I can’t remember where I first heard Mr. Pudewa recommend that rough drafts be written in pen.
He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that stopping to erase a mistake interrupts the flow of thinking. When you can simply cross out what you wrote and keep going, you’re less likely to forget what you were going to say.
A lightbulb truly went off in my head.
It made so much sense to me.
It was a little too late to start this with my older kids, but I did enforce the philosophy with my two younger ones.
And over the years, I’ve come to appreciate another benefit of writing rough drafts in pen.
It reinforces the idea that this really is a rough draft.
There will be mistakes.
There will be words crossed out and replaced. Sentences might get moved around. Arrows might point from one place to another. There might be notes squeezed into the margins.
They might even ditch an entire paragraph.
Or maybe the entire thing and start over.
Sort of like what I do when I crochet and decide it’s time to frog a project.
And you know what?
All of that is OK.
Our kids need to know that it’s OK to make a mistake. It’s OK to change their minds. And it’s OK to start over.
They also need to know that when they hand that messy rough draft over to us, we’re going to appreciate the mess.
Because that mess lets us see the thinking.
We can see where they reconsidered a sentence. Where they decided one word didn’t quite say what they wanted it to say. Where they tried something, changed their minds, and tried again.
Heck, maybe they even pulled out a thesaurus. 😉
That’s what writers do.
Let your kids experiment with words. Let them try things that don’t work. Let them figure out what sounds like them.
One of the things I love about using dress-ups in our IEW® classes is that they do more than help students create vivid images in the minds of their readers. They give kids opportunities to experiment with language and discover words and phrases they like.
Eventually, they begin developing a voice that says, “Laura wrote this.”
Their composition shouldn’t sound like you.
Your job is to help it sound like them.
We will talk more about that next week....
If you’re reading this and thinking, This sounds great, but I’m not sure I want to be the one figuring out what to do with that messy rough draft, I can help with that, too.
If you missed the deadline to join one of my live IEW® classes, my self-paced IEW® courses give your student the structure and instruction of an IEW® writing course with the flexibility to work on your own schedule.
But self-paced doesn’t mean you’re on your own.
Your student submits writing assignments and receives feedback to help them see what they’re doing well, what they can work on, and how they can continue growing as a writer.
You get the flexibility of self-paced learning without giving up the support of a writing instructor.