This post was originally published on the Patch on August 5, 2011. I was recently working with a young student who had a hard time figuring out when to add commas or periods in his writing. I had given him a worksheet made from a paragraph I wrote and from which I removed proper capitalization and end punctuation. All he had to do was rewrite the paragraph with correct periods and capitals. Even though this sounds simple, he had a hard time determining where a period should go. Instead, he sometimes added a comma instead or skipped a period entirely.…
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One of the projects I assign to my students is to write a process essay. This is an essay that gives step-by-step instructions about how to do something they know how to do. Today’s contribution comes from Christina S., a second grader whom I tutor in writing, and who invented this technique for making leaf purses. For such a young student, it turns out to be more of a process paragraph than a long essay. It is a good way to practice sequencing words and transitions. How to Make a Leaf Purse, by Christina S. Have you ever wanted to…
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As of today, I am live as a blogger on the local Patch, an online newspaper! Read my first entry concerning an educational green building possibility here: http://peekskill.patch.com/blog_posts/verplanck-enhancement-plan-and-education .
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Among my students are three brothers in middle school whom I tutor in writing. They are all honors students whose parents hired me as a tutor for enrichment. One activity I’m doing with them is to write a letter to the president. It’s simple enough to do: the White House website has an easy-to-use contact form, like those found on many websites. Or, of course, the letter can be mailed. The activity sounds straightforward: the students should write about an issue that is important to them and send the letter to the president. It is an opportunity to discuss civics…
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On Friday, my young writers and I had a Thank Goodness It’s Over party to celebrate our accomplishments during the month. The TGIO party is a well-established tradition for any NaNoWriMo group. I have always used it to showcase and celebrate each individual child’s writing. We met at a family’s home, and each child had five minutes to read an excerpt from his or her story. I was impressed by the quality of the writing; three years of doing Nano for most of them has led to exceptional storytelling abilities in these young writers. During the reading part of the…
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Today is Wednesday, December 1, and November is finally over. All of the students in my program, Your Greatest Writing Adventure Ever, achieved their goals of writing a story in the month. The word count goals ranged from 1,500 to 4,700 words, and their ages ranged from seven to ten. What an amazing accomplishment! Not only the writing, but the fun they had doing it. I am so proud of everyone, but I’m also relieved that NaNaWriMo is over. In fact, doing this program is such a mammoth accomplishment that it’s pretty much a requirement to have a TGIO (Thank…
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Yesterday was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and it began with a bang. My group has seven bright, eager children in it, and we all dove in to our writing projects yesterday. Prior to that, we had a couple of meetings in which we worked on character development, understanding what plot is, setting expectations, and deciding on word count goals. I think my students from previous years underestimated their abilities yet again, if yesterday was any measure; they seem to grow their ability to write fluently almost exponentially each year. I’m impressed. Even more impressive, one of our new members,…
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Good news! The virtual classroom for our awesome YWP program is up and running. As soon as participants are fully signed up, they will receive login information. I have received a number of inquiries about the location of the program. The answer is: it’s up to us! Some people are north, some are south, some are middle… we will make it work, even if I travel a couple of times a week. Carpooling can help too. Remember, if you want to facilitate this, we would love your help. Let us know if you have good meeting places, and what dates…
