Posts Tagged writing skills
Integrating Multiple Sources is Tough Work
Posted by Diane in Post-Trivium Homeschool | High School on November 9th, 2009
In How to Guarantee Independent Reading, I discussed four ways to motivate young home school readers to seek opportunities to read on their own. Let’s say that you faithfully follow my advice and begin to see the fruit. In a few short years, your child will substantially master the three skills of the classical trivium and be ready for post-trivium independent studies. On the brink of the homeschool high school years, you sit back and relax, knowing that your teen knows how to read well. You’ve done all you can do to help her succeed in high school, right? Well, I hate to burst your well-earned bubble, but there’s more work to do. What other skills are needed besides independent reading?
Integration of Several Sources
Reading skills are essential to perfecting writing skills, but knowing how to read is not enough. To justifiably qualify as a true scholar, the homeschool high school student needs to know how to read several sources for meaning so that she can integrate or synthesize the main ideas in writing her essays and research papers. Reading for the purpose of integration is not an easy task; many high school students get bogged down in the details and lose the big picture when distracted by multiple sources (you may have been one of these unfortunate souls who dreaded sifting through all the sources for your research paper). To effectively tackle the challenges of essay writing and the even greater challenges of developing a debatable thesis statement for the lengthy research paper, your high school homeschool student needs specific strategies for success. You can give your student tremendous writing help with these three simple secrets.
Secret 1: Manage your time wisely.
When you assign a writing task like an essay or research paper, give your high school homeschooler hard deadlines with enough time to successfully accomplish the task. Establish a deadline for the final paper, one or two rough drafts, and the preliminary outline. Teach your teen how to count backwards from the final due date and how to subdivide his time into smaller units. For instance, if you assign a three point essay over three weeks, he might want to spend the first week skimming resources for 3 related points, the second week reading and integrating the ideas, and the third week drafting the outline, first draft, second draft and final essay. If your son keeps a calendar, have him write down his own goals for accomplishing the tasks; this act of writing down commitments will teach him to be accountable to himself. You could also teach him how to create a ‘to-do’ list.
Secret 2: Research broadly on the first pass.
Not all information is equally important. Teach your high school homeschooler the 80/20 rule: 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. (Here are two examples of the “Pareto rule” from real life that illustrate this concept. In business, it is generally proven that 20% of a company’s customers provide 80% of the company’s sales. In economics, 20% of the world population controls 80% of the world’s wealth.) In other words, your home school high school student would NOT be using his time efficiently if he read each word in the selected research texts because, out of 100 words, most of the important content would be included in only 20 words.
How do you apply this time management principle? First when you begin your search at the library, pull 20-25 books for the first pass. Preview each book then skim each text and jot down any ideas that might work well in your proposed essay or research paper. Next eliminate half of the original resources by picking those that are most pertinent to your topic. That means that your research pool now includes 10-12 books instead of 20-25 books. Of these culled books, continue skimming until you have six potential topics for your three topic essay. In skimming the text, look for key words that are repeated. Prioritize all six potential topics according to amount of available content. Decide on your top three topics.
Secret 3: Narrow the topic and integrate your sources.
Now it is time for in-depth reading. Read only those passages that deal with your three topics. By reading passages, rather than entire sources, less time elapses between the various readings. This concentrated use of time to focus on the meaty content will help your home school high school student retain the main ideas. Remember the 80/20 rule even in your in-depth reading. Look for the topic sentences in each paragraph of the related passage. Jot down the main ideas from the topic sentences to highlight the issues. Reflect on these ideas. Teach your teen to take his time during this phase of the work so that he can absorb, evaluate, and integrate the ideas that he is discovering.
When my kids were learning how to integrate multiple sources for a mini-research paper, I showed them how to create a multi-column, multi-line chart. Here’s how I structured the chart:
Put each book or internet source on a horizontal line under the first column, then fill in the key ideas about each topic. Once you have the chart filled out, the task is easier. With the chart in front of you, ask your son to point out or highlight elements from each source that are related, similar, or can be combined into a whole idea. At this point, your son or daughter should be able to take multiple sources and hopefully produce a more fully developed idea on the topic than any one of the stand-alone sources. He may even think of new ways to approach the topic.
Now you understand why knowing how to read independently is not enough. Synthesis of meaning for essay writing and research papers is tough work, but if you do your part and teach your homeschool high school teen the secrets of successful integration, you’ll definitely see the benefits, and your rising classical scholar will create thoughtful, meaningful content in every essay and research paper.
The Audience is Always Right!
Posted by Diane in How to Teach Homeschool Skill 3: SPEAKING on May 26th, 2008
Successful home schooling communicators consider the audience who will read or hear the composition before they begin researching the topic. Think about how a speech on euthanasia might be received by each of these audiences:
- a few medical doctors who work at the local hospice
- a Sunday School class of 11 and 12 year old girls
- a funeral home director and his staff
- a group of state or federal legislators
- a gathering of elderly nursing home residents
- a convention of pharmaceutical reps
Obviously, each of these collective audiences would have a different perspective and perhaps a biased self-interest in advocating or outlawing euthanasia. No two audiences are ever the same. (My homeschooled speech students who compete in different regions of the country know this hard fact!) Excellent public speakers do their best to assess the audience in advance and tailor the message accordingly. If poor or unenlightened choices are made during the content phase, the message may be doomed no matter how brilliant the delivery of the homeschooled youngster. Failure to communicate ultimately rests with the speaker because the audience is always right.
Whether addressing a parent, a small group of friends, a few thousand newsletter subscribers, or an auditorium full of paid attendees, the home schooling speaker and writer is particularly challenged by this compound question:
Who is my audience, and how will I reach them?
Understanding the audience – who they are, how they think and feel, and what they need – is essential to effective communication. This concept applies to all ages and levels of expertise: from the little homeschooled boy who desperately wants another cookie to the grandparent who needs a ride to the pharmacy to the homeschool high school debater who hopes to persuade the judge to vote affirmative. Possible attitudes toward your appeal include:
supportive (they agree with you) apathetic (they don’t care) doubtful (they’re not sure or have serious reservations) hostile (they are actively opposed) knowledgeable (they already know a great deal) unlearned (they know nothing about it) indifferent (the thought never occurred to them)
Knowing some key facts about the audience favorably impacts the message. The home schooling speech or essay can then be crafted in such a way that the ideas have personal meaning and relevance to your unique audience. People pay attention to ideas that compliment their own hopes, needs, and goals.
Savvy home schooling speakers and writers adjust the theme (invention), structure (arrangement), style, vocabulary, length, and delivery to each audience. If addressing a large, heterogeneous audience, more explicit syntax and background information is needed. If addressing a specialized niche (for instance, baseball players), specialized language (like earned run averages) can be used to illuminate.
What do the members of the audience have in common? Do you expect them to be good listeners? Can you estimate collective age, social status, ethnicity, education, and cultural background? Consult others who have spoken before similar audiences in the past, or check out any written records (bylaws, public minutes) that are available about the group. Will the surroundings such as lighting, acoustics, and distance impact their ability to favorably respond to you?
Communication is an exchange of information. The word exchange implies giving and taking. The homeschooled orator or writer gives three things: (1) a debatable idea, (2) the evidentiary proof, and (3) a call to action. The audience receives this offering and responds with verbal, nonverbal, and sometimes written feedback. Nothing is more deflating and discouraging to a homeschooled public speaker or writer than a tepid, unresponsive audience. To improve immediate feedback, consider adding novelty, humor, contrast, movement, suspense, and intensity to command attention. Above all, use your writing and speaking skills to tailor the message to the audience. Certainly, the audience has the right to disagree as in the case of the mom who refuses the second cookie, but if the audience doesn’t understand the idea, plea, argument, or information, somehow the author has failed to communicate. Although it’s hard home schooling work, effective communication rests primarily with the creator of the message because the audience is always right!
