Myth of Laziness -- writing problems

Levine says that writing output failure is often a first symptom of the hidden learning deficits that often get labelled as "laziness". Almost all the children he worked with had some writing difficulties. For example, a lack of fluency in the physical act of writing (or keyboarding) will naturally lead to messiness and to a simplistic form of writing, since the child will be focusing so much on the physical act of writing that he is unable to let his thoughts flow freely. I recognize several of my kids in this.

Organizational difficulties can also lead to writing output difficulties. For example, a child who cannot keep track of his materials will find it difficult to organize a research paper -- he will spend his energy hunting for pens and paper and index cards, or whatever he needs. A child who has difficulties with time organization may find himself writing an entire term paper the night before, because he has not been able to generate a timeline that includes a series of steps from beginning to completion. This was definitely my problem in school. Even in college I usually ended up scrambling through an essay or studying for an exam the night (or class period) before, or even missing the deadline and taking a late penalty.

Fluctuating energy levels can lead to extreme inconsistency in production. A child may produce a nice paper one time and a poor effort the next time, or may start off well and fall down as the work progresses. This often leads to the charge that "you could do better if you tried" which for the student may not be helpful at all since he or she may not understand WHY her performance is so inconsistent.

Another trait may show up later in the school years. There are two approaches to a new activity -- "top-down" or "bottom-up". One person may do wonderfully on the sequential, detail-oriented aspects of a research project, but be unable to come up with an original, creative take on the material. This is called a "bottom up" approach. It works well in the grade school years but becomes more of a problem in the secondary or tertiary level of schooling, where a person is expected to produce work beyond a simple synthesis of the collected research.

Since writing output is often such a major indicator of the child's production ability, Levine made a checklist of the writing process which I thought seemed very helpful for any kind of a longterm project. (He also recommends that long-term projects be done in schools more than they are presently, because a long-term project is a wonderful way to acquire the skills needed for ANY kind of future success). I am going to put the writing checklist in the next post since this one is getting long.

Incidentally, I was just reading at a site which recommended cursive before printed writing as a way to solve common writing difficulties. I thought it was interesting. Don Potter's site -- HT Trivium Pursuit blog (there are also some nice phonics resources there).