kiddo chokes writing final draft in Fable - help!

[feebeeglee]

My anxious 11yo absolutely loathes Composition. She's an avid reader of fiction and poetry but has always had trouble writing. Last year we attempted a more modern LA program from Bookshark and made it about 4 weeks in before I dropped it and had her just write something, anything, for a page in a composition book daily. I hoped that might get her over her issues but here we are again.

So, she agonizes over every word and starts to cry. Today she was supposed to polish her paraphrase and turn it in for a grade. She started about four times and kept crossing what she had out.

Any tips?

[feebeeglee]

I should add - it's not the act of writing. Her handwriting is quick and tidy.

[jen1134]

Life-long anxiety sufferer here...my first recommendation would be to ask her what she felt was wrong with the words she crossed out. Let us know what she says. Anxiety is so tricky because it can look like the reason is obvious (she didn’t think the words were the right ones for what she was trying to say) but then you find out that it was actually “those aren’t the right words because they can have a “bad” meaning”, or “I already used them and can’t have the same word twice in anything I write.”

Hoping it’s not as deep as that, but definitely ask — answers can be very surprising when anxiety is involved. If you’re not comfortable sharing her answer here, feel free to PM me. You wouldn’t believe the anxiety-based reason it took me so long to write when in high school!

[MBentley]

I need a robust tool for this kind of issue because my oldest will be the same. I watched this webinar from IEW.

https://iew.com/events-classes/webinars/webinar-archive

The webinar is called "Experience Excellence in Writing". These seem like nice people, but they kind of take about 15 minutes just chatting before they get into the writing program itself. If you are in a hurry, go to the 15:00 mark exactly (I just looked it up). They discuss why writing itself is hard - more than that, why "teaching" writing is hard. It discusses why you need a very detailed teaching method for teaching writing. They walk you though the first lesson. Immediately, I can see how this is going to be a game changer. I need this tool to teach how to grab important keywords and then use those keywords to develop sentences. I need a very formalized structure for learning the "framework" of writing before I can get my son to dive a bit deeper and develop better summary tools.

Just click that link and go to the 15 minute mark - does that describe what she's going through?

[feebeeglee]

Life-long anxiety sufferer here...my first recommendation would be to ask her what she felt was wrong with the words she crossed out. Let us know what she says. Anxiety is so tricky because it can look like the reason is obvious (she didn’t think the words were the right ones for what she was trying to say) but then you find out that it was actually “those aren’t the right words because they can have a “bad” meaning”, or “I already used them and can’t have the same word twice in anything I write.”

Hoping it’s not as deep as that, but definitely ask — answers can be very surprising when anxiety is involved. If you’re not comfortable sharing her answer here, feel free to PM me. You wouldn’t believe the anxiety-based reason it took me so long to write when in high school!

I'll ask and see if she can narrow it down. I think I'll let her off the hook today and ask tomorrow on a fresh brain. Thank you!

[feebeeglee]

I need a robust tool for this kind of issue because my oldest will be the same. I watched this webinar from IEW.

https://iew.com/events-classes/webinars/webinar-archive

The webinar is called "Experience Excellence in Writing". These seem like nice people, but they kind of take about 15 minutes just chatting before they get into the writing program itself. If you are in a hurry, go to the 15:00 mark exactly (I just looked it up). They discuss why writing itself is hard - more than that, why "teaching" writing is hard. It discusses why you need a very detailed teaching method for teaching writing. They walk you though the first lesson. Immediately, I can see how this is going to be a game changer. I need this tool to teach how to grab important keywords and then use those keywords to develop sentences. I need a very formalized structure for learning the "framework" of writing before I can get my son to dive a bit deeper and develop better summary tools.

Just click that link and go to the 15 minute mark - does that describe what she's going through?

I'll try to watch it on another computer. I tried on my phone and my Chromebook and had no luck :-( I'll have to use one of the kids' machines later. I think that might help her a lot, actually. I thought she would respond well to the structure of Fable but it seems she might need even more, at least to get going.

[feebeeglee]

Her only take on it is "I just don't like what I've written." Not very helpful regarding figuring it out, unforch, and she kind of locks up if pressed and takes the first opportunity to leave the room when my attention is given to another child. So, I'll try to find out more tomorrow, or possibly send her dad in to ask later. He has a different perspective.