Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Early writing (and other musings)

What She said!!

IDEAS are more important than craftsmanship. LINKING the elements together is more important than craftsmanship. Once all these are there, then focus on prose - the thing can be said hundreds of ways, but there is only one thing being written about. That thing is the key.

Not to say phrases and evocations cannot be jotted down as well - but these are not the same as ideas.

What Austin said!

I always taught my college students that there are actually *three* stages to writing: drafting, which is the ideas stage; editing, which is the organizing, expanding and pruning stage; and proofreading, which is the word choice, spelling and punctuation stage.

DS4 (just turned 4 a couple of months ago) does enjoy writing when he is in the mood. He's been reading for a couple years now. I think he prefers typing on the computer to writing overall....but does like to write. He types emails and does great with punctuation and spelling...we be have to monitor him because he once sent an email to earthlink staff telling them "I love you very much" intending to send it to my email. He did make a book recently called "the things I like." He drew lots of pictures and wrote captions about everything. He does get lazy with writing though. Like on the first page he drew a picture of pizza and wrote TIP on top. When I asked him why it said TIP he said, "no...that stands for This Is Pizza." But when I explained that no one will know that when they read his book he started writing everything out. Most thing were about foods he likes, but there were some interesting things in there about egg hunts and eating candy on halloween, and apparently cucumbers...which I was not aware he liked all that much. He does like to write cards to people that are pretty cute and creative. He says some funny stuff. My DS also really enjoys shel silverstein and other poetry. I am looking forward to some creative writing in the years ahead.

Hi, JBDad!

Do you know the Ralph Fletcher (www.ralphfletcher.com) books on writing for children? (I mean the books are for children who are writing, not adults writing books for children! I'll go back and reread the chapters on clarity!!!) We have them, and though we haven't used them much yet, I've read them a few times, just because they're so lovely--he's very respectful of children's desire to write, and offers a lot of practical advice to young writers--he really takes them seriously. I expect that there would be many ideas there that you could toss around with your little guy.

There are four books (Live Writing, The Writer's Notebook, Poetry Matters, and How Writers Work), and I love them all!

peace
minnie

incogneato, the letters are absolutely hilarious.

DS6 started writing science reports when he was 4.5. When he was 5 he wrote a few chapters of a math story book. This summer he started working on a "book" which resembles Geronimo Stilton's books

Most of what he does is typed on the computer though. It's faster and it makes editing so much easier.

My son is also 5 3/4 almost 6. He starting writing books a few months ago. Surprisingly the spelling is pretty good, IMO. I usually tell him just to do his best and I will help him spell it correctly after he at least tries. He also gets creative and usually uses books that he owns to find the word he wants and then copy the correct spelling.

So far he has written a book on the Solar System and 4 short stories on Halloween Characters. He calls them his fall series. He actually started writing a chapter book this past weekend that is starting to resemble the movie Monster House. His goal is to have at least 8 chapters with some illustrations.

I agree to a point - definitely that ideas getting down on paper are key - but kids don't even need to be the person holding the pen!
My ds was writing "BOOKS" at the age of 4. He was just in love with books from early on, so it seemed natural to him to start making his own. His writing was nuts, however, very difficult to read but I enjoyed very much trying to decipher his little taped together books and viewing his extremely detailed illustrations. Lots of his books were variations on other books I'd read to him. Some were his own unique stories. By 1st the school had started emphasizing correct spelling, grammar etc. This REALLY slowed him down and frankly discouraged him.
He is just now beginning to get the hang of writing fluidly and the ideas are flowing better again. He is really into making comics now as well so that breaks up all the writing and allows him to succinctly offer ideas in just a few phrases.
During that transition period, I have definitely sat and just transcribed for him when he was in the mood to tell a story but just couldn't write 'properly' fast enough.
I wanted to second (or third) the idea that IDEAS (and having fun) are key - - however the ideas get out

Yes, I think we're all trying to get the child to let the "flow" go naturally, Chris.

But in your child's case, the demands for correct spelling et al were coming from the *school*. In JBDad's case, they're coming from the *child*. That changes the problem significantly, I think.

I think you have to find a way to let the perfectionist child know that it's okay to want to do it "right," but that's it's also okay if it's not "right" from the start. I suspect the editing process might make the initial not-rightness more palatable to the child.

Oh gosh, I didn't mean to imply there was any anti-flow sentiment in the ideas here. Probably I do have a knee-jerk reaction to some of the things I think have had a less than encouraging influence on writing for either ds or even myself from way back...
Draft writing then editing may be another one of those things! They way you refer to it is sounds very nice, a help, but the way it seems to have been presented in my ds last grade was sort of haphazard; the editing ended up feeling like a hindrance to wanting to write at all (from what I could tell).

I think you're right. An externally imposed system wasn't good for your child, who wasn't worried about "getting it right."

But for a child who is *internally* hampered by a perfectionism that is interfering with that flow, a system might help to fix the problem.

Just another example of "every kid is different."