Archive for the ‘Tips for Teen Writers’ Category

“Looking Outside” by Noah Bogart

My son wrote the following poem during a math test in tenth grade. I doubted my ability to teach him Algebra II so we had enrolled him one hour a day at the local high school. Imagine my surprise when in the middle of the year, he came home from taking a test to exclaim: “During my math test, I wrote two poems!” I cringed. Wasn’t he supposed to be double checking his answers?

I stumbled across one of the poems this afternoon and it spoke so eloquently to coerced education and its failed power in the lives of kids, I had to share it with you.

Looking Outside

Looking outside, I yearn for freedom, not French.

Looking outside, longing like never before,

Looking outside, and feeling trapped in this cold,
impersonal,
self-improvement,
government-imposed facility.

Looking outside, I’m caught between math and history,
English and Spanish…
everything but interesting

Looking outside, I inwardly cry,
try,
but fail,
and die.

Noah Bogart (age 15) 4/02/2003

Melodrama aside, I love the way he expresses the essence of the struggle to learn in a canned environment.

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High School Writing

I’m teaching a co-op writing class for 11th and 12th graders. After years of online teaching, I get a huge kick out of seeing my students’ faces react to the things I say. I love the immediate feedback! Very fun.

We’re using my high school writing manual as the basis for our studies. Here are a few things I noticed in their writing from the first Module: Musical Language. If you’re using it, you might like to pay attention to these potential issues:

  1. Adverbs
    Pay attention to adverbs in descriptive writing. They can be a substitute for getting to the core of the experience.

    Example: “She opened the door, timidly.”

    Better: “She cracked open the door and peeked around the corner before entering.”

  2. Passive voice
    Put the passive in active voice.

    Example: “I was being shot by my dad when we went paintballing last weekend.”

    Better: “My dad shot me. After all, we went paintballing last weekend.”

When you revise, check for these and then make adjustments.

More suggestions for high school revisions to come! Feel free to send me your questions and suggestions for high school blogging topics, particularly if you are using the Help for High School manual.

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New Products!

The Arrow and Slingshot Evaluation and Planning Tools for Writing (that’s a mouthful) are now available for purchase. These are the June and July issues of 2005 that were created for both the Arrow and Slingshot so that moms could evaluate where their kids were developmentally in writing and then plan/create writing projects that would suit those skills. We’ve had so many requests for these issues that we finally figured out how to make them widely available.

Each one is over 25 pages long and contains a wealth of practical information as well as processes that will put you in touch with both your kids’s unique personalities and learning styles. You’ll also find a wealth of specific suggestions for writing assignments that will be tailor-made to who your kids are as well as what they will be studying. Both tools use a similar process for evaluation and planning, but the specific examples and the developmental stages that are outlined in each one are particularly suited to the age groups that usually use the Arrow and Slingshot.

For the Arrow, your kids ought to be between 8 and 12. For the Slingshot, between 13 and 18.

These tools are digital downloads similar to the Help for High School book.

Here’s what one mom had to say about using the Slingshot tool:

I am working through Slingshot Writing Tool. When I read through exercise one on the plane returning from Las Vegas, I thought it was “out-there,” not very practical. Certainly not logical. 🙂 But I needed something to do and I do like following through the steps in order so I couldn’t do the second step until I did the first step. I drew a circle because my son could never be predictable or put in a box. Then I followed your directions and still thought it was a little …weird. The only tag sentence beginning that seemed to fit was “I found myself drawing…” I filled a whole page!! Using your instructions I contemplated my 16 year old son-who he is, how he learns, what he communicates non-verbally, what makes him happy, frustrated, sad, angry and wrote on each of those aspects. Wow! is all I can say. Your exercise allowed me to look at him and “see” him in a way I hadn’t done before. (By drawing what seemed like a silly doodle and then writing about it.)

I realized this son of mine is not passive or hesitant. He is very determined, tenacious, and enthusiastic. He has great energy. Definite likes and dislikes. Learns by doing it. He enjoys being with his friends. He is very driven internally. He is not compliant about going along with my program. Trying to fit him into my logical linear way of thinking and doing life won’t work. He is going somewhere-he is not sure where and it could change. Anyhow, it does mean something to me. I am moving on the exercise two.

Thanks for that eye-opening exercise.

Brave Mom in Ohio

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Help for High School: The Power of Anecdote

A Brave Writer Lives Inside Each of Us- Julie Bogart, Writing Coach

Brave Writer’s Help for High School manual covers the writing skills that contribute to powerful expository writing:

  • Anecdote,
  • Argument,
  • Structure,
  • Research,
  • Register,
  • and Support.

To get a feel for where we’re headed, here’s a short blurb from the book on the value of solid anecdotal writing skills.

The Anecdote

Don’t you find it odd that kids spend the first thirteen years of their lives reading and writing fiction until high school when suddenly they are expected to “shut it down” and make the switch to expository writing? Somehow essay writing is seen as serious business with no place for all those wonderful intuitive fictional skills they’ve received almost effortlessly. To this I say, “Hogwash!” The best writing (of any kind) is a blend of research, data, structure and imagination.

The Power of Anecdote

In the academic environment, those fiction skills are most evident in what is called “the anecdote.” An anecdote is a short personal account of an incident or event. Anecdotes can be written in first or third person. They usually offer the “slice of life” element that engages the reader’s emotions so that he will keep slogging through the dry information to become persuaded by the premise the writer offers. For instance, if the writer wants you to support a rating system for video games, he could start with an anecdote.

What if the essay began like this?

“I threw it into fifth gear, rounded the corner and mowed down six elderly people.”

You’d gasp. . . until the writer revealed that he was talking about Grand Theft Auto. But now you find yourself wondering, “Is it okay for little kids to play games that glorify gratuitous violence?”

That’s the goal of the anecdote: to get you to reconsider your assumptions in light of a new perspective.

“The best writing is a blend of research, data, structure and imagination.”

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Sharing statistics about how many violent acts a child commits onscreen per hour may be important, but it is not necessarily as effective as hooking the imagination of the reader. To write effective anecdotes, a writer must learn to use personal experience, imagery, musical language, powerful associations between ideas, and a knack for drama.

Keep reading:  teen writers and how they think.

Brave Writer's Help for High SchoolBrave Writer’s Help for High School is the solution to your writing needs for teens.

It’s is a self-directed writing program for teens that both teaches rhetorical thinking in writing, as well as the academic essay formats for high school and college. Teens work independently of their parents, however models of completed assignments and rubrics for feedback are included, as well.

 

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Writing Contest: Poetry in Motion

This week’s contest announcement is in place of the Friday Freewrite in hopes that you will get crackin’ on your entries!

Announcing the Brave Writer August Writing Contest

Poetry in Motion

I will accept entries until August 31. Winners will be determined by September 10 and will be selected by hand-picked judges (that means I’ll run the entries by my husband and staff for their feedback). 🙂

The contest is based on Chapter 12, “Field Guide to Word Identification” in The Writer’s Jungle. You don’t have to have the book in order to participate in the contest. I mention it to help you if you do have it.

Guidelines for kids:
Write a poem with two stanzas, four lines each. Pick a theme for the poem that has to do with motion (be creative!). You’ll want to either rhyme the poem in an AABB CCDD format or in an alternating format like this ABAB CDCD.

Use a freewrite to come up with a word bank for your poem. Set the timer for ten or fifteen minutes. Make a list down the page with as many words as you can that go with your topic. You will then, after you stop, want to go back over your list and “upgrade” your choices. Use the PEN rubric to help you (if you have The WJ). If not, simply look over your words and think of ways to make them more precise, more economical, more novel.

Start crafting your poem (it’s okay if your moms help you, but don’t let them take over 🙂 ). You’ll look at your word bank for inspiration as well as a source of words for your poem. Remember to look for active verbs and vivid details.

Each line ought to have a similar number of beats. You can bang your hand on your leg as you say your poem to feel the rhythm. Have someone help you count the beats.

Here’s an example of a poem by my son Noah when he was in fourth grade:

Sliding on the rail like ice
Hearing the crowd’s roar
Landing squarely on the bolts
The fans shout for more.

Board flipping wildly
Flying through the air
Feet reaching desperately
Over rail and stair.

Submission Details for Moms:
Send your child’s poem to: [email protected]

Include name, age, email address and a bit of detail about the writing experience (techniques used, methods for breaking through writer’s block, how many drafts, how you thought up unusual words, what you did to help you create the experience in the poem, etc.)

Prizes will be awarded in the following age brackets:

8 – 9
10-11
12-14
15-18

Each winner will receive a gift card to Barnes and Noble for $15.00. There will be one Sweepstakes winner which is outside of age categories. We will evaluate both the poem and the details about the writing process you used to write the poem for the Sweepstakes winner. Sweepstakes will receive a Barnes and Noble gift card for $25.00.

So get writing! (And tell a friend…)

(Winning poems will be published here on this blog. Other entries may be used in future Brave Writer publications or classes.)

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