Y4 English homework

[purpleturtle]

Could you help me out of a homework crisis?

DD was set the task (on Friday) to write a story about anything she likes. Despite several reminders, and no little heated discussion, she still hasn't written one. Apparently, she can't do it, because she hasn't been given a title/topic.

If your child has recently been set a writing exercise with a title, would you mind sharing it, so that I can offer it to DD? My ideas don't cut it, apparently.

Thank you very much.

DS had write a story about the week of snow in the UK...

I remember my DD doing a lot of work on stories with alternative endings in YR 4. So take a traditional fairy tale and re-arrange it so the baddy becomes the good guy in some very bizarre and totally unrealistic way. Think DD did one on Cinderella she forgot to leave a glass slipper behind, so the prince couldn't find her or something.

Asking children to 'write a story' is unfair, imo.

Children need a starting point, a character they have discussed at school, or a model of a story they have been revisiting all week.

Sounds like lazy homework setting to me.

my yr 4 is doing stories with speech atm, so it might be a good idea to include some.
This weeks story had to be about an incident where time seemed to stand still.
He wrote about when his db dropped him from his shoulders and he fell flat on his face and broke his nose.
It was quite amusing, he wrote the fall seemed to last for eons

agree with Cyb, you need some kind of starter really.

How about she opens her favourite book, copies the first sentence, and writes a new story from there?

Thank you for these.

Cyb - there's a big push on writing at DD's school at the moment. They have to write a story every day - often prompted by a picture they're shown, or a class discussion. Friday is Freedom Friday where they get to choose. This week that seems to have morphed into the homework, (maybe because they went swimming during the day?).

TBH DD is always a pain about homework. If she'd been set a question, she wouldn't have been able to write about that either.

PandaG - you're a genius! A smile! and she's gone off to fetch a book. (Might be tricky, since we confiscated 90% of them yesterday - long story).

I think another part of the problem is that she's putting herself under a huge amount of pressure to write something brilliant. She's in the top group, and feels that she can't turn in something that might not be very good. At this point, I would settle for anything - good or not! It happens in the classroom too, and she frequently spends the whole time staring at the page without writing anything. For which her teacher shouts at her. (So I've been told this evening)

I feel a conversation with the teacher coming on...

How about an animal one?-how the elephant got it's trunk or how the snail got its shell etc

Or just a simple starter:
It was a day when nothing seemed to go right.....
The clouds hid the moon and they found themselves in total darkness......
I slipped quietly away to my secret place not far from home. It was .....

Is she into history -can she do a diary entry using historical language? Would be like a short story if it were about an event real or imagined. Ask her what's she doing in history at the mo.

Another option some kids like, is to think of a favourite story and then make up a sequel about what happened to the main character next.

ah, the pressure to get it 'right' We have that with DD too. Apparently she burst into tears at school because she just couldn't begin on a piece of writing.

If story telling's been what they've been working on, then it's not lazy at all. It's a thought through idea to see how the topic's going; so has it fired their imagination and can they think and create for themselves? Maybe ask her for a story she likes and ask her why she liked it and why it worked so well. Sometimes if they can deconstruct it it helps them start. v.hard though to be write freely if she's worried about it.

She does like history, and they're doing the Tudors, which she knows really well because she did the Tudors last year in a different school. So I suggested she write a story with Henry VIII in it. No go.

Apparently, there were "about 6" books in her bedroom (must've confiscated about 99% LOL), so she brought something about Humphrey the hamster and has now started (I hope) a story starting "It was the worst day of my life."

Homework is such a pain. I bet it doesn't get marked properly either.

It can be nice to have a free choice-DCs tend to always be directed and it is nice sometimes to have a free choice. Like everything, it suits some DCs and not others and it can give some 'writers block'.