Express Yourself -- Writing With Kids: Truly a Gift that Keeps on Giving!

My last post talked about the importance of making writing a daily activity for kids.  Writing daily just about guarantees proficiency and fluency and is the easiest way to make it a less intimidating task.  Kids who write often, won't balk when they get to college and are faced with the inevitable and innumerable research papers.  They also won't feel tempted to turn to AI or other forms of plagiarism to meet those demands.

I also described writing as "organized thinking." (Sheeesh, I just quoted myself.)  Anyway, that aspect of writing holds so many benefits for kids, especially teens.  Laying the foundation for those skills is an invaluable gift you can give your child.  I've always liked the metaphor that parenting is the process of giving your child "roots" and "wings."  Helping your child towards authentic self-expression through writing adds some very strong feathers to those wings!

But these feathers take time to grow and they don't often sprout without serious encouragement from parents.  Writing is rarely instinctive, especially in our highly visual world.  Writing and reading take focused effort, whereas being bombarded with images is a fairly passive activity (whether in the form of TV, movies, videogames or computer screens).  It is the rare kid who (at least at first) will be begging to be allowed to write!  Trust me though, especially if you start young, this will become a strong possibility.

In my last post, I offered some ideas for starting with the youngest kids, so now I'd like to give suggestions for the teen and tween crowd.  I'll start with storytelling first this time and then move on to more academic types of writing.

Teens LOVE to tell stories. Encourage them to take these skills a step further and involve them in what's known as "fan fiction."  There are tons of websites for this. The benefits of writing fan fiction are numerous -- they allow young writers to stretch their creative muscles without the pressures of coming up with all new characters and settings.  They also provide a venue for feedback from other kids with similar interests.  They encourage critical reading and writing too -- as kids evaluate the fan fiction of others they will have to begin to develop a vocabulary of criticism.  Nothing helped my writing as much as learning how to "grade" the essays of my college freshman.  "Knowing" there's a problem in someone's writing, doesn't necessarily mean it's an easy thing to define that problem or explain how to repair it.  The thought process that goes into critiquing the fan fiction of their peers will help them develop those skills that will in turn improve their own writing.

If your teen doesn't take to fan fiction and would prefer to write their own fiction "from scratch" -- send them over to NANOWRIMO's Young Writer's Program.  The National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) organization has tons of resources for students and lots of encouragement to participate in their annual November "noveling" challenge, setting their own word count goals for the month.  They also have an organized "editing" month and a script writing month!  The support they can get from several tens of thousands of their peers as they take on a challenge like this is invaluable.

When it comes to more academic/argumentative writing, the internet is a huge boon to writers.  Use it.  If your teen tires of writing essays for himself and you, consider letting him start a blog. Blogging though, will generate commentary (if only from family and friends) and requires, by it's very nature, that the writer be aware of audience.  They will respond to both compliments and criticism and incorporate the ideas of others into their blog.  Encourage them though to avoid single-sided rants and "talk-radio" style argumentation.  Argumentative blogging provides the perfect opportunity to teach about Logical Fallacies.

Lastly, every teen should be encouraged to keep a journal to document the private ideas and thoughts they don't particularly want feedback about.  Invest in a beautiful leather bound journal or even better, play around with book binding (art!) and make one together.  If they don't know what to write in their journal, prompt them with ideas.  There are many prompt libraries available online.

Writing doesn't have to be a boring or isolating activity for kids.  With these methods, they really will start to view the process as dynamic, creative and dare I say it.... fun!  Really emphasize the social aspects of writing.  Writing, after all, allows one access to the "Great Conversation" and kids should realize they have unique and very valuable things to add to that conversation.  I can't guarantee your young, expressive writer will never pierce her nose, but I do know that writing creates an essential outlet for kids & teens and is an exercise that will, more than anything else, train them to think for themselves and think well of themselves.

I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments. Feel free to share methods you've found effective and fun for teens!