Composition content

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BattleWeary Mum

Composition content

Post by BattleWeary Mum »

I have a lovely son whose strong subject is not English Composition and he will face a composition element in his grammar school exam. I have been trying to make him write 2 sides of A4 twice a week during the holidays on varying topics such as, The picnic, A day at the Seaside,Journey to the centre of the Earth, The Mystery, The Adventure,The magic box and so on.

My question is, does it matter if every story ends up with a battle ?
The first and last paragraphs relate to the title, albeit loosely but the middle ones are all about shells crashing,finding grenades in his backpack, climbing up ropes with a knife in his teeth and night flying over enemy lines....
I have really tried to persuade him to write about something else but he just can't/wont and ends up staring into space and says its too boring and I have tried bribery.
His punctuation, spelling and grammar are okay (we are working on his use of apostrophes etc) its just that something quirky happens in all his stories and swords, lightsabres or battleships appear in the most innocent of settings.
Would he be marked down for manipulating the story titles as mercilessly as he does ?
Thank you for any advice,
His father, sisters and I are all quite peace loving ....
Suesole
Posts: 153
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:38 am
Location: Bucks border / Berks

Post by Suesole »

Hi Battle Weary Mum

I think this is something about boys of this age...All my son's stories end up as WWII battlefields and gory plots....I would hope that teachers would recgonise this as a phase and just concertrate on the story content and correct spelling and punctuation... :roll:
yoyo123
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Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Post by yoyo123 »

I have waded knee deep through gore and bullets for years with boys' essays!!

When marking I would look more for teh vocab, punctuation and general ability and just grimace at the death and destruction!!
battleweary Mum

Post by battleweary Mum »

Thanks for your replies, I feel better about it all and will stop asking him to write about subjects which bore him.
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Post by yoyo123 »

i've just read this post to my sister in law, a teacher and teh mothe of two boys (now grown up) she is still laughing!
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Post by yoyo123 »

that should be the MOTHER of two boys
noabit

Post by noabit »

At least he's not writing about football! That's guaranteed to bore the pants off anyone, and there aren't even any headless corpses to relieve the monotony - well, excluding the recently sacked managers!

If he absolutely can't be diverted from his beloved blood'n'guts, try to persuade him to produce the best-written, most eloquent and original blood'n'guts he can, and not to sacrifice tension and verisimilitude for claret.

And manipulation of titles (within reason!) is no bad thing. At least his imagination won't be stultified into turning out yet another 'and then I' diary in response to some of the dire 1st person topics that are set.
Thea
Posts: 250
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: Richmond

Post by Thea »

Battle Weary mum - those stories sound very exciting! The examiner will not know that his essays are all the same. As long as there is some connection with the title... :D
Best Regards,
Thea
Drastic Dad
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Location: Middlesex

Post by Drastic Dad »

I am about to finish my reading of 'The Book of Lost Things' by John Connolly. While discussing this book on anther forum I was informed that the fairy tales of yesteryears used to be gory and scary. The 'Disneyfication' of society has taken us away from some essential truths of life. I would let your son write whatever he writes, divert his enthusiasm by letting him read some more recent war novels for kids (Michael Morpurgo etc) which might lead his interest towards more creativity and less gore. As long as he is writing, I would not be bothered. I don't think that he should be marked down as long as the composition is coherent and grammar is correct and appropriate level of vocabulary is used.
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