Jeremy's horror/ghost story is best described with the above lyric from U2's song "Elevation." From a technical view, or that of an editor for a publisher, Jeremy can't write but he's "got soul" in his story with vivid imagery and a creative plot. The problem isn't the plot or the lack of description in his details, it is the structure of his sentences and other grammatical errors running rampant throughout the story. The difference between writing well (grammatically) and singing well (tonally) is that you can't get people to read your works if they can't understand what they are reading, yet people will still buy an Avril Lavigne album.
If I were Jeremy's teacher I would take into consideration where Jeremy is on the level of grammatical correctness. If he is a struggling student in regards to this aspect of writing I would focus on exercises that will help him develop a clearer sense of story and grammar structure. It is important to stress to Jeremy that he has wonderful ideas that the reader becomes distracted from due to the confusing punctuation, verb tense, point-of-view, and sentence structure. If this is a reoccurring problem in his writing then I wouldn't feel that in helping Jeremy build these skills will hinder his desire to write. Making it "no big deal, just something to continually work on and grow from" will help his writing skills without putting pressure on his ability to write.
I thought the story itself was great. I would definitely express to Jeremy that he has a real talent to create a scene, draw his readers in and hold their attention to the very end. He included so many clever and descriptive phrases that I could tell he enjoyed writing it. This enjoyment usually translates to the reader. His opening paragraph was intriguing because he painted a picture for readers to delve into: "It was only a quarter to five when the sun slowly made it's way down the horizon." This is such a vivid line! Other vivid imagery that I would point out as strong points in his writing are...
- "David reestablished his pride..."
- "...every streetlight shut off and the moon and stars disappeared."
- "Their bodies were trembling and hearts thumped."
- "Lisa...pleaded for silence."
- "...forceful, cold, throbbing winds outdoors."
And these examples are only in the first three paragraphs! Jeremy seems to have little problem with detailed imagery and plot development (even if his "it was a dream" ending was anti-climatic) so I would help him organize his sentences, tense and punctuation better so that his creative story could shine through. I think engaging Jeremy in a brainstorming session would cure that roadblock he came upon at the close of his short story. He seemed to refuse risk when it came to where he could go with wrapping up the story.
So while Jeremy presents an impressively creative short story, his creativity gets lost amongst the grammatical errors. Encouraging Jeremy to work on his grammar skills so that he doesn't sell his work short is just as important as encouraging a student with a perfectly written paper that flat lines before the end of the first paragraph to infuse creativity like Jeremy did.
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2 comments:
In accordance with the reading for this week, I feel like it's hazy in your message HOW you'd help the writer improve the flow/presentation/quality of his/her story? Are you going to be the Coach or the Judge? The reason I'm asking is it seems that the first thing you wanted to do was to point out to the student where all of their mistakes were, and then encourage their ideas.
If this was a draft, or an ELL student who was getting used to full immersion in an English-speaking classroom, it'd be more prudent to encourage the ideas, and worry about editing later.
I agree with you that I left out exactly how I would coach Jeremy in creating a flow to his story. But I want to make clear that I think his imagery and ideas need little to no re-working (with exception to his ending) therefore there is nothing left to revise BUT his grammatical errors. True, if he were an ELL student my approach would be completely different towards this aspect of his paper and I might not address it as much. But since this is a rough draft and I am unaware of his academic situation, I decided to take a general-student approach to my response.
Also, I know it is again unclear but I would encourage his ideas AS I helped him with developing grammar skills. I think the two are definitely related and his grammatical errors shouldn't detract from his great ideas. It's difficult to convey in print but I wouldn't be harsh towards Jeremy in regards to his sentence structure and such. I think it is important for students to learn how to create vivid imagery in their narratives by using the general structure of English grammar so that those images aren't lost on a typical reader. His story and ideas were on a much higher level than his use of language structure and I would coach Jeremy through our conferences by giving him mini-lessons on sentence structure, punctuation and the like as well as some out-of-class activities, worksheets or resources for him to study. It may be idyllic to think that he would utilize these resources but through encouraging him to not sell himself short, he could see how these ugly and basic grammar skills could improve his creativity. After, I think it was our own "Captain Ron" who said in another class that students need to learn the rules so that they can learn how to break them effectively.
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