h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello Sol

I hate to be asking favours when you are sleep deprived, I was wondering if you could give me advice

Hiccup is struggling with coursework, essay writing and the like. She has to quite a few of them now and it's agony for the most part.

I have done the study skills, the essay writing skills and thought with practise she'll be able to learn this.

To a degree there has always been an issue with Hiccup having the ideas in her head just unable to get them from there on to paper.

Anyway, what I find is that she says to me I don't know what to write. Ok I say, get a pad of A4 and talk to me, tell me your ideas. I take notes. I might interject sometimes, with can you expand on that a little, oh, that's interesting can you explain a bit more, that sort of thing

Hand back 2 sides of notes, I have written them down but they are her words It's all a bit ad hoc, I'm making it up as we go along. I've tried encouraging her write like she talks then knock it into shape but that doesn't work, I don't know if that is now mental block or it just doesn't work

So, any suggestions on how I can help her, bearing in mind that the school won't

Sorry for flumphing that on you, but I don't even know where to start on google, so I'd be grateful any nudge in the right direction, if you can



Peanut

*rubs hands together* A teaching problem to ponder!

I shall get back to you. I have a few ideas.

ohhh, thank you

I think you are going about it in the right way, actually. It's a common poblem and I find the best way is to break the writing process down into as many steps as possible.

If I were setting up an essay/ writing in class we'd talk about the topic some, and then turn that into a mind map, jotting down all the ideas we can very very quickly, just a few words as propmts.

Then we'd sort out a paragraph plan. Let's say it's a for/ against essay for ooooh, capital punishment. It needs an intro paragraph, a for paragraph and against one and a conclusion. So at this point you decide which of the ideas in your brainstorm (which I suppose you'd have had to do twice for this essay actually) you are going to use. And for each point you decide on a back up/ expansion sentence and possibly an example. So 'Capital punishment is a problem because there is always the possiblity that someone exectuted might be innocent' has the back up 'Unlike a life sentence there is no way to reverse the punishment once it has been carried out'. Plus possibly an example.

And once she has all this in outline, she can write the whole thing up.

Anyway, I think there might be some very good resources in books aimed at preparing students for the writing paper in something called the First Certificate in English. It's an English as a foreign language exam, but the students have to write a variety of text types and it's not to academic based, while the level is actually highish. I used to use things like it with teenage students who were developing their writing skills in English at about the same pace as their first language albeit with more gramatical errors and a smaller vocabulary. I'll see if I can scare up some links.

Hope that helps. It sounds like you have been having a go at this sort of thing though, but the resources might have some further ideas.

That was really helpful, I am really thankful, thank you.

Just thinking about breaking the writing process into many steps is quite a mind shift but makes perfect sense, I am thinking that I am begining to get what I didn't get, so that was insightful

Paragraph plans, now I really like that, I'm thinking that you do get a really good guide which breaks down what is expected of each piece of course work. We could take sections and paragraph plan them, I can also see how that would take the sting out of a word count. It is also good focus.

Hmm talking of focus, I rather bluntly addressed the issue time management, homework, it is going to be hard work to make up ground and that work has to be done. I will help, be supportive in anyway I can but I can't do it for her. But what she wants is achievable, it was a good discussion to have, we made plans off the back of it.

*just quietly walking through*

Sol, the paragraph planning thing, has a number of useful applications, it's going to be a really ueful tool, what we are looking for at the moment is to make things 'click' for Hiccup, that is looking to be a significant 'click'. Honestly it is bit like discovering a cure for baby colic

I'm a well grateful Mum, thank you

This is why they pay me the big bucks.

That's great! So pleased I could help.

Persistent Mums, though, will always find the answer in the end.