Write for Real

My 8th grader wrote some required sentences the other day, and he did fine. They were long enough, they made sense, and they were humorous. But they weren't his idea; so although he was willing, he wasn't excited. The next day, he sent an email to Lego asking them a couple questions. Now that excited him. This morning he said something entirely unexpected. "This sounds strange, but I like writing if I know what I'm going to say."

Think about that. Have you ever been sitting in a class and you had a great comment that you just had to share? Contrast that to sitting in a class and being afraid the instructor would ask you a question. It may just be the same kind of fear and stress that our kids feel when we ask them to write something for us. We need to put ourselves in their places and imagine how they feel.

I know it's not always possible to have our kids writing only things that they want, but we can do it more often than we think. I try to keep assignments at a minimum. I find that my kids will have reasons to write often enough. And when they have a real audience and a real purpose, they know what to say and the writing is a higher quality than if they are to just writing a narration of something they've read. Talking about what they're reading is entirely sufficient for narration; why make them write it? My kids have written emails, texts, freewrites, cards for family members, poems, letters, notes about talks at church, plans for comedy sketches, titles and descriptions for an Etsy shop, plans for having a farm, and even a book (which we're self-publishing shortly).

When I do need to assign writing, I give them as much freedom as I can. I also try to make it interesting based on what I know about that child. I'm having my daughter do a research project for the next few months, where she'll have to get volunteers to do something for an extended period of time, get their responses, come to a conclusion, compare it to current data, and write a report to present to us orally and send to her brother at college. She is so much more interested in this project than when I have said to research a topic and just write the report. And frankly, I know the writing will be more interesting to read. She will have had a personal experience with the topic. She'll know what she's going to say, and I agree with my son; she'll like writing it if she knows what she's going to say.

So your job is to find or let your kids find real reasons to write for a real audience. How about a few ideas? Blog posts, emails or letters to grandparents, thank you notes, poetry contests or readings, reviews on an actual website.