by Sharon Watson | Apr 1, 2014 | Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial
SHARON’S BLOG
Grading your middle school or high school student’s essay can be difficult. Where do you begin? What criteria do you use? How do you ask intelligent questions that will really get to the heart of the essay?
In this informative video series, I show you specifically what to look for when grading those homeschool essays. Grading Essays Made Easy #1 teaches you six key questions to ask of your student’s essay, beginning with the most obvious and proceeding to the least obvious.
For a free grading grid for middle school essays, click here. >>
For a free grading grid for high school essays, click here. >>
Point orders
The question in Grading Essays Made Easy #2 is this: Are the essay’s points arranged in a logical and effective order?
In this video, I’ll show you six different point orders your student can use when organizing his or her essays. They’re easy. They’re fun. And they’re all about trash. (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Mar 30, 2014 | High School Prompts, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial, Writing Prompts
HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS
Noah was a righteous man who obeyed God. No, he was a psychotic mess who heard voices and saw visions.
God destroyed the earth in a worldwide flood because mankind’s sins were so great. No, he flooded the earth because we were cruel to animals and were destroying our planet.
Well, which is it?
Welcome to this week’s high school writing prompt. Is it about the new movie Noah?
Yes. And no. (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Mar 18, 2014 | Literature, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial
SHARON’S BLOG
I recently witnessed this conversation between a teen and his mother:
.
…“The main character divorced his wife and married another woman,” the teen announced after he read his book...
.“That’s not good,” his mother said.
…“But he had to, Mom. His wife was really awful! She treated him really badly.”
The son went on to tell his mother some of the hateful things the wife had done to her husband in order to explain why this man was justified in divorcing his wife. Anyone would agree that they were truly rotten things.
The exasperated mother calmly stated, “God hates divorce.”
Her son did not change his mind. “But he had to divorce her.”..
My friend was scrambling to figure out how her son could have viewed this divorce in a positive light when she had taught him otherwise.
.What had happened to make her intelligent son fall prey to a viewpoint unacceptable to his parents?
This blog is not about divorce. It’s about two methods authors use to influence our children’s minds and hearts.
. (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Mar 4, 2014 | Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial
SHARON’S BLOG
Your child has just handed you a completed essay, and you are ecstatic . . . until you realize you now have to grade it. Where do you begin? How do you evaluate this marvelous gift?
Grading Essays
Welcome to this exciting, first-in-a-series blog about grading your middle and high school students’ essays! You can find the whole video by clicking here.
Learn to ask six key questions of the paragraphs in the body of your students’ essays in this part-one tutorial. I’ll walk you through these questions from the obvious to the not-so-obvious. Keep reading to view the outline and quoted paragraphs from the tutorial.
What you’ll want to know: (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Feb 16, 2014 | High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, tutorial, Writing Prompts
HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS
Ever wonder why some writing is so confusing? You read it once. It makes no sense. You read it again and hope for the best.
Most business, legal, and government writing rely on lengthy and unclear sentences and plenty of nouns.
Nouns stop the forward motion of the sentence and often make the sentence longer, like this:
The addition of a 10-minute warm-up routine made the winning of the gold medal possible for him.
Why not punch up the sentence with specific, active verbs? This generally makes sentences shorter, and it definitely makes them easier to understand, like this: (more…)
by Sharon Watson | Feb 4, 2014 | High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Middle School Prompts, Middle School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial, Writing Prompts
SHARON’S BLOG
My husband Terry gave me the idea for this writing prompt though he didn’t know it at the time.
A love of lists
Last summer we drove to our local grocery store, and as Terry pulled into a spot, he said, “I like to park here because . . . ,” and he listed four reasons why he likes to park in that particular place. Now that you know how exciting our lives are, you’ll be happy to know that his love of lists surfaced yet again—at the ball park.
We were watching the Indianapolis Indians play the Rochester Redwings when one of the Indians smacked a ball and headed toward first. Terry leaned over to me and said, “There are nine ways to get to first safely.” Or was it seven?
Terry was halfway to writing an enumerative essay because he began with a number (four or nine) and had a secure idea of a list. (more…)
