Kids hate writing essays. Why it happens and how you can help them
School-imposed templates and boring topics are not very conducive to a child's creativity. But every parent can remedy the situation.
Teacher of Russian language and literature, psychologist.
Children hate writing in literature classes. They don't want to reason why Dobrolyubov called Katerina from "The Thunderstorm" a "ray of light in a dark kingdom." They don't like describing Vasnetsov's painting. They squeeze out all the remnants of the failed Pushkins and Tolstoys. Children weep over texts and try to find at least five more words that are missing from the teacher's assigned number.
Why kids hate writing essays
1.Boring and incomprehensible topic
Many topics could be more interesting, but teachers phrase them in a way that makes you want to awn. Children see the theme "The Awakening of Spiritual Life (based on the novel "Eugene Onegin" by Alexander Pushkin)," and the desire to write disappears. And imagine if it were, "Can Onegin be called an egoist?" Easier? What if "The contradictory nature of Anna Karenina's image" were replaced by "If I were a psychologist, how would I help Karenina?"
Even more often, teachers don't offer room for creativity, but torture. Some sort of position is imposed on children. Something like "there is always room in life for an exploit" or "poetry is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Yes, of course, there is a place and poetry is, but there is no right to choose, and this generates fear or boredom.
The simpler the wording, the easier it is to write, especially if you are not Dostoevsky.
2. templates.
90% do not know how to make an essay interesting, how to turn this detailed answer to a question into a living story.
The teacher gives you dozens of templates and makes you act on them. When I was choosing where to buy buy an essay, I looked at mcessay review and found out that they have an option to buy a template essay. I still don't like all the unfinished things in the form of templates, coloring books, or number paintings. Man is an amazing creature. He has enough imagination to come up with something of his own. The only thing that matters is the direction.
Instead of a coloring book, suggest coming up with an outfit for a princess or your own city. Instead of questions from the textbook picture "Three Heroes" offer to invent a story about the life of heroes. Believe me, children have an irrepressible imagination, they will come up with. Yes, you'll spend more time on your homework, but it will be interesting for your child to do it.
3. Fear of not meeting expectations.
We, adults, are always afraid of failing to do something: be late for class, not finding a job, not getting married, not giving birth.
Now imagine that a child's fear is far worse than our fears. He's afraid of not living up to expectations. Whatever he thinks the essay is stupid, that he doesn't understand the question, send the essay to essaybox and after checking it they will give you a provisional grade. Your child won't have to worry about getting a bad grade and disappointing his parents. He won't be afraid of looking stupid, especially if he's already 12 or 13 years old.
"That can't happen! This isn't about me or my child!" Then you're in luck. Because most of the people I've worked with have said, "I'm afraid, what if it's not there."
4. The opinion imposed by the teacher
"I got D's if I didn't guess what the teacher wanted me to read about," a friend of mine said recently. Gloom. The teacher crushes with his authority. When asked, "Why can't I express my point of view?" children often hear the teacher's phrase, "Write what you're told," rather than a reasoned response. Are we raising robots? Or creators of the future with their own opinions?
5. Lack of Experience
Many people don't know what to write about. And the problem here is that both children and adults do not like to read.
Parents do not read themselves, do not read to children, do not discuss books with them, at most - questions from a textbook. So why should a child love books if there is no example in front of him?
The first thing to do is to figure out what genre you and your child like.
You can teach a love of reading through what children like. My student's mother said of her fifteen-year-old daughter, "I give interesting books about love. I liked them at her age. But she doesn't read." You don't have to give what you like. Give what interests the child. Like fiction - introduce the best writers, go to a book presentation, read at least one yourself.