Calvin pretty much sums up my views on most of the "writing" the nieces are expected to do

[conuly]

http://www.gocomics.com//calvinandhobbes/

In the comments, somebody linked to this strip as well. Yup, that's how Ana approaches writing!

*sigh*

Comments

[ncp.livejournal.com]

This is why I like how my son's preschool does it. They go up to the kid, say "Tell me your story", and write down whatever the kid says. My son regularly comes home with papers that say things like "We are having a picnic," or "Once there was an Angry Bird who couldn't reach the pigs". They don't care about structure, deadlines, length, anything except the fact that the kid has a story in his head that needs to get out.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Yes, some things don't change, do they? English wasn't so bad, we were allowed some creativity there, it was French where I used to get into trouble. The one I remember in particular, we'd been told to write a story about losing a watch at the beach. Bits of supposedly helpful vocabulary were supplied, such as "police station", ready to slot together to make a totally predictable "story". I ignored the lot, pulled out a dictionary, and wrote the story from the point of view of the watch-owner's dog, who'd found the ticking offensive and buried the watch. The teacher, to give her her due, enjoyed the story and was totally sympathetic, but explained that this was no way to pass exams - for one thing, under exam conditions, I wouldn't have access to that dictionary.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

*ganking, with thanks*

I'd suggest you turn them on to the books Harriet the Spy and The Long Secret by Louis Fitzhugh, then, a short while after, obtain some pretty notebooks and cool pens, start writing in one yourself when they're around, and leave the others in tempting sight without saying anything about them. Sooner or later when they ask for one, you can answer "No, I got these for real, personal writing, not just to have a few pages doodled on and then to be abandoned" and then reluctantly be swayed by argument.

[conuly]

Reverse psychology doesn't work on the nieces. They seem to take it as some sort of challenge to not be affected by it. Reverse reverse psychology might work for exactly as long as it took them to figure it out, but then it'd just rapidly get out of hand.

[legendary-zelda.livejournal.com]

It's really incredible how much school can suck the life out of even the most interesting subjects. And it's so sad, because it really doesn't have to be that way.

When I was a kid, I had no idea that writing could be a fun, creative thing to do. I always had to contend with having to achieve a certain word count, so I was always the kid struggling to count "the end" as two words so I could make it to 100 words. I guess I had a problem with being too concise for my own good.

[conuly]

I hated "rephrase it in your own words". My own words pretty much were always the same as the given words and anyway, once I'd seen their words any hope of rephrasing was entirely gone.