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I need help. I am teaching Preparing to my 5th grader. We are in wk 4 & we were to write a paragraph about the poem TO ANY READER. I'm not sure how to critique or help him without making him rewrite over and over. How much do I get involved in the process? I am afraid that I will do too much or push him more than I need to -maybe I'm expecting more than he's personally capable of producing this early. I helped him write down a few lines that created imagery from the poem on a white board as suggested in the TM .He was to write a paragraph or a poem using these ideas.
This is what he wrote... A boy playing in the garden so green that his feet turn green. he does not mind because he is playing quite hard. He does not mind when his mother calls. Jonny Feet come in now. When the sun sets he does not care he is still at work. But when night falls he goes to bed and is looking forward to tommorow.
(This was his first attempt and started out trying to write a poem and be creative by adding his own names- I guess! ) I recognize the grammar and spelling needs help!
So... I looked it over with him and told him to write a paragraph about what is happening in the poem in his own words.
2nd Attempt: A boy was playing hard he was playing. All kinds of things tractor, allions, buildings. While his mother was calling him. After a while he was grown up and gone away and there was no one left to play.
We then looked over both attempts. I asked him to only put what was actually in the poem.
He recopied/ wrote this:To Any Reader
A boy playing in the garden so green. He is playing quite hard. He does not mind when his mother calls. When the sun sets he does not care he is still at work. But when night falls he goes to bed and is looking forward to another excititing day.

I gladly welcome ANY advice!!! Is this what I should be looking for? Am I making it too hard? Should I expect more from him? On the right track? Maybe I should be giving more grace in the writing area since it is new for him. I have never taught 5th before and I think I should be getting more from him! (this is where I start second guessing my ability to teach my kiddos well.)

Thanks for any help or encouragement !

We just did this too this week. Your child's turned out like mine. She had a few spots that didn't make sense. I didn't push it.

I just want to get her to love writing, without me finding fault. So the only thing I mentioned with my dd is that she went from this subject to that subject and she just needs to make sure next time, it makes sense. So if she's talking about one thing "here", then it needs to correspond "there". I tell her at this point exactly where the points are. She shouldn't have to guess IMO right now.

For me, right now I just want her to get used to writing and have ideas flow. So they don't always make sense. But if I trample all over her writing now, she'll never want to write later. There's so, so much time.

I do have her correct spelling errors though.

I actually thought your child's writing was pretty good.

I kind of felt your son's original attempt was the best, and that the subsequent ones got progressively less descriptive/creative and more stilted. I would have helped him "fix" his original sentences (spelling, grammar) rather than have him write a brand-new paragraph. Are you using a grammar program with him as well? Rod and Staff has helped my daughter in the grammar area, and as a result her writing improves day by day.

blessedmomof4 wrote: Are you using a grammar program with him as well? Rod and Staff has helped my daughter in the grammar area, and as a result her writing improves day by day.

I agree. I've found that my dc grammar background provides the vocabulary for me to discuss with them their writing. Just pick ONE thing each week to guide and direct on. Maybe this week it would be ...does each sentence have a subject and a verb?

Hang in there!

Last year when my dd (then 4th grade) started writing the poems/paragraphs for the Preparing poetry, I worked with her a lot. We talked a lot about the topic and compared it to Robert Louis Stevenson's poem. I would guide dd and would write the 'rough' drafts on paper or a wipe board for her as we worked through the assignment together. Doing it this way allowed us to talk about rhyming words, meter, the 'feel' of the poems, etc. I would initially write everything she said, then we would go back and discuss each line to see if it made sense or was written clearly enough for others to understand. Many times, especially at the beginning of the year, I felt as if I were writing the assignments for her, but I found that each week, dd became better and better at writing and expressing her own thoughts without so much guidance from me. She has actually become a wonderful writer and has confidence now in expressing herself. Some of her writings from last year were very impressive, and the best thing of all was that she LOVED it! It was a great way for us to work and create together and I feel we were both blessed by the time we took at the beginning of the year to learn this particular skill.

Hang in there, and make sure you keep records of all his work! You two will both be so amazed at the progress even just a few weeks will make!

JoAnna

deltagal wrote:

blessedmomof4 wrote:
I agree. I've found that my dc grammar background provides the vocabulary for me to discuss with them their writing. Just pick ONE thing each week to guide and direct on. Maybe this week it would be ...does each sentence have a subject and a verb?

This is a great idea. My dd freaks if I pick things out that are wrong with her writing, but this is a good thought.

Dawn - I'm so glad you posted this as I've not been getting to my PM's and just saw you'd sent one. I am sorry! I've been under the weather with some health concerns and the start of school paired with my dh's traveling has left me spent... but enough of that on to more interesting, helpful talk!:D My oldest ds had come to enjoy poetry so much through HOD by the time he started PHFHG. Still, when we started the creative writing lessons in PHFHG, it was not something that came naturally to him. I actually think this is fairly common among boys. They tend to want to express things literally, and that doesn't always make for the loveliest of poems. We had this exact same experience that gerogiamomof3 described so well here...

georgiamomof3 wrote:Hang in there!

Last year when my dd (then 4th grade) started writing the poems/paragraphs for the Preparing poetry, I worked with her a lot. We talked a lot about the topic and compared it to Robert Louis Stevenson's poem. I would guide dd and would write the 'rough' drafts on paper or a wipe board for her as we worked through the assignment together. Doing it this way allowed us to talk about rhyming words, meter, the 'feel' of the poems, etc. I would initially write everything she said, then we would go back and discuss each line to see if it made sense or was written clearly enough for others to understand. Many times, especially at the beginning of the year, I felt as if I were writing the assignments for her, but I found that each week, dd became better and better at writing and expressing her own thoughts without so much guidance from me. She has actually become a wonderful writer and has confidence now in expressing herself. Some of her writings from last year were very impressive, and the best thing of all was that she LOVED it! It was a great way for us to work and create together and I feel we were both blessed by the time we took at the beginning of the year to learn this particular skill.

We too had to pair together and brainstorm on a marker board, make a plan for his poem, and I'd add a word or words here or there to help out with rhythm, rhyme, and description. It really helped for us to expressively read the Robert Louis Stevenson poem several times before the start of the writing session, to get the "feel" of it. It helped to read it all and insert his ideas for the replacement lines too, and slowly with time it became more obvious to him when his words weren't matching the "feel" of the poem.

I figured out it was very important to help him choose topics he knew enough about to write. I remember one time he chose to write about our driveway. I actually saw him look out the window and name the first thing he saw (our driveway) when asked to write on a nature topic. I tried hard to find the good in each of his ideas, however, especially at first so as not to discourage him. I told him looking out the window was a wonderful idea, and we took a tour of the "view" out the windows of our house. As we were walking, I asked him which things he could tell me at least 5 interesting things about that he was somewhat passionate about. When we came to the bluejays on the ground eating our birdseed (a gift from the Lord they were there I know ), he was inspired. Anyway, choosing a topic they really do know well is very important and worth a little sorting through. Something I was inspired about or knew well was not always the thing he was inspired about or knew well (which I made a concentrated effort NOT to let frustrate me). For example, I thought he could describe our trip to the Black Hills when we went to the Woolly Mammoth site. He didn't remember it. NOT a good topic choice for him, though very interesting to me.

My ds really balks at rewriting things. He finds it somewhat depressing, which I know could just be him, but in case it could also be a stumbling block for your ds, rather than having your ds rewrite his poems, I think I'd just enjoy choosing a topic, brainstorming together first on markerboard, narrowing down the best ideas/lines/words, and then making a plan together. Perhaps at first even having him copy the lines you've co-written from the marker board. I looked at the time when he got to the writing part of it as the time to let it be "good enough". I also realized I needed to find a balance of helping and taking over during our planning sessions, as well as watch the time, as the longer it went, the less excited he was about it, and the more he just wanted me to write it without him (which sadly I would have enjoyed - I love to write - of course then it would have been my poem instead of his poem). I tried to make sure not to "fix" everything in his poems, as the poems weren't really his then, and they became less creative and pretty generic. I'd say 10-15 minutes of brainstorming is a fair amount of time to spend. This is a good question! I hope you've found some encouragement here in knowing many of us found our dc's first attempts at poetry to be less than stellar, but by the end of PHFHG, the results were worth the faltering start! HTH!!!

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you!!!

I appreciate all the encouragement from this board & honestly, I need it! I want my son to love writing & I DON'T want to kill any intrest by having him rewrite all the time. (Nor do I want to completely take over the process for him- he's one that would definitely let me do the writing for him- KWIM? )I think I needed a little "permission" to hold his hand as we walk slowly down this road together.

We are working on grammar (R&S) but this has been a slow process for him as well--we have a long way to go but he actually has made some huge strides! I am praying for a year of "Ah-ha's" for him!

I may be back with more questions as they come up... thank you for holding my hand in this process, too!

Dawn

Dawn,

I worked alongside Grant as we did this last year. For him, it was one of his absolute favorite things in the guide. (I NEVER would have guessed this before we did it! ) He did the brainstorming and I wrote it on a white board for him. Then I let him dictate the poem, and I wrote it down for him (at the beginning of the year). I thought that's what the guide reccommended at the beginning of the year, but maybe it's just what I decided to do. Grant loved this as he tends to be quite creative and great with words...but does NOT love to physically write things down. So instead of "how can I say this in one word", he was MUCH more creative. And, he loved to make the poems rhyme, too, and would sometimes ask for ideas of rhyming words.

Like Julie reccommended, having them write about something they love really helps. (Love that driveway story! ) Grant's poems were all about the hackberry tree in our yard, the brushpile fort that he spent hours making with friends, hiking in the pasture, riding his bike down the road to go fishing with the dogs, etc... I love that you could see his personality and favorite things through his writing! This year in CTC, his 1st writing assignment is a descriptive paragraph - his choice of what to describe, the 20-guage shot gun that he shot a turkey with this spring.

So, I'd say work with him and make it fun! Don't tell him what he has to write, but feel free to share some ideas and get the wheels turning. By the end of the year in Preparing, Grant wrote some pretty good poems without me even helping him brainstorm at all. I bet you'll be surprised at the progress through the year!

Kathleen