<p>“Breathing life into his writing.” along with acceptable writing style, says it all. I love the poetry class idea, and I’m also thinking of a few other avenues he could use. </p>
<p>I’m finding it hard myself to put into words the type of writer he is. I’ve read his words before, writings that did not have the pressure of grades attached to the outcome and he did great, but it seems that maybe he is freezing on mandatory written work.</p>
<p>I think a one-on-one tutoring situation could be very effective because the tutor can spend time going over each point on an individual basis, reminding the kid of the applicable grammatical rule or pointing out where the writing is ambiguous. A good writing class at a CC would also be effective, but you might be able to start tutoring sessions sooner. </p>
<p>Things that have helped my kids:</p>
<p>Reading the paper out loud (the kid, not the parent). This can be a dramatically effective tool - the kid hears grammatical/punctuation errors, sees where he’s got run-on or incomplete sentences, becomes aware of holes in his argument, etc. </p>
<p>Giving himself enough time between drafts - he’ll notice errors more readily if he hasn’t been laboring over the same project nonstop.</p>
<p>A creative writing class made a huge improvement in my d3’s academic writing. I think it served to demystify the writing process and make her more comfortable with putting thoughts on paper. Even today, she tells me her academic writing isn’t as smooth, but it’s much better than it was.</p>
<p>His writing will improve the more he writes. Although I understand the concern about the possible negative impact on his GPA if he takes writing-intensive classes now, his college GPA will almost certainly suffer unless he communicates well in writing.</p>
<p>From the perspective of someone not much older than your son, if he doesn’t want to learn how to write well, spending money on tutoring or classes is just a waste. If he is interested in learning how to write well, perhaps you should ask him to read this thread, and think about the options presented here.</p>
<p>
None of us know the OP’s son, so it’s hard to know what will work and what won’t. However, I can say from my own personal experience that either a poetry or creative writing class would have done significant and possibly irreparable harm to my writing skills. I just don’t like poetry or creative writing. I’m not wired for it. If I had tried to learn to communicate more effectively with either of those courses, I think there’s a good chance that I would have given up on the idea altogether.</p>
<p>In my case, I was very good at math, science, and verbal communication. However, I had a lot of trouble getting ideas onto paper and usually failed to communicate my thoughts well in written form. In 7th grade, I discovered the Purdue OWL and it genuinely changed my life. I don’t want to sound like an infomercial, but a lot of writing is expected in HS and I really think I would have had a nervous breakdown if I hadn’t addressed this problem when I did.</p>
<p>I have a strategy derived from the OWL that has been burned into my memory from repeated use:</p>
<p>Why am I writing this paper? For school assignments, why was this assigned?
Who is my audience?
What do I want to communicate? What do I want the reader to do after reading my paper?
How do I communicate this message to my readers? How can I support my ideas?</p>
<p>To answer the last question, ask more questions. What facts can I show the reader? Compare, associate, analyze, and apply these facts in order to build an argument for my position. This argument can be built in the form of a logic tree or outline.</p>
<p>Then it’s just a matter of filling in the words and structure of the paper.</p>
<p>I think that structured writing is highly emphasized these days. It is what garners kids points on ACT writing and SAT writing, it is what is expected from classes like AP history and from early college courses. There is clearly value in structured writing. But, I think that it can stymie kids’ creativity because they are so concerned about paragraph 1 should be this and paragraph 2 should be that and gosh I need a closing paragraph and summation. I remember one of mine in high school hopping around, tearing his hair out because he needed a closing paragraph. I read his paper and told him he didn’t need one. Just to stop. Blasphemy. </p>
<p>Yes, it’s valuable to write in a collegiate style and often that needs structure but it’s helpful to be able to switch that academic style on and off to write an essay or a personal statement. I’ve also noticed that kids get verbose and repetitive when writing to a formula. One of the best writings I saw from my number 2 was a personal statement for one of his applications. 100 words. Tough to apply a formula. Clearly I don’t know the OP’s son or what is missing in his writing but one thing that can be learned from a creative writing class or a poetry class is to not worry so much about the structure…unless you’re writing Haiku I suppose…</p>
<p>
Yes, the five-paragraph essay and that kind of structure is overrated. But a good formula will work for almost any setting. The entire purpose of the formula above is to eliminate concerns about structure. The paper is only assembled after all the core ideas are in place. Even for a 100-word essay, this approach can still work. It’s about developing a cogent and clear position, not writing an exact number of paragraphs.</p>
<p>I found my writing greatly improved through practice, I was average throughout elementary school and early middle school, then it really improved to the point where I get compliments, I’ve won all sorts of writing contests, and in general I do really, really well with it.
I practiced through fun ways like email, IM, message boards, letters, writing stories, etc., and Yahoo! Answers really helped me - you can ask and answer questions of your choice and get points by doing so, then the asker picks a best answer. The more points you get, the higher up you go, it’s really fun and I felt it was a great way to exercise writing abilities as it’s always being judged and it’s fun, so you want to come back to it and see what makes a good piece of writing good rather than poor. </p>
<p>Just my two cents…</p>
<p>Even with being a avid reader and one who likes to write, I find I most times need to first do the research for what I am going to write about, before deciding to sit down and write anything.</p>
<p>I can not stressed this enough. Research, research, research!</p>