More Ideas to Motivate Reluctant Writers

In my previous article on motivating a studentadverb, then a prepositional phrase, in order to
who dislikes writing, I talked about mylearn how more complex sentences are built and
experiences with my son and how we overcamehow detail makes a sentence more interesting.
his dislike of writing through his interest in writingThis is a major step in becoming a better writer.
product and book reviews at and dreaming upIt is also a lot more fun than diagramming
writing ideas that combined his love of drawingsentences. If you do one of these "build more
and sketching with writing assignments.Somecomplex sentences" activities each day with a
other ideas we have used which were also fundifferent subject and verb, your child will become
and effective (the teacher learns what's effectivea masterful sentence composer in very little
after the fact, but fun was always the essentialtime.Once your child is proficient in writing
element in the beginning) included the following:Incomplex sentences, you will find that he or she
teaching basic writing, once the idea of parts ofstill may not like to write a requested paragraph
speech were taught and understood, we foundor essay on a specific assigned topic. Especially if
two highly effective and enjoyable methods ofthe child is a visual learner, I have found it to be
mastering the knowledge of nouns, verbs,more effective to give him a picture...an old
adjectives, adverbs, etc. and, from there, learningphotograph, a scene from a wall calendar, a page
to write better sentences. The Mad-Libs pads offrom a magazine...and ask him to write either
crazy stories with blanks to be filled in for variousabout what he sees or to make up a story about
parts of speech are found in most bookstores.what is happening in the picture.As I wrote in my
Our family had many evenings full of laughter withprevious article, the main thing is to find out what
one of us asking for words that filled the criteriaappeals to your specific child and run with it until
of being certain parts of speech and then readinghis comfort level with writing improves to the
back the silly stories which resulted from thosepoint that he is ready to write on an assigned
suggested words. Boys of a certain age seem totopic not of his choice. But first, like me, you will
really get a certain pleasure out of using goryprobably have to endure a lot of stories about
adjectives and somewhat violent verbs, but youaliens, other planets, strange creatures, and
can set the rules in advance. Sometimes, so thebizarre situations. However, if your student kept
stories wouldn't end up so outlandish, the readerthe pen to the paper, enjoyed the process, and is
who was asking for the parts of speech wouldproud of his final product, you are on the way to
narrow down the topics on which words could bechanging writing reluctance into writing
offered so that the resulting stories actually madepleasure.Linda Popolano is a homeschooling mom
some kind of weird sense. For encouragingand an Independent Consultant for BRIGHT
creativity, after you've bought your first Mad-LibsMINDS/The Critical Thinking at Home. Please visit
book, you can save the money and have you orher website at to learn more about BRIGHT
your children write your own stories with blanksMINDS' language arts (as well as logic, math, and
and ask for the appropriate parts of speech.Thescience) books and software which incorporate
second method, once parts of speech are totallysome of the ideas mentioned in this article and
mastered, is to simply create a basic subject-verbmany others to teach all students, pre-K through
sentence, such as "A dog ran" and then, step byGrade 12, critical and creative thinking across the
step, have your child add an adjective, then ancurriculum.