Tag Archives: high school

A brave-ish back to school

The week before school started, I was chatting online with one of my coaching students. I asked how he was feeling about going back to school.

Even before I finished the question, he began shaking his head.

” Not so much?” I said.

He paused. ” I guess all I can do is try my best.”

I felt more than a little troubled by the note of defeat in his voice. This young man doesn’t struggle academically, so I wondered what else might be at the root of his back to school blues. Maybe I’ll hear in the weeks to come, and maybe not.

For some teens, returning to the classroom is an uncomfortable time, going beyond the usual loss of summer freedom. If there’s a shift in schools, as there is for many new grade 10 students, they face the prospect of getting lost, literally and figuratively, in an unfamiliar building among unfamiliar faces. Maybe they worry about fulfilling academic expectations – their parents’ or their teachers’. Maybe they fear seeing that instructor’s name popping up on their schedule. Maybe they’re concerned about fitting in to a new or existing friendship group. In singer Michelle Wright’s words, “Sometimes high school feels like a minefield/just trying to get through the day.”

During Edmonton’s Fringe Theatre Festival this year, I learned a new term that I plan to share with my students when they tell me their concerns about navigating the high school minefield. In a musical memoir entitled Brave-ish, Sarah Dowling, an Edmonton actor, singer and playwright, credits female country singers of the 1990s – Michelle Wright, Trisha Yearwood, Shania Twain, Faith Hill – with giving her the courage to establish and hold onto her essential self during high school in the tiny Alberta town of Thorsby. It wasn’t easy. Eventually, though, she left Alberta to attend musical theater school in Toronto, found a job she loved as a cruise ship performer, and married the love of her life, assuming she’d live happily ever after.

But adult life brought more challenges than she was expecting – the decision to move back to Edmonton to be closer to family, to have her first child, and find sustainable work clashed with the carefree life she and her husband had in their 20s. Resolving the conflicts, she said, required her not so much to be brave but “brave-ish,” taking small steps towards big goals.

If you’re the parent of a teen who’s hesitant about taking that first step towards a new school year, it might help to brainstorm with them how they can be braveish about whatever is causing their anxiety. Maybe they can smile and say hello to a student in one of their classes who looks as lost as they feel. Maybe they can have a first week chat with that teacher to see how they can succeed in their class. Maybe they can find out the drama club’s first meeting date. While being brave might seem like too big a request, braveish means taking that first small step towards addressing a worry or accomplishing a goal.

As for me, the next time one of my coaching students approaches me with how to start an essay or understand a complex novel or figure out their English teacher’s expectations, I’ll encourage them to be braveish as we figure out a plan together.

Yes, you can help your teen be a better writer this August – but how to do it might surprise you

I’ve talked to lots of parents who’ve tried to help their teens become better writers. Sometimes they try to explain topic sentences and paragraphs to them. Sometimes, they put on their editor hats and tut tut at their teen’s spelling and grammar mistakes. Some even try to assign their kids topics on which to write. Usually, by the time they contact me, their best efforts have overwhelmed their patience and eroded the positive relationship they used to have with their child.

If this sounds like an experience you’ve had, let me suggest a way you can help improve your teen’s writing – without ever teaching a lesson on paragraph structure at the kitchen table or picking up a red pen.

In Canadian high schools, students read and discuss stories, novels, poems, plays and visual works with a view to writing about a theme that emerges in the text. And those themes are sophisticated, ranging from power to alienation to forgiveness. Teachers look for a student’s ability to provide evidence from the selection to support their opinion, and a detailed and insightful discussion of the story’s relationship to the theme.

At the end of this school year, the teacher of one of my grade 10 coaching students told me that she and her English Language Arts teaching colleagues had noticed more students than usual were struggling with this task. Her theory was that part of this difficulty arose from COVID-related online learning, which cut students off from meaningful discussion with teachers and peers. ” Because students were all in their bubbles/ cohorts, and not able to interact in person, they weren’t exposed to the ideas and experiences of other people, which meant that they didn’t have to think as much beyond their own world.”

Her solution? Encouraging students to leave behind their virtual worlds this summer and immerse themselves in arts-based experiences, to help them “think a bit more in a holistic and abstract sense and discuss [these experiences] with as many people as possible to get their ideas and opinions, hopefully ones that are different from their own.” She believes ( and so do I) that these types of discussions will help teens to develop the skills and the confidence to write about ideas in more depth when they return to school in the fall.

If you’re a parent, or a grandparent, aunt, uncle or adult friend to a teen, consider inviting them to an arts-based event. Ask if they want to bring a friend or two. There are two parts to successfully providing these experiences: searching for events teens will enjoy, and giving them opportunities to express their opinions about what they’ve seen and heard.

Events to Attend

Of course, the first thing to find out is if your teen has ideas of their own for an event to attend. If not, here are a few to consider.

1) Barbenheimer

The two most talked about movie releases of the summer will provide lots of fodder for discussion. I’m waiting until the crowds at my local theater abate before seeing them, but after reading reviews, I’m keen to join in on the discussion, from Barbie’s feminist themes to the moral dilemmas faced by Oppenheimer.

2) A midsummer night’s live theatre adventure

If you live in or near an urban center, chances are there are live summer theatre events going on in August. In Edmonton, where I live, we have an annual Shakespeare festival that features a comedy and a tragedy performed in repertory, and a Fringe theater event with literally hundreds of plays to choose from. I plan to gather some of my coaching students as they arrive home from vacation later in the month to attend Romeo and Juliet, a favorite play of high school teachers everywhere.

3) A picture worth a thousand words

A lot of teens may perceive art galleries as boring. Maybe you hold the same impression. But it’s worth checking out what’s on at your local gallery over the summer. The Edmonton Art Gallery has a display of pop art, and when I visited, the Banksy exhibit was very popular with teens who were engaged by his anti-establishment art and a short film about his dystopian Dismaland, which pokes at the commercialism of amusement parks in general and Disneyland in particular.

Getting Them to Talk

Maybe your teen is a thousand word talker. On the other hand, maybe you’re more likely to get a one word response. I’ve got both types among my coaching students. Here are some strategies I’ve used to both get them talking and challenge their opinions:

1) Show genuine interest in and respect for what they have to say.

This usually starts with keeping your own mouth shut, at least for a while. Stating your own opinions or questioning theirs too quickly can easily shut down conversation.

2) Invite their opinions without becoming the Spanish Inquisition.

Try not to pepper them with questions in an effort to get them to talk, and remember that questions that can be answered yes/no will often get you just that. Avoid leading questions like ” Didn’t you just love/ hate….” which are really about getting them to agree with you. Instead, you can say, ” What did you think about…( a certain part/ the way an actor portrayed a character/why an artist portrayed an image as he did/ the reasons for certain choices like color, music etc.)

3) Admit you don’t have all the answers.

Don’t portray yourself as the all knowing adult. I often say to my students, ” I wasn’t that sure about….What did you think?”

4. Don’t ask ” Why do you think that?”

” Why” can sound sort of threatening. Instead, try “What an interesting perspective. What led you to that?” From there, you can keep the discussion going with, ” I wonder if another explanation could be…” or “From another angle, what else could it mean?”

August and the arts make great partners. Summer is starting to wind down and teens might be looking for activities to keep them busy. If attending an event also sparks their curiosity and leads to discussion, so much the better. There’s a good chance your teen’s ability to write skillfully and confidently about abstract ideas will grow as a result.

Time for a writing tutor?

In a perfect world, your teen’s English teacher would give them all the help they need to become a competent, self- confident writer.

Interesting assignments. Specific instruction on how to approach those assignments. Time to create multiple drafts. Supportive, encouraging feedback along the way.

Unfortunately, those components of effective writing instruction are disappearing rapidly from high school English classrooms.

Huge numbers of students, diverse student needs, teacher burnout, and lack of training and professional development in how to teach writing have all helped to lead to a crisis in writing instruction. Students flounder to understand and complete assignments, and get more and more discouraged.

As a person who hears and sees your teen’s frustration with writing, and wants to alleviate it, you may have tried to help, only to have them turn aside your best attempts. Maybe you’ve wondered if it’s time to bring in some outside professional assistance.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a writing coach myself. The adults who’ve approached me to assist their teens improve their writing have identified five signs that it was time to hire a writing tutor or coach to give their teen a much-needed boost:

1. Their teen put off writing until the last minute – or didn’t do the assignment at all.

Procrastination is often a sign that your teen is fearful of the assignment- doesn’t know how to get started, doesn’t know how to address its requirements, is concerned about negative teacher feedback. They may decide to avoid handing anything in to escape potential feelings of failure.

2. Their teen wasn’t getting much practice with writing.

Several parents have noticed that teachers are expecting very few writing assignments to be completed. One grade 9 student I worked with only did three writing assignments between September and June. Without practice, student writing doesn’t get any better.

3. Their teen was getting very little helpful feedback from their teacher on their writing.

Perhaps in an effort to speed up their marking or possibly because they’re unsure how to give feedback that would progress a student’s writing, some teachers provide very few comments on a final assignment. Not many give help during the writing process. Worse still, some only comment on what a student does wrong, never offering praise for an insightful idea or well-written sentence. How discouraging.

4. Their teen was getting very little guidance on how to be successful with a writing assignment.

Some teachers are providing very little instruction on the basics of writing, much less helpful and specific how-tos. Recently, a grade 10 student I’m working with told me her teacher said her essay introduction wasn’t long enough. When the student asked what more she could say, the teacher said, ” Well, it just can’t be 2 sentences.” Another student noticed that she and her classmates are not being taught how to produce writing like the exemplary sample the teacher discussed in class. ” How are we supposed to write like that if we’re not being shown how?” she said. How indeed.

5. The writing required in high school has surpassed their ability to help their teen produce an effective written assignment.

Even if you write as a part of your job, you are unlikely unfamiliar with how to produce the writing expected in a high school English class. You might have the ability to correct your teen’s spelling and punctuation, but most teens need as much or more help with producing insightful ideas and organizing them into paragraphs. If you try to help, you may be headed for conflict with your teen.

Coming soon: How to find a writing coach or tutor for your teen