How to teach a child to write essays

The ability to write essays is very important not only for good grades in school, but also for the general creative development of the individual. However, in the lessons of the Russian language and literature, it is impossible for a child to teach the rules of writing a good essay. To develop this skill, parents and teachers must act in a special way.

In the classroom, children can be told about highlighting a topic, drawing up a plan, observing composition, and so on. However, teachers will not say anything about the most important thing - how to create a text that has artistic value. Many of the spontaneously established methods for improving such skills are completely ineffective. For example, in one study, Teaching Composition: Research on Effective Practices. it says that the corrections and notes that the teacher leaves in the essay during the check do not achieve their goal, students most often simply ignore them.

However, this does not mean that parents and teachers are powerless. Various factors influence the formation of writing skills, remembering which you can very well help your child find his own creative handwriting.

1. Interest

This is the key to success not only in writing essays, but also in any other field of activity. If a person is interested in what he is doing, the skill will come by itself. This is not about a mercantile interest; the process of activity itself should be regarded by a person as significant and exciting.

This implies the upbringing of a certain value system in the child, in which creativity, self-expression, intellectual work occupy the dominant positions.

Writing is not just a statement of thoughts. This is the result of creative activity.

A child should be fostered with reverence for the art of writing, great writers should be models for him that deserve respect. And most importantly, he must understand why they deserve respect. That is, he must be aware of the aesthetic value of literature, the beauty of language.

For example, research claims Teaching Composition: Research on Effective Practices. that it is important to show the student that one long sentence sounds more beautiful than several short ones. It is necessary to teach him to combine sentences, to tell by what means this can be achieved. The same goes for other artistic aspects of the language.

2. Respect for literature

For this, the child must certainly read. But this does not mean that he should be forced to swallow the entire school curriculum - this often only achieves the opposite goal. Many people mistakenly believe that the more a person reads, the better they will write. This is not at all the case. Even from the point of view of enriching vocabulary: in order for new words to enter the active vocabulary, they need to be used regularly. To enrich the active vocabulary, the method with the provision of a list of new words and the task to use them in the composition is much more effective.

Literature should not be read "because they were asked." The school curriculum is designed rather for the quantitative consumption of the works of the classics, and not for their qualitative study.

In order for a person to develop an interest and understanding of the artistic value of a work, he should not feel pressure from outside.

An individual approach would be much more effective: find out which genre the child likes and focus on this direction. If, for example, he likes science fiction, and in the classroom is Pushkin, to whom he has no soul at all, it would be more correct to open the literary world to him based on his interests. For example, offering the child classics of science fiction like Gibson or Lem, discussing the problems that are inherent in these books, allowing him to independently express himself and discuss topics of interest to him.

3. Motivation to reflect

This does not mean that you need to forget about the school curriculum: you can also arouse a certain interest in it with the help of teaching methods. In our school, everyone was madly in love with literature, because the teacher always taught lessons without referring to textbooks. She could devote almost a whole quarter to one piece. But on the other hand, I took it apart in such a way that everyone was involved in the discussion process. She expressed a point of view that ran counter to critical "standards" and provoked us into discussion.

So, we had to read "Tom Sawyer" as a story about an eccentric bully, and the novel "Anna Karenina" told about a hysterical girl who needed psychological help. The homework was appropriate: “Do you think Andrei Bolkonsky is a spiritually complex person, and not a parasite overwhelmed by the joys of aristocratic life? Then read such and such a chapter and try to find at least some evidence of your point of view. And I don’t need to read the paragraph about the sky: we all saw the sky and know what it is”. She spoke harshly and categorically, not at all "in a school-like manner," but that is why we wanted to read and reflect on what we read. The parent himself can arrange such preparation for the lessons.

There are standard steps when writing an essay:

highlighting a topic;
planning;
writing an introduction with a presentation of the topic;
writing the main part of the essay;
conclusion with conclusions.

This is a completely logical structure for working on any essay, which, in fact, reflects correct and consistent thinking. And it is necessary to teach it, but it is not necessary to start from it. Forcing a child to imitate dry patterns, curbing his creative energy, forcing him to play by someone else's rules, you can hardly arouse interest in him.

It will be more effective if he gets complete freedom of expression and the opportunity to speak on a topic of interest to him without restrictions. And in the process of writing an essay, you can proofread it or give advice on how best to organize the text. The child will master the structure, but will do it on their own experience.

4. Imitation of adults

In research Enhancing Students' Creative Writing Skills. it is argued that full monitoring of the essay writing process, real-time assistance to the student will give better results than the common method of leaving the student alone with the paper, and then making edits to the finished result.

You want to teach your child to think and speak like an adult. Believe me, he also wants to learn this.

But for this to happen, your thinking must constantly touch its own.

Often people first identify with a certain image, and only after that acquire its qualities. So, after graduating with honors from art school, a person thinks: "I am a talented artist." And only then, after many years of practice, his paintings will begin to correspond to the title that he bestowed upon himself in his youth.

Every child wants to be an adult. And if you manage to convince him that being an adult means being able to think non-trivially and expressing your train of thought beautifully, then he will begin to show his adulthood accordingly. For this to happen, the essays must initially be written by you together.

5. Constant practice

In general, in order to learn how to express your thoughts coherently, this one point is enough. If a person does something all the time, he gets better and better at it. Even with a complete reluctance to write, but with strict supervision over homework and through constant practice, the child will be able to cope with essays and get good grades.

But what is the meaning and cost of such an approach? Most people who had a C in chemistry at school probably never in their lives scolded themselves for childish carelessness. Because this chemistry would not be useful to them in any case.

School grade is not at all an indicator of success in life. In no case do not instill in the child the opposite, otherwise in the future he will strive for artificial goals created by someone else, never finding his own creative energy.