Most parents have two writing/composition concerns:
- How to help the student develop writing skills (which is another post!) and/or
- How to evaluate his writing
If your child balks at writing:
- Smart Kids Who Hate to Write can be a good starting point.
- Kathryn Stout’s Design-a-Study guide, Comprehensive Composition, is a no-nonsense, no-busy-work syllabus of writing assignments from K-12th grades, to teach all the requisite writing types.
- For a video component, Essentials in Writing combines composition and grammar in a video lesson format.
- Also, Cathy Duffy has a list of composition programs at www.cathyduffyreviews.com.
To get an idea of what might be typical for a student of your child’s grade level, you might check out the writing section of the language arts skills listed for your student’s level at World Book’s Typical Course of Study (but hold these lists loosely). For more skills guidelines, see the links at the end of What Should I Be Teaching. (As always, hold any checklists loosely and use them simply as guides.)
Editing or evaluating your child’s writing:
This is a common concern, but the good news is that there are guides to walk you through the process!
- Evaluate Writing the Easy Way (Janice Campbell)
- Grading essays e-book geared for high school writing (Sharon Watson)
- Brian Wasko’s Write at Home offers a writing program in which they assign the material and then they provide the evaluation. They also offer short-term 8-week courses to target skills beginning in middle school.
- Kathryn Stout’s Design-a-Study guide, Comprehensive Composition (listed above) outlines how to evaluate your child’s writing.
- Learn4YourLife has several tools for you, including grade-level assessment criteria (rubrics)
- How to Use a Rubric to Assess Writing
- You can do an online search for elementary school writing rubric (such as this 3rd grade rubric from Learn4YourLife ) or high school writing rubric (such as this article)
- You can sometimes find a local parent who is willing to trade evaluating papers (or bartering for another service, if it’s not your strong suit).
- And sometimes a local college student / English major is happy to make a few extra dollars helping out! Patrick Henry College and others often have English majors who are happy to help for a small fee.
