Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The long-winded scene played out between Travis and Candace today was a perfect example of how my students tend to write when they are trying to make their papers long enough.  This again is a good exercise to take home to our students.

I learned a lot about trimming the fat from our writing.  I too have an appetite for long sentences in an attempt to sound smarter than I really am.  However, I would rather read a straight forward short story than an over-the-top (Sorry for the cliche) long story that could have been summed up in a few sentences.

My favorite tip in writing tight was to read aloud.  This is something that I tell my students to help them improve their sentence fluency and it works for nearly every student.

Kathryn Wilkins
Kearns High School
Kearns, Utah

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2 comments:

  1. Mr. RewriteJune 25, 2014 at 8:36 PM

    I wish I could figure out how to make it stick with my students. I get a lot of "yeah, yeahs," but those who do it always say how much it improves their writing.

    Steve Elliott
    Arizona State University
    Phoenix

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  2. UnknownJune 25, 2014 at 9:33 PM

    I have the exact opposite of that problem. My students give me one sentence when I ask for a paragraph. That one sentence tends to be long, without any punctuation and because it takes up a lot of space, they think it's a paragraph.

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