My son started to write in 2nd grade. He is literally amazing. Does not run in mine or my hubby's family. Now in 5th grade, i have to always find space for all his stories. The details,descriptions, plots, and expressions are way beyond a 10 year old. I am just amazed at his vocabulary level. His editing and proofreading is out of this world.He shares most stories with his classroom constantly. I think he freaked alot of the youngin's with his Halloween story this year, lol. I bet his teachers are exhausted when he has essay assignment homework to share because he has looooong ones! No, little paragraphs for my kiddo. I can't wait to see what he becomes and what he comes up with as he matures! Thanks so much for Private school.... and the ability for his writing to grow! His talent may have never been uncovered!
As a child writer who grew into an adult one I would say three things were most important to me a little encouragement, a library card and freedom. The most detrimental was being told I was "gifted" or had "natural talent" as a writer. You tell your son "your stories are so good because you work so hard on them. Your stories are so good because you take your time with them. You think them through. Looks like you really have fun writing your stories. You work really hard at your creative ideas. If you work really hard on your writing you will get better and better each day" Let your son know that it is because of HIS actions and choices that his "talent" for writing is being developed not some whispy hand from the writing gods. Because I was never told it was ME and my actions and choices of reading a ton of books and writing story after story but some untouchable "specialness" I felt I had the golden touch and never had to work hard at my writing--never developed the ability to handle the rigors of the craft. I just floated on this "talent" that everyone said I had--and therefore never developed the discipline that real writing requires.
That's what I love about Mr. King's attitude about his "gift" he doesn't acknowledge he has one. "I'm just a guy. And I'm successful because I read a lot and I write a lot" and he gives us that encouragement that we can be successful too.
I will tell you about a study they did with kids your son's age. They gave easy word puzzles to two groups of 5th graders. The first group they said to the kids as they were working on the puzzles, "Wow you are really good at doing puzzles." With the second group they said "Wow, you really worked on that puzzle." Then they offered each group either the same kind of "easy puzzle" or a harder one. Most of the kids in the first group chose to stay with the easy type puzzle but those kids that were told that they were successful because they "worked hard" chose the next harder puzzle. This study is from a fantastic book every one should read called The Genius In All of Us: how everything we've been told about genetics, talent and giftedness is wrong by David Shenk :
Amazon.com: The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told about Genetics, Talent and IQ is Wrong (Audible Audio Edition): David Shenk, Mark Deakins: Books This book finally, after forty years unshackled me from the idea that I wrote well because I was "gifted" and made me see that it was because since I was little kid I read a lot and I wrote a lot because I had opportunity (basically I had no friends lol) so I had a lot of alone time to develop. It is the most freeing thing not to be burdened by my "gift from God" anymore and now at 51, I am starting over to see if it isn't too late for me to develop the work ethic required to be a successful writer.
You tell your son it is the action that leads to the gift not the other way around--I wish someone had told me that when I was 10. Okay I'm getting down off my soapbox now.
