Writing help needed - especially those who use CW or LTOW...

[Heather in VA]

I am at a loss as to what to do with my 8th grader in regards to writing. She's done Aesop and Homer from Classical Writing but I really didn't understand how CW was taking us to high school and college level writing so we've started using IEW. It worked well and she's progressed but I feel like we've hit a wall and I don't know how to take that next step.

Given a topic and guidelines she can produce an essay but it lacks any depth of thought. Her sentence structure is good. She has great vocabulary and variety of sentences, but it's just not deep. When we discuss the points she wants to make, she has all kinds of great ideas but it doesn't appear in the paper. I get frustrated because I feel like if it's in her head and we talk about what should be in the essay, then if it isn't there she must be just being lazy about it. But what I'm finding is that she doesn't understand which ideas help her make her point most effectively or how to organize them in an effective manner. I have no idea how to get her there.

I'm thinking about maybe going back to CW or using Lost Tools of Writing. I have been doing alot of reading on CW and I think I understand the Cheira but I'm still confused on the purpose of the Maxim. I'm working through the Lost Tools of Writing website but I confess that I haven't figured it all out yet. I even bought the 'Help for High School' from Bravewriter and it has some nice ideas but I think I need something more laid out to really help her. Can someone help me figure out which of these, if any, can provide what she needs? Are there other ideas that will take us to more depth in her writing.

Thank you

Heather

[Carol in Cal.]

...or rather, Writer's Jungle that talks about narrowing and expanding? I think that it would be perfect for this. You take that first draft, and just pick one idea from it (that's the narrowing part), and you expand on it--making it more meaningful, including more thoughts and inspirations and details, and making it engaging in and of itself. Then you do that with another idea, and so on. Finally you go back and put these all together and make them coherent--smoothing the rough transitions, etc. Since she already has the great ideas, this might get her over the hump. Lots of kids have trouble wanting to never revise, elaborate, or amplify their first drafts. WJ got my DD over this hump.

You might also want to sign her up for KidsWrite Intermediate the next time it's available. That would give her the chance to have her work assisted by someone else, visibly, and online in community with other writers. That was really helpful to my DD 2 years ago.