Over the Bar Instruction

"I don't know why you teach diagramming. I've never used it in my adult life," so says about a gazillion parents who don't realize that not only have they used it, but they have used it every single day of their adult lives. Admittedly, some use it better than others, but they use it, nonetheless. Did you ever write a sentence that didn't make sense to you, and you went back and thought through what made it wrong? Yes? Congratulations, you used sentence analysis. That is, aft

"I just jumped out the window." I made this comment on a student's essay draft. I had been asking all year long for him to simplify his word choices. He's an intellectual, and during middle school composition, he had the mistaken impression that the more complex his word choices, the better his composition would be. Now, I don't write those type of comments on just anyone's paper. I knew he and his family had a good sense of humor and would find it funny. Otherwise, I would h

"Your writing rules are too restricting. You're holding my creative daughter back." This is a common email I receive at least twice every school year, usually from the parent of a middle school girl who had already written two novels and writes all the time. In fact, she can't stop writing, and THAT's exactly her problem. Many creative writers have no brakes on their thoughts. I see it constantly in expository essays where the examples and evidence overtake the argument and a

A panicked mom emailed me the other day, when she just realized her 8th grade son has been telling her everything is fine in my online English class only to find out nothing could be farther from the truth. She's not the only one. These mothers mean well with their boys and want to give them the space this age group and gender needs, but most of the time, they run into problems typical of boys going through that phase. You know, when they refuse to listen, and they forget eve