Now, some people communicate best when they use their voice. They prefer giving presentations to writing essays. They will answer a text or email with a phone call. They need to meet face to face with whomever they are trying to contact, otherwise everyone will be confused in the end and nothing will get done.

And there’s nothing wrong with this! Everyone needs to have skills in verbal communication, to be able to hold a conversation with someone or present an idea to a group and clearly share your thoughts on the topic at hand. It’s a life skill!

Do you know what else is a life skill?

Communicating through writing.

Yes, it is essential. The fact is that face to face, verbal communication won’t always be an option. In the 21^st century, no matter where you go in life—whether professionally or socially—you need to be able to express yourself in writing in order to communicate with other people.

That’s why it’s important to learn to write well. The goal of writing is to communicate, and if you write well, you will communicate well. Many homeschool families get caught up in the rules of English grammar and how to diagram sentences and using SAT vocabulary words. All of those things can be incredibly frustrating! I repeat, English grammar is the worst! But the good news is, rules and diagrams and the SAT are NOT what learning to write is about! Neither is it about meeting minimum page requirements or regurgitating the opinions of teachers.

Writing is about expressing your ideas clearly! About making yourself understood and bridging the gap between you and someone else.

Did you see what I just did? Alert the Grammar Police, Athena just used a fragment sentence in a writing blog! “Booooooooooooo!”

I did use a fragment sentence, but I care more about getting my point across than being a stickler for Da Rules.

Now, I’m not calling for anarchy. The rules are in place to aid in communicating. If I chucked the rules out the window and wrote “til that tl;dr mean 2long;didnaered,” most people would have no idea what I meant at all. Communication would be null. The rules and requirements of spelling and structure help people understand each other. The problem is that many homeschool families think writing is ONLY about the rules, when it’s not.

Writing is about expressing and being understood.

It’s okay to struggle with writing if you’re more of a verbal person, just like it’s okay for a good writer to struggle with an in-person conversation. Know that just because you struggle doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. At the same time, just because something is hard doesn’t mean that it’s not important.

So as you approach learning or teaching to write—whether you are a homeschool parent or a homeschool student—keep a few things in mind.

• Write to be understood, not impressive.

Big words, long essays, fancy grammar—these aren’t the goal. Expressing your ideas in a way that other people can connect with—THAT is the goal. It doesn’t have to be magnificent, just effective.

“I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request” means the same thing as just plain “No.”

• You’re the writer, but think of the reader.

If you struggle with writing and find yourself just trying to finish the assignment so you can be done, step back for a moment. Change your perspective. Don’t think, “What can I write?” Think, “What will another person need to read in order to understand what I mean?” If the goal of writing is to communicate, then what you put on the paper is only half of the story. The reader also needs to understand what you write in order for communication to happen.

This is a reason why grammar rules and providing adequate explanations of your topic are important. They help the reader understand, even if they feel like a pain to the writer.

“I love my parents, Clark Kent and Audrey Hepburn” could confuse the reader. They may think that Clark and Audrey are your parents, when what you really mean is, “I love 1) my parents, 2) Clark Kent, and 3) Audrey Hepburn.”

#commasareimportant

• You don’t have to be the best writer to be a good one.

It’s okay to struggle with writing, and it’s okay if others write better than you! Just keep writing and developing that skill so that you can communicate and connect with others. Again, you don’t have to be the best to be effective.

By Athena Lester

Head of Curriculum and Scoring Services

This is an issue that every educator deals with. Some people might be tempted to slap a D or an F on the assignment and move forward, but that won’t help the student in future compositions, so what can we do?

Even though the concept of a “wrong answer” should not really apply to literature, written responses can still be poorly done. We want our students to learn and to grow into the very best version of themselves, and studying literature and writing literature responses can develop their thinking as well as their communication abilities.

But what should you do when something about the student’s writing just doesn’t work?

Generally,

• identify what is lacking
• discuss how to remedy the situation with the student
• have the student correct the problematic areas.

Often, poor responses fall into one of three categories:

1. It misunderstands the literature
2. It doesn’t use textual support
3. It is badly written

How should you respond in each of these situations? For now, let us consider example high school-level responses to Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” (This poem is readily found online if you are not familiar with it or need a refresher.) The prompt they are answering is:

Explain a theme in “The Road Not Taken.” Support your answer.

Example #1

       “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is an excellent poem about resisting peer pressure. In the first stanza, a traveler is contemplating two roads, and in the final stanza, he says that he took the road that most travelers ignored. The roads are metaphors for life choices, and the traveler chooses to resist going with the crowd. In the same way, people should choose to make wise choices rather than popular ones. Frost’s poem is an edification for people who choose to do what is right, even if most people choose to do what is wrong.

This response is very well written! The word choice is elevated, it cites specifics aspects from the poem, and the content is well organized and communicates clearly—but it fundamentally misses the point of the literature.

Frost’s poem is not about peer pressure, so even though the student has evidenced critical thought and written well, they missed what the poem is about.

In this situation, praise the student for writing and communicating well and then discuss the literature with them. Show them how they may be misreading or misinterpreting certain areas and then guide them to better understanding. Oftentimes, we read or see what we want to see in art rather than what is actually there.

Oftentimes, we read or see what we want to see in art rather than what is actually there.

Example #2

          “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost describes how everyone makes choices that affect the rest of their lives. Sometimes in life, choices are made, and there’s no going back. For example, if someone chooses to commit a crime, they cannot escape from the aftermath of the crime. Personally, I have made choices that I’m sure have changed my life. When I was in fifth grade, I chose to take piano lessons instead of joining a soccer team. I’ve played piano ever since, but I wonder what kind of person I would be if I chose soccer instead. Robert Frost’s poem focuses on this kind of contemplation of life choices.

This student understands the point of the poem! The opening line clearly and correctly states one of the main themes. The rest of the response, however, provides no support for why the student thinks the poem contains this theme.

Even though the student has the right idea, they are making an unfounded claim. They apply the idea very well and provide a fabulous personal anecdote that relates to the poem, but they never connect with the actual text.

In this situation, commend the student for their valid understanding and relevant life applications, and then explain that they need to support their understanding with textual evidence. Just like a blueprint for a rocking chair doesn’t only show the finished product but also the parts and methods for achieving that finished product, a literature response must demonstrate why and how the literature supports certain ideas. (Another way to think about this is likening it to theorems and proofs in geometry, but I didn’t want to scare anyone away with math.)

Example #3

          The roads mean life choices. The poem says neither one is better. It says both are worn about the same. That means just as many people chose one as chose the other, but later the poem says he took the one that was less traveled. But that doesn’t mean it was better. Sometimes choices aren’t better or worse but just one or the other. And some choices can make big differences in life, like the poem says. That’s what the poem is about.

This response has the right idea and uses textual support—but it is very poorly written. The word choice is lacking for a high school student, it is more like a list of statements than an organized paragraph, and they never even indicate what poem they are discussing!

In this situation, once again, encourage the student that their reading of the literature was excellent and their ideas were correct; they only need to work on communicating better in writing. Show them how they can organize their thoughts and articulate their ideas in a stronger fashion. Encourage them to improve their word choice and to transition more smoothly from thought to thought. This student gets the literature. They simply need to improve their writing.

These concepts can apply to any kind of literature response—responses to short stories, novels, poetry, nonfiction, and so on.

Overall, when it comes to literature responses, you want your student to understand the literature, use textual support, and communicate clearly in writing.

By Athena Lester

Curriculum Development and Scoring Services