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Sharon WatsonWant homeschool writing tips? Encouragement? Help grading those essays? Practical advice for your homeschool writing class? Insights into literature? Free writing prompts and tutorials?

Whether your student is reluctant or brimming with excitement, you’ll find solid, proven ideas here that will make your teaching life easier. And take advantage of the many writing prompts and tutorials posted here.

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Be sure and browse the weekly writing prompts for middle schoolers and high schoolers.

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Courage: Show, Don’t Tell

Posted by on Oct 11, 2015 in High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Literature, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial, Writing Prompts | Comments Off on Courage: Show, Don’t Tell

Courage: Show, Don’t Tell

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage
to lose sight of the shore.” –Christopher Columbus

Show, Don’t Tell

When an author wants to let readers know that a character is, say, courageous, she doesn’t write, “Chris was courageous.” Instead, she sets up a situation in which the character has to act bravely, even if he or she feels fearful, showing just how courageous the character is.

Christopher Columbus showed courage by doing something—crossing an ocean when many believed he would fall off the edge of the earth into oblivion.

“Show, don’t tell” is an important element of writing stories. You don’t want to insult your readers by telling them how characters feel or what a character is like. You want to show them by (more…)

Paragraph Chart: High School

Posted by on Oct 4, 2015 in High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial, Writing Prompts | Comments Off on Paragraph Chart: High School

Paragraph Chart: High School

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Many students tell me that after they do the hard work of coming up with an idea, they do not know what to put in the paragraph or even how to write the paragraph.

Is this an issue for you as well? Could you use a little help in this area?

{Looking for the MIDDLE SCHOOL version of this tutorial? >>}

(more…)

In-text Citations for Middle School Students

Posted by on Sep 27, 2015 in Middle School Prompts, Middle School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial | Comments Off on In-text Citations for Middle School Students

In-text Citations for Middle School Students

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

You want to avoid plagiarism in your writing. Yes. Yes, you do.

Plagiarism is using someone else’s quotation, facts, statement, idea, or story without giving them credit.

So, how do you let your readers know that you borrowed the quotation, fact, and so on?

You cite your source by using an in-text citation. This simply means you are giving credit to someone for their information, and you tuck it into your essay.

An in-text citation comes in tremendously handy when you are writing an essay that does not include footnotes, a bibliography, or a works cited page.

This is a tutorial on how to easily create in-text citations. Robin Hood may be involved.

Here we go . . . (more…)

In-text Citations for High School

Posted by on Sep 27, 2015 in High School Prompts, High School Tutorial, Sharon's Blog, teaching aids, tutorial | Comments Off on In-text Citations for High School

In-text Citations for High School

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

You’re writing your essay and everything’s going great until you realize you need to let readers know where you got a certain fact. You aren’t using a bibliography, footnotes, or works cited page because this is just an essay, not a report or research paper.

You don’t want to plagiarize. Putting someone else’s fact or idea in your essay without any citation would definitely be plagiarism.

What are you going to do? (more…)