Sharon Watson, Author at Writing with Sharon Watson-Easy-to-use Homeschool Writing and Literature Curriculum

Why Not Drop Out?

Across the country, nearly 1 out of every 4 high school students is dropping out, according to boostup.org.

Here are some statistics about dropouts. I was the most surprised by #11. That post mentions a “dropout factory.” You’ll find the definition of that term here, along with other facts about dropping out of school.

Why do you think students drop out of high school? Here are some interesting reasons, according to the students who are dropping out.

Do you think they should stay in school and graduate? After all, David Karp, founder of Tumblr, dropped out of high school

Create a New Park

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

I recently visited The Headlands, an International Dark Sky Park west of Mackinaw City, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Michigan.

A dark sky park is an area set aside for night-sky viewing and is away from man-made lighting so that the night sky is clear. You can see so many more stars and night-sky features without artificial lighting nearby.

Although there are beautiful hiking trails in the woods for use in the daytime in The Headlands, its main feature is the large, open space created for night-time viewing.

If You Could Not Speak for 15 Years, What Would Your First Words Be?

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Do you know someone who does not or cannot speak?

Many reasons exist for someone not speaking. For instance, someone may be afraid to speak and be an elective mute. Some may have been born with physical problems that make it difficult or impossible to speak. Others may have lost the ability to speak due to an illness, which is what happened to Don. You can watch his story here.

The Hamburger Menu

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

McDonald’s Big Mac. Burger King’s Whopper. Hardee’s Thickburger. Rally’s and Checker’s Big Buford.

Is your mouth watering yet?

Let’s celebrate hamburgers and cheeseburgers with a menu of writing prompt choices.

I Believe . . .

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

I find writing prompts in the most unusual places, and this week’s prompt is no exception.

Have you ever eaten at a Fazoli’s restaurant? Their slogan is “Real Italian. Real Fast.” They may have the best breadsticks on the planet.

Their cups and breadstick papers are covered with sayings. I found this one on a cup with about ten one-liners like “Mom is not synonymous with waitress”:

3 Ideas to Help Your Writers, and Only 2 of Them Are Crazy

SHARON’S BLOG

I understand at the outset of this article that the word “them” in my title is ambiguous. Does it stand for the writers or for the ideas?

As you can see, writing is hard. At least, that’s what students tell me.

It makes their hands hurt. They don’t know where to begin. They don’t know how to construct paragraphs. If they’re not interested in the topic, they can’t think of anything to write anyway.

The list goes on and on and is pretty much the same in all the classes I teach.

A number of moms confess to me that they’ve given up teaching writing. Some say that whenever they give their students writing assignments, crying is involved. (I assume it’s the students doing the crying, but I could possibly be wrong about that.)

Even in the weekly writing class I teach for high school homeschoolers, at least two students have

So Long, Pluto!

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

Can you believe there’s a day named Pluto Demoted Day? It is August 24, when in 2006, Pluto was demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet.

Recent photos of Pluto by NASA’s spacecraft New Horizons have been fascinating. Here’s one of them, with a lighter shape informally named “the heart”:

How to Overcome a Reluctant Writer’s Resistance

SHARON’S BLOG

Are you encountering resistance when you ask your students to write?

Is there crying involved?

It is intimidating for students to stare down a blank piece of paper or an empty computer screen. Middle and high school students have revealed to me why they are negative about writing. Here’s what they have to say:

Give Us a New Month

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

There are twelve months in a year. How many months have you lived through?

By now, anywhere from 120 to 168 months.

January is named after the Roman god Janus. He had two faces and could look forward and backward.

March is named after the god Mars. July is named for the famous emperor Julius Caesar. September, October, November, and December are derived from the Latin numbers for seven, eight, nine, and ten.

I think it’s time to

Feeling Twitchy?

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

It was a common practice long ago that travelers in inns slept in the same bed, even if they didn’t know one another. This seems strange to us and, yes, a little creepy now.

Here is a passage from Moby-Dick by Herman Melville in which the narrator Ishmael is telling us about how he decided not to sleep in the same bed with a harpooneer because Ishmael didn’t know how dirty the guy’s clothes would be (“his linen or woolen”) or even if he could trust him:

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