Wednesday, January 13, 2010

It's really not that difficult. Is it?

How do you force someone to write that has no interest in doing so? How do you teach someone to write a simple assignment? Joey is sitting here in tears, because he doesn't want to write a persuasive letter. He has been given a homework assignment that is making him so upset. I honestly don't know what to do, how to handle it or how to teach him to read the directions and just do it.

The assignment states that he must write a persuasive letter to a friend persuading them to read a book for a book challenge at school. In this letter he needs to include 3 persuasive reasons to encourage the reader to participate. He needs to use positive and inspirational words making the student want to accept the challenge. Doesn't sound so hard right? Is it because I love to write that it seems easy to me?

I really don't know how to teach him how to write. I'm not sure how I learned but I know that from a young age I loved to write. At one point, I believe 5th or 6th grade, I entered an essay contest and even won 2nd or 3rd place.  I could understand if this assignment was very hard. Maybe a 4 page paper with paragraphs and opening sentences and all of that good stuff. But, it's not. It's a simple letter. I just don't get it and I don't know how to help him.

Paul hates reading and writing. He's an engineer so it's math math math all the way. It's apparent that Joey has the same type of mind. I think I'm going to let Paul handle this assignment and help him on it...

1 comment:

Diane said...

Hang in there. All of a sudden it will come to him. He just has to think about it for a while. :)