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Writer's pictureElizabeth Breau

Getting Kids to Write Ideas, Not Just Words




When I tell people that I’m an English teacher, they often confess that they were bad at spelling or punctuation. I never quite know what to say because that isn’t really what I teach. Those things are important, of course, but they matter less than whether the writer is saying anything worth reading. 


Getting kids to write is more than a matter of making them respond to writing prompts. A student may think a topic is interesting, but that isn’t the same as having anything interesting to say about it. For example, a fourth-grader responded to one recent prompt, “If you could invent something, what would it be?” by writing: 

  

"If I could invent something it would be a type of car. I would make a car because I have always known alot about cars, also it is really fun. It is fun because you can plan out the car, draw it, and you can get a lot of money." 


At first glance, this three-line response looks good--but then you notice that half of sentence two is really a restatement of sentence one. The repetition of “fun” is a clue that the two sentences could be combined. What the writer knows about cars remains a mystery because no examples of such knowledge are given. 


The third sentence crystallizes the problem. “You can plan out the car, draw it,” but this writer only plans to invent “a type of car,” not “a flying car” or some other fanciful mode of transportation. 


So, why is the writer’s idea so undeveloped? Many students approach writing assignments with the intention of finishing them as quickly as possible. As a result, they don’t practice writing well


They perfect the skill of producing words on demand, but they do it by writing repetitive, wordy sentences like those above in a race to finish the assignment as quickly as possible. As a result, they skip the thinking part and rush to fill the allotted space with words as quickly as possible. 


Here’s another response to the same prompt: 


"I would invent a flying car because it would be much more convenient and there would be less accidents and less people would be killed, and you would not have to waste more money getting plane tickets. You could just fly there. It will also reduce traffic jams in the road."


This response is better because it contains a specific idea--a flying car-- and several reasons why flying cars could be helpful. However, it’s still only three sentences long. The first sentence is a run-on, and the third seems random and needs to connect the dots between flying cars and reduced road traffic instead of leaving it to readers to infer. 


To help students develop their thoughts more fully, I ask them to read what they’ve written aloud. Then, I ask them how they think it sounds. At this point, most students will make some cosmetic changes. Once they’ve done all they can think of, I help them eliminate repetition by condensing or combining sentences. We consider whether the ideas are presented in the best order and move them around if they aren’t. I ask. “What else can you say?” ad infinitum, and I push on vague statements--“What do you mean you’d invent a type  of car?”--by refusing to understand any ideas that are implied until they are clearly explained by the words on the page. 


These questions help students add content to their work, especially because I refuse to listen to the answers. They have to write them instead. However, since their automatic response to a question is to try to answer it verbally, this results in a lot of interrupting on my part: “Stop talking! Write it down! I’m not listening!” 


It helps to remind kids that their readers are not mind readers. I tell them that their job is to write so clearly that I can’t think of any annoying questions to ask. I also tell them that this is a legitimately hard process that takes practice to perfect. After all, the word “essay,” which we use to refer to a multi-paragraph piece of prose writing, also means “to try.” Writing is a practice, an effort that one essays to perfect, because it is a complex mixture of ideas and

language. So, keep trying!  


Elizabeth Breau, Ph.D. (she/her), is an award-winning writing coach and private English tutor. Her book, History According to SAT: A Content Guide to SAT Reading and Writing, won a silver medal in the teen category from the Nonfiction Authors Association and was a finalist in American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards. You can reach her at elizabeth.breau@gmail.com.


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