t necessarily “make
up,” but might be able to make small changes, give elaborations,
utilize different language or sentence structure. Not all musicians
will be able to improvise brilliantly or will they become composers,
but all can experience creativity and joy as they interpret the
music others have written. Writing can be the same, and so rather
than worry about a lack of creative ability, try to nurture skills
in composition which will ultimately serve them well in other areas
of writing—reports, essays, analysis. The world needs all kinds of
writers. ■
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