Present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect?

How often have you found yourself changing verb tenses partway through a scene? Do you have any idea why this happens?

When we tell a story, the tenses seem quite natural. When we write a story, it’s very easy to get lost in the timeline.

Writing out of your era…

Descriptive writing brings text alive for readers. It allows the movie to roll in a reader’s’ mind, but only if the language is vivid and the description is real. Fantasy requires the author to create suspension of reality with believable description. Those setting aren’t necessarily real, but they do need to be plausible.

So many approaches!

Depending on who you ask, there are many ways to approach writing. The challenge is finding the one that is most efficient for the purpose, time, and genre of the work. Storytelling has its own unique characteristics that can lead to writers getting bogged down. Trying to be consistent in a sequel can be uniquely difficult.

Helping students analyze texts

Higher levels of critical analysis writing require students to think across texts and authors. Often this practice requires an ability to put aside author style momentarily in order to get to the bottom of how an author has developed a character.

When people know that you have written a major piece of work, they become very curious. Curious about where the story came from and how the publishing process works. The questions range from When will your book be ready? to Is it about your own life?

There’s a story in there, somewhere. We all have ideas, quips, and vignettes stored so that we have something fun to say at the next party we attend. These aren’t just news stories about which you can argue the facts presented by the media. These are stories of our experiences.

School is about to start for most students in the United States. It’s that time of year when learners and teachers alike prepare for the work ahead, excited about opportunities for intellectual growth. That learning and growth alway include writing. For some, no problem. For others, dread sets in at the very mention of written assignments.

Research: How much is too much?

Writing authentically is a challenge when a setting is unfamiliar to the author. Understanding setting and circumstance is necessary to maintain credibility with readers. The wrong application of science, for instance, can wreak havoc for an author. So, as most authors would agree, research is a task that cannot go by the wayside. Reading, visiting locations, observing people, watching documentaries or other films are all ways that writers can gather valuable knowledge.

Sample assessment items related to Common Core writing that are now available put students in a difficult position. If you are an expert writer, you understand the difficulty presented by a task that requires cross-textual analysis. You understand the potential pitfalls of guessing exactly what is to be examined in the multiple texts and how that examination will be accepted by the reader.

Do you remember what it was like to write an essay that was intended to demonstrate to a teacher everything you knew about one topic?

Do you recall what it was like to write that paper?

Did you struggle at all to meet the requirements of that assignment?