The Classical Scholar

Have you ever given your child a prompt for (1) writing an essay or (2) giving an impromptu or expository speech in your homeschool? In this first post of a four part series on effective oral and written communication, I’ll explain why writing prompts can be very useful because they:

• spark ideas
• encourage more frequent writing and speaking
• narrow the focus

Just like the name implies, prompts assist or inspire. We’ve been using writing prompts effectively in our home school for several years. Whether you have elementary age kids or teenagers, prompts can be tailored to the skill level of the child. For instance, the same prompt could be used for siblings…let’s say you have a 9 year old who is just learning how to write a good paragraph and a 15 year old who is writing five paragraph essays. Give them the same prompt, but adjust the required length appropriately.

Prompts Spark Ideas

It is much easier to write a paragraph or give a speech if you have a fresh idea to start with! Think of prompts in terms of eating: when you go to a buffet-style restaurant, the culinary choices are virtually unlimited. Just like the diner can select a prepared entree instead of cooking from scratch, so too, the budding writer or speaker gets a head start on the “meal.” The child doesn’t have to wrack his brain trying to come up with a subject; rather, the prompt tells him what to write about. This also helps eliminate the occasional whine that homeschool moms hear occasionally: “But I don’t know what to write about!”

You can select from several types of writing prompts for your home school writing assignments. In our home, we primarily use topical, thematic, and famous quote prompts. Topical prompts can be spontaneous (”what you had for breakfast” or “what you dreamed about last night”) or planned in advance like the topic that is intentionally related to the subjects currently being studied. For instance, If your child is reading about the planets in science, pick a topic from her reading like planetary temperatures or planetary rotation as a prompt.

Thematic prompts are triggered by an abstract theme like liberty, happiness, or responsibility. Pick a theme from the book he is currently reading like “growing up” in Peter Pan. It might also benefit your child to select a thematic prompt related to a character trait that you want to instill in him like courage or faithfulness.

Quote prompts are basically the same as topical or thematic prompts because most famous quotes can be reduced to at least one idea. For example, the actor Paul Newman once said, “If you don’t have enemies, you don’t have character” which can be simplified to 3 possible ideas: enemies, character, or Paul Newman! Scripture is full of potential quote prompts like “Those who trust in their riches will wither, but the righteous will flourish like green leaves.” (Proverbs 11:28) Wealth, trust, and righteousness are all themes that could be explored from this quote prompt.

For a host of free prompts, consult BrainyQuote, or if you would like to have your own copy of a handy paperback around, consider the handy Reader’s Digest book, Quotable Quotes.

* * * * *

In my next post, I’ll examine how topical, thematic, and quote prompts can encourage more frequent writing and speaking. Narrowing the focus and improving organization skills are the subjects of posts three and four. Please feel free to share any helpful tips that you have discovered in the comments section below.

Composing a good impromptu speech in your home school takes some practice. Under most circumstances, you only have a little bit of time to think of what to say. Use this list of ideas to generate content for your impromptu speeches or high school SAT practice essays:

history

literature

Bible stories

current events

personal stories

movies

fairy tales

nature

hobbies

sports

In Andrew Pudewa’s High School Essay Intensive, he teaches the student to know one piece of content REALLY well. For instance, if your son loves The Lord of the Rings Trilogy like my son does, have him pull from that one piece of literature or set of movies to structure the illustrations for his impromptu speech or SAT essay. If your daughter loves Jane Austen, have her pull her illustrations from Pride and Prejudice or Emma. A young man who is a baseball fanatic could use his knowledge of the sport through time on the recreational team, biographies of great players like Willie Mays, or the Major League Baseball World Series to inform his impromptu speech. Current events like immigration and health care reform can fuel the speech of a savvy, informed student.

The point is this: don’t try to pull illustrations from your entire knowledge base. You only have a short amount of time to organize your thoughts for the impromptu speech or the SAT essay, so use knowledge with which you are VERY familiar! To illustrate, let’s say 3 students were given the same topic, “bondage,” for the impromptu. The LOTR devotee could talk about how the ring represented bondage to several characters like Gollum, Aragorn, and Frodo. Jane Austen fans could discuss marriage as desirable bondage in both Emma and Pride and Prejudice. The baseball fan could get creative and talk about how MLB players are bound by a contract to the team until it expires and little league players are bound to follow certain rules of play.

Use the knowledge that you already have mastered in an area of interest like history, literature, sports, current events, or hobbies to make your homeschooling impromptu or SAT essay writing experience easier! Also, if you aren’t already using the TRIAC method for organizing your impromptu speech or essay, give it a shot.

* * * * *

Want to read more teaching tips for effective written and oral communication? Read my post on using prompts in homeschool essays and speeches.

Our home schooling philosophy is based on 24/7 learning, so it won’t surprise you to find that we use time in the car to learn! This weekend my family traveled to middle Tennessee for a family gathering in the Smokey Mountains. During the car trip down, David and I practiced impromptu speeches with a new technique called TRIAC that I learned last week from Andrew Pudewa. I’m used to preparing impromptu speeches from a 3 point mental outline (intro, 3 points, conclusion), but after a few rounds of impromptu with David (the kids declined our invitation to try it!), I’ve decided that I really like the TRIAC method better than the traditional method. Here’s what TRIAC stands for:

Topic

Restriction

Illustration

Analysis

Clincher

Ok, here’s how we “played” the impromptu game. I gave David a topic (birds), then he had 2 minutes to organize his thoughts using TRIAC. He thought my choice of topic was boring and wanted to talk about a more unconventional aspect of birds, so he restricted his topic to extinct birds. To illustrate, he chose 3 extinct birds (the carrier pigeon, the dodo, and the dinosaur); next he analyzed the reasons behind each bird’s extinction. Finally, he clinched the impromptu speech back to his “attention-getting” opening by rephrasing what he had said in the beginning.

As we played the game, we found that we that we gave a better impromptu speech if we started our organizing with the analysis step…we tried to decide on the meaning of our restricted topic first. This made the speech more purposeful. It was tough but a great exercise in organizing your thoughts without pen and paper. Later, I’m going to practice writing using TRIAC in my blog posts, and I’ll be assigning the kids a few essay prompts as part of their homeschooling…have you ever used this method? I’d love to hear your comments!