There’s a way to turn kids off reading for good 
I would suggest sticking to the articles themselves - unless the publication has some form of curation besides “most liked” (the NY Times site offers this). The better columnists will also slip in historical, literary, and pop-culture references that’ll teach more than good writing.
Read and emulate great writing across the curriculum. Read. Read. Read. Reading/Thinking/Writing are not separate activites–they form a continuum of organized thought. I’ve taught writing for many years, and the single best thing to do to become a better writer is to read voraciously.
When a student is young with under developed executive functions, it can be very hard and even painful to write about what she read, and demanding book-report can deter her from reading. Not to mention that all the long and agonizing writing (and even reading comprehension problem solving) sessions could be used for more reading, which is both more pleasant and benefiting the writing skill in the long term.
" Sadly in today’s English classes, partly because of the redirection of Common Core, non-fiction takes precedence." I never wrote a single piece of fiction in my high school English classes, though all we read was fiction. It was somehow at the same time considered the only thing worth reading but not worth ever writing. We were too good for that–we only wrote literary criticism, which bored me to tears, and I would have loved the opportunity to read and write some non-fiction. I don’t think my school even had a class in creative writing–my kids’ school does, but it’s not considered worthy of an honors designation–that is only for kids who write criticism, not the ones who actually write the fiction.
I do not think that being an avid reader necessarily makes you a great writer any more than being a sports fan makes you a good player. Yes, it’s probably necessary but there is more to it. I personally was always a B student in English although I read a lot. I think I would have done a lot better if I’d been allowed to write about something that interested me. It did help my reading ability a lot, but not so much my writing. And neither did I feel that writing all this literary criticism helped me much later on when I was writing more nonfiction.
As far as learning to write at all, the writing program is pathetic in our school, the English teachers refuse to assign any papers of substance because they say they don’t have time to help the kids learn how to write a major paper and they don’t have time to read them, and nearly all writing assignments from grade 6-12 are devoted to training the kids to write the almighty 5 paragraph essay. I also think that many of the younger English teachers are now shying away from teaching grammar because they themselves didn’t learn it well enough to teach it. Most teachers in our school system do not teach grammar.
My kids read a lot and one of them is a reasonably good writer though nothing amazing and the writer just has obviously always had more talent for it. She reads a lot now, mostly fiction, and she does a lot of critiquing with her hs creative writing class and several student literary magazines and groups that she’s involved with. Being on the editor side of things may be helpful as she has to read and judge other students’ writing. I guess the suggestions I have are to read a lot, but not just read, also think about what makes a piece successful; get involved with a writing activity such as a literary magazine or writing contests or maybe book group, and try to get teachers in school that are actually teaching writing skills.
I wouldn’t wish reading teenage attempts at creative writing on my worst enemy.
What? You don’t read fanfiction?
I actually do sometimes–and some of it is quite good!–but the only time I assigned fiction to an entire class of 11th graders was a gruesome fiasco that made me question my will to live.
Okay, I love to read, but reading doesn’t equal writing. Yes this is reductive, but would you rather read a dissertaition or write one? Reading is receptive and writing is productive. To become a good writer as opposed to a good reader, people need to write, and they need to write a lot. Writing is a practice, like learning to play a sport. I always tell my students that have to write more than I (professor) could even begin to read.
Steven King, in his memoir, describes writing as a high school student and sending it out to publishers. He filled a nail above his desk with rejections. Then he went and got a spike. He did get published before he filled the spike. His point is that one needs to write a lot to get to the point where you can please/understand your audience.
So, if I was worried about my kids writing (I am not as they go to private school), in middle school, I would encourage journal keeping, writing camps, letters to family, short stories, and poems. Later I would encourage applications, blogs, research projects, etc. Do emphasize fun and the writing process (especially revision where the student re-sees the writing and learns something about how they write (meaning, structure, genre) and what matters. Finding a peer group of writers helps, too; writers need responsive audiences.
DO NOT BOG DOWN ON GRAMMAR, which usually means punctuation. For a kid to care about anything so “small”, they need to first care about being the voice on the page. They need to like writing and see it as fun first and foremost or at least a fun accomplishment.
Several posters emphasize this. If so, I have a bigger challenge. My son isn’t much a reader since birth. To him there are more fun in life than sit and read. And l let it be. He only got his alphabets straight in kindergarten while learning to write. His kindergarten teacher loves his writing, more so than pages by another kid. I can count the number of fiction books he’s read on my two hands, with repeat.
I don’t know if the common core type of assessment used by multiple states consists of writing. Son’s recent reading result put him in the top group of 5 levels. So at least reading comprehension isn’t a problem. I wonder if @marvin100 and others’ emphasis on reading take modern media into consideration, e.g., iPad and YouTube.
I’d love to know if anyone has such a program to recommend. But I suspect CC people don’t know because many of you are better writers than teachers at this level.
@mamalion post #27 makes a lot sense to me.
Oh, something on which I can actually contribute! I have been a professional reporter/writer for nearly 30 years. I am very passionate about good writing, and could go on and on. Here is what I’ve told my own kids:
Have to agree with @EllieMom. It may start with reading, and practice with writing, but the thrust point is when one hones the ability to self-edit. That’s much more than looking for missed commas or run-on sentences. It comes from perspective, which we can influence (the ability to observe and weigh, then some critical thinking.)
Ask most kids what they want to say or show and you get back an “I don’t know.” Help them learn to think, separate from the requirements of school assignments.
Letter writing is good practice.
In my opinion, becoming a good writer requires practice. So…the student needs to write a LOT and get feedback on their writing. The key to good feedback (in my opinion) is strategies to improve what was written. It doesn’t do any good to say something is not terrific without some kind of guide to making the writing better.
Around here kids wrote a TON in their schools beginning in kindergarten. They had writing folders that contained all of their works…with comments on many pieces by their teachers. For pieces that were to be published (that means competed with edits), there were usually multiple drafts.
"the only time I assigned fiction to an entire class of 11th graders was a gruesome fiasco that made me question my will to live. " But why would you expect their first attempt to be any good? Our teachers consider that it takes 4-6 years of practice to learn how to write a 5 paragraph essay, which I think is probably one of the easiest, most formulaic things to write. I also think that, regardless of the quality of the finished product, a serious effort to write fiction would help a kid appreciate it far more than yet another paper on the usual stuff.
I think one reason my first kid struggled so much with her college essays is that she had never written anything like them before. It’s not that she was a poor English student–she always got As and was one of the best in the class. She herself didn’t think too much of all those 5 paragraph essays she wrote. But she had no practice in the sort of writing she was suddenly expected to produce.
I think the colleges essays are personal narratives of sorts. My kids got more practice writing personal narratives than any other form of writing.
With regard to writing…my opinion is its like a lot of,other skills. You need lots of practice to get to your optimum level.
Your teachers assign personal narratives? Ours assign 5 paragraph essays and “character sketches”. I don’t think my kids have been asked to write anything about themselves, except perhaps in elementary school. And many of those college essays are creative nonfiction, another category which my kids have never written.
Kids wrote personal narratives all the way until senior year in HS. This was in addition to various other writing genres.
Five paragraph themes are not “real-world” writing: they are a school genre that is easy to grade, easy for the teacher to read fast, and never painful because they require relatively little thinking. The College Board loves them because they can have graders, minimally trained to consistent standards to evaluate. Even the best of them are basically 3 things on a desert island, 3 famous people I admire, etc. My kids at a good private school were taught to write them in a week so they could take AP tests (after writing 20 page research papers in the real class).
Personal narrative (isn’t that a big umbrella) works differently, but it is also very different that asking and answering questions, solving problems, communicating expertise, or summarizing and/or analyzing complex ideas.
As the OP’s 8th grader goes forward, it might be very helpful to have her volunteer for the school newspaper or literary journal. Taking about writing is important for developing a critical awareness of the written word. The technical word is metalinguistic awareness, where a person can get “above” language and see how it works.
I agree. But most of us don’t all have access to a school where good English teachers teach writing. I asked my college kid how many of the students in her freshman writing class appeared to be significantly better prepared than she was, and her impression was that most of them got the same minimal writing education that she did, but that a minority of students who evidently went to better schools were significantly more prepared.
Don’t think mine had any experience writing personal narrative (unless it was on the level of ‘what I did on my summer vacation.’)
Teachers need to cover basics and a few analytical styles. But there are many forms of other writing, for different purposes. Too many kids have trouble with the app writing. And they may very well have A’s in English classes.
The reason I say letter writing is because it is short, to the point, conveys something they want to say. And for kids, they know the reader on a personal level. It can strip the performance anxiety and they can learn to trust their ability, without the endless “and then he said and then I thought.” This is different than a journal.
My profession requires that I write and publish. It is all expository writing. I mastered vocabulary, spelling, and grammar prior to college. I only began to write a lot, however, in college. We weren’t taught writing there. But our papers were read carefully and we were given critical feedback on each one – not just a grade. I fell in love with certain reference books, above all Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” and the Chicago Manual of Style. For me, Roget’s Thesaurus was interesting to “read.” Strunk and White’s simple rules and advice, such as “Vigorous writing is concise,” and “If you don’t know what you want to say, say it loudly” became my guides to writing. I became my own best editor, and I often put my papers through multiple revisions mainly by cutting needless words.
There are other approaches. My DW is an amazingly good and expressive writer. Again, all expository writing – these days a community newsletter but in earlier days a masters thesis in history. Her key to becoming a good writer was her wide reading as a child, mainly of fiction. Whereas my best writing was achieved through rigorous self-editing after I had drafted a paper, my wife’s approach was to take notes on her readings, then take notes on her notes, then create an outline, then write. Making those notes, and notes on notes, stimulated her thinking of the problem in detail and prepared her to write about it. The first draft of her papers and newsletters came out expressively and scarcely in need of any revision.
These are two very different approaches, suited to our different personalities, but they both require thinking carefully about the problem or task before beginning to write, and then realizing that more than one edition (of notes and text) is going to be needed.