Why Johnny Can't Write

Johnny is a creative story-writer, but he can't write an essay to save his life. Does this ring true for your child or student?

Johnny is a creative story-writer, but he can't write an essay to save his life. Does this ring true for your child or student? Johnny has had some good writing instruction. He can recite the steps of The Writing Process from the posters he has seen in every classroom throughout his elementary school years. He knows all about Writers Workshop. He would know what to expect if the teacher had written "Writers Conferences" or "Response Groups" on the white board as parts of her daily lesson plans. Johnny's writing portfolio is chalk full of fanciful stories and writing pieces in the sensory/descriptive or imaginative/narrative writing domains. He has been encouraged to unleash his creative mind-although that story that he wrote last year about the student boycott of the cafeteria may have been a bit too creative for the principal's tastes. However, if you give Johnny a writing prompt, asking him to "Compare and contrast the cultural roles of women in Athens and Sparta," sixth grade writing paralysis would surely set in. Or worse yet, Johnny might begin his essay with "Once upon a time in a far-away land called Greece, two young women from Athens and Sparta