I'm following this with interest. We had DD12's 504 meeting last week. One of the teachers made an effort to pinpoint where DD's writing struggles kick in. Dd's extreme anxiety over spelling was evident to all in the room. We also figured out that DD's writing anxiety starts when she has to do anything more than a paragraph for a variety of reasons including uncertainty about how to organize her thoughts and what I will call issues of authenticity/emotional connection. She also has moments when her writing is deep and thoughtful and other moments when she can't seem to get anything on the page.
MON, I think that the authenticity issue is this is similar to your "favorite" issue. DD seems completely paralyzed when she does not feel that she can answer something honestly. If a prompt says "name three interesting features in this article," she won't be able to answer if she didn't find three things interesting. If it says favorite and she didn't have a favorite, she feels like she is being dishonest. Her sister has tried to talk her through this by telling her to fake it and just write something and that no one is going to fact check whether something is "interesting" or her "favorite." DD is resistant.
ETA: I think that I crossed posts with aeh. I think that some of the nuances of "your favorite" that he described are also at play.
She also has struggled when she has to write about a book where she did not find any redeeming qualities in the characters. For example, she hated Tom Sawyer. Her teacher asked them to describe Tom's character. She had a terrible time writing about him because she couldn't stand the thought of thinking about him. I think that she is so empathetic that she felt violated letting this annoying character back in her head. I finally got her over her initial block by scribing her rant about what an annoying, self-absorbed, drama queen he was (her words, not mine). I gave her the written rant and told her to find evidence for it. She gets so emotional that I also wish she would "not take it so dang personally!"
I have a good feeling that the teacher who asked all of the questions trying to pinpoint DD's struggles will be a great support for her. Understanding the issues at hand seems like a great start. Now we have to start figuring out how to work past them.
Last edited by knute974; 08/29/14 09:08 AM.
