I never had the word Essay given to me until Highschool/College so it was a shock to hear it in a younger grade. So I have my kids write reports, with guidelines to follow and such, but not a counted workd thing. What are the good points and bad points to using this method? Also, will they use these in life other than in College aps? I need to teach my kids why they do things anymore as they are older, but I need them to know how to do what they will need in life as well! Thanks! And thanks to the person doing the 500 word essay thread it got me thinking!
I had a teacher in the 6th grade who made us write 100 word essays everyday. We have done a few essays with a minimum word count - usually 250-500 words but we don't do a lot of writing. I really need to get on top of this by next year because I feel he should be doing a lot more of it.
Jake is doing his first - it's the 8th grade Switched on Schoolhouse. Now we might have skipped it before in LifePacs.... but this is the first "word count" I remember. Funny thing is that he needs to write it about "How to do something" - like write down exactly how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I believe it's only 250. I see other ones though coming up in the near future.
My dd did her first in 4th or 5th grade. Here's what I think it helps teach or gives them the chance to practice: research skills sentence & paragraph structure organization in writing (so someone doesn't go off to war & die, then fight for civil rights) how to get point across in limited # of words (how to be concise instead of long-winded & rambling) good preparation for writing larger research papers These are all important skills, no matter what career you choose, which is why I have my kids do them. Times in life they may have to do something similar: writing an article for a newspaper, magazine, or even a website writing an article for a medical journal (I guess that really only applies if they're a Dr.) boss requests a report on how a dept is run, where a specific problem is, how to fix that problem, etc (concise, well-written, & well-researched would be a big plus in this instance) This is all just my opinion, though. I'm big on my kids doing Language Arts. Communication with the written & spoken word is very important to me & it's something we work on pretty much starting at birth.
My kids started doing them when they were in ps and that was in grade school. We continued doing them for practice as well as to sharpen their skills in knowing how to write a good effective report or essay when they reach college. We work on a report every month with our two oldest and we aren't easy on them when they turn in their reports as we go along. It's just the way we do things.
I don't do counted word; I do paragraphs - in second-third grade, we start with one - two paragraphs. In 4th - 5th we do 2-3, with one or two longer essays. Then in 6th we focus on pages - 1-2 pages and go up from there. I try to avoid the "5 paragraph" method for general essay writing as it is heavily frowned upon in college.
We never ever do them. There is a format for certain papers, such as 5 paragraph essays. But I cannot think of when, ever, in college, career, SAT, or otherwise my child will need to count the words they wrote.
Ds needs to do that in his 8th grade sceince so about Science and Society? He just got started on that cause I figured the sos 7 is being covered already between what we did the last year and what he is doing at co op this year.. Astronomy. what lesson is Jake on?
okay, I think that I have been having mine do them I have done like so many page reports, though I have just called them different names. I too think it is important to work with written things, but with one of my children I found that typing it out works best, and one writes things out better by hand, while the other does good with doing a page of writting and a diagram etc, repeating and continuing.
FYi - typically, a 250 word essay is 1 page, double-spaced. A 500 word essay is 2 pages double spaced, etc . . .
okay, then we have written that long, whew! I didn't think about that when I freaked over the number of words haha!
When I was in college, we frequently had to put the word count at the bottom of our papers. I had teachers who would get massively irritated if you exceeded them. The WORST, MEANEST English teacher I had (j/k) would give us an inclass assignment of answering a question in exactly 250 words. It was always a complex thematic question, as well. You'd think it would be easy, but it wasn't. The challenge was cutting the words.
I just don't see the point in that, the exact word count. It seems like an exercise in triviality and futility - pointless busywork.
so if I keep it to so many page reports, I will be okay I am thinking> I am not worried about how many words, I do understand in the high school level they do that as well so maybe its training them up? Ds has an essay that needs to be done, he held off for a couple days of SOS science for fear of what he would have to do, then turned out he had to have in done in January! lol, So he was wasting days, he will have "homework" this weekend for one lesson to get caught up!