Many children wrote about their families a lot while the contents were a bit messed up in some compositions. On the same day before starting to write compositions we all practiced to separate and organize paragraphs according to a topic, but it seemed most children couldn’t put that idea into practice. Or because the theme of the composition was only about family, children didn’t think much how to organize sentences -- whether they were about father or mother or whoever -- within the composition.
For example,
My father does (---job---)
My mother does (---job---)
My father is (---character & appearance----)
My elder brother is (---character & appearance---)
…Like this, many children just wrote down as each idea came to their minds.
Actually this would be originally a brainstorming work. And if children could have created a composition by arranging those memos derived from the brainstorm, that would be the best.
As for the example above, one could have written father’s character or appearance right after an occupation, or since it started with father’s job and mother’s job, one could have added what elder brother is doing also together with a character and appearance. Then the composition would have been more neatly organized.
Our practice to separate different topics and to write together same topics, which was done before this composition work, was just a review of the concept. Children may understand well if we go over again while children look through what they actually wrote.
Also, many children started their writings with a sentence, “There are ** people in my family.” That’s good.
Children wrote like, “I have 5 people in my family: grandma, father, elder sister, younger brother, and me,” and among those who wrote like this, some children made sentences about grandma, about younger brother, about father, and about elder sister…just as they occur to their minds. It would be better if they could have written about family members according to the listed order in the first sentence.
These things don’t seem to be necessary for them to continue their lives in a local area. But I still believe to foster an ability to arrange and convey things clearly is important. I believe to know and learn these will certainly raise the quality of their lives.
Reference: Articles about a practice to organize paragraphs
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