Reading Journal Essays

Dad: Here are a couple of essays the kids wrote about their reading. We do these in stages. First, we brainstorm about them in the journals. C likes to use Venn diagrams to look at similarities and differences. From the brainstorming we look for a theme and topic sentence. The next day we make a rough draft. If necessary we rewrite. Finally, I type theme verbatim into the computer, and the kids type their own corrections.

Sam wrote about Tuck Everlasting...

Winnie Foster is the main character of Tuck Everlasting. She is a cheery, eleven year old girl. She has brown hair and blue eyes. She is very nice. Since her parents won't let her out of their yard, she ran away to the forest. In the forest she met Jesse Tuck. Jesse was drinking out of a spring. Winnie wanted some too, but Jesse said that she should not drink it because it was dirty. The real reason was you wouldn't grow if you drank it.

C compared and contrasted the attacks of the parties of Frodo Baggins and Bilbo Baggins by wargs (large evil wolves) in the Tolkien books.

Frodo and Bilbo are hobbits that each went on long and scary adventures and were attacked by wild wargs. The tactics and results of the battles were similar, but the battles were different in the reasons that the wargs attacked and the ways that the companies escaped the battles.

These battles were similar in that the wargs were frightened by fire. Gandalf, the wizard, used his staff to make fires that scared the wargs away. Also, the battles were both very minor and short but fierce.

The reasons for the battles and how the companies fought were the ways that the battles were different. The wargs attacked Bilbo and company because of the death of the Great Goblin who was decapitated by Gandalf, so it was an attack of revenge. The wargs attacked Frodo and company because of the birds that were sent by the dark wizard Sauron to find the company. Bilbo and company fled up trees and were rescued by eagles. Frodo and company fought the wargs using Frodo's sword Sting, Gandalf's sword Glamdring, a dwarf axe belonging to Gimli, Legolas' bow and arrows, and Strider's sword Anduril.

The battles with wargs were only small hurdles to jump over in the major races of adventures that Frodo and Bilbo's companies ran.


Dad: We are working on the idea of using topic sentences. C wants to just spill the facts, so much effort went into finding general ways of describing the similarities and differences to create a topic sentence that is juicier than "The battles are the same and different in many ways." C and I spent a lot of time on the mechanics of the essay: topic sentence and detailed supporting paragraphs with topic sentences of their own.