Would he consider tutoring from an editorial intern at a local magazine? I only suggest that as my daughter was in that position in college and would have gladly accepted a tutorial assignment for extra income. She has an English degree with an emphasis on professional writing, which is what most editorial interns have as background. I don't know how successful I would have been tutoring my own college age kids.

She suggests elementary grammar workbooks as a place to start - he could quickly work through those on his own to get a foundation in sentence structure and punctuation. He should be able to get through one grade per week. That, coupled with reading books, and not just any that might appeal; choose those well written, not just for the story line but how the words are crafted.

My mother is the most literate person I know, and she gave me GREAT advice when I was in H.S. struggling with writing. She said, "pretend you are speaking directly to someone, and then write what you just said."

Completely erased my struggles with writing.

Thank you for the responses so far. For what it's worth, he is an excellent reader and reads a lot. Strange, I know. I would love for him to have a tutor other than myself. He just won't do it, pride? I don't know. I'm embarrassed to say it but I have been proofreading his college papers for him - marking everything in red ink and explaining why what he did won't work. I'm trying to teach him along the way. Are there any specific workbooks that you can recommend?

Excellent advice tibbrix. That is EXACTLY what he does. He writes like he speaks. I've told him this, but it isn't through to him yet.

He has creativity, but has difficulty implementing his thoughts on paper. His primary difficulty with writing is run on sentences, an inability to use commas correctly , euphemisms, and sometimes the way he structures a sentence just doesn't make sense to a reader.

That sounds like he may already be writing as though he is speaking, which is a mistake kids often make. Sure, it gets them started, but it does not always produce college level prose. He needs to review some basic rules of grammar. I might use the Oxford English Grammar courses, free on line. And a copy of Strunk and White "Elements of Style".

I would also suggest he read at least two articles a day, on any topic, in a quality paper, eg The New York Times. He should also write a 5-paragraph essay at least a few times a week. That will help with another area some kids lack; organizing their ideas so that they flow logically. It's like a sport, it takes practice.

Lastly, I would have him print out any paper he did over the year, and have him start being his own editor. Often students don't take enough time to edit.

If I were you though, I would really lobby to have a tutor do this...

PS If he finds the Oxford stuff too basic, and you really can pinpoint his grammar difficulties, than I might google it by topic. For example this is a good primer on comma usage, with quizzes: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm

I agree with Mtn......speaking and formal writing are two different animals. I also agree this is a task best left to a professional.

Would he be up for taking a writing class at the local junior college this summer or getting tutoring there where no one would know him? There are also online tutoring websites where he can work privately and at his own pace, which might be a good option, but you will have to do some sleuthing to find the best ones.

I think what you may need is not just a tutor, but a writing tutor or an educational therapist. Ask the high school if they have any recommendations (perhaps one of his old teachers works over the summer?), or your local college if they have any suggestions. You specifically want someone one who can help him with the process without squashing his creative ability. In the fall, his college may have a writing and tutoring center. (My son's acting teacher suggested he have speech therapy and it was really inexpensive at the university) If he has trouble with euphemisms and writing for the reader, it might help to have a full evaluation to rule out a stealth learning disability.

Since he's creative, have him write what he's interested in and write without regard to too many rules. Make it a fun and easy write, perhaps write about a real life event or person or a fictional short story. Then pretend he wants to submit his writing for publication but there's a word limit, so he has to give it a harsh edit. Pick a number for the word limit that forces him to chop a lot of words and restructure without sacrificing meaning. That should help with all the problems he's having.

So I'll use my paragraph as an example and see what I can chop.

Since he's creative, have him write what interests him without regard to rules. Make it fun and easy, perhaps writing about an event, a person, or a short story. Pretend it's a submission to a publication with a word limit, so he needs to edit it harshly without sacrificing meaning. That should help him write better.

89 words vs. 55 words, and a clearer meaning. I should have set a 50 word limit and then I'd really have to work hard!

Do you support him 100% financially? Sometimes you need to put your foot down and be the parent ... I would tell him that he will lose "X" privileges if he doesn't give an outside tutor a chance (phone, car use, etc). Commit to 6 sessions he has to try. If he then feels it doesn't help, then you can stop. I would find a young-ish male tutor, with an English degree like missymoo's daughter. Someone who just graduated college and hasn't started working yet or a new/younger English teacher who is off for the summer.

My teen son has similar issues and was diagnosed with non verbal learning disorders in elementary school. We used tutors to help with English when he was younger. He has gotten much better, but still has room for improvement. Your son needs to understand that this will benefit him for the rest of his life ...

If I remember correctly, one of my earliest college writing assignments was to write instructions for a task. Each instruction should contain a single action and, preferably, a single sentence. This task is also easier to punctuate and will present fewer opportunities for mistakes. The point of the exercise is to develop clarity before launching into creative writing, which is a higher form of thought/writing.

By the way, he should not feel embarrassed at all! Kudos to him for be willing to devote his summer to it, and for identifying the need. Tutors are not just for kids who are struggling, tutors are used in a lot of cases to give kids an edge. He should feel good about proactively working on his skills!

Javachick, was that the "how to build a peanut butter sandwich" exercise? It's great for teaching active verbs.

Whatever you do, don't take the joy out of writing. Build on his creativity. Have him write everyday. When I taught 5th and 6th graders, we started every day with a writing topic, which I tried to make fun. One I remember they enjoyed was "What is your favorite circle?" One kid who hated school wrote about how he loved the clock when it read 2:30. All my kids passed the state writing exam, even the Second Language Learners.

I love Grammarly.com. You have to pay for a subscription but it's worth it. The site allows you to copy and paste prose into it's checker window and corrects grammatical mistakes, contextual spelling errors and poor vocabulary usage. The best part, is that it gives you the actual grammatical rules that apply to your specific mistakes.

may_flowers - No, never had that one. Each person got to develop their own topic.

I am a former middle school English teacher. Writing is a messy, complicated task. It requires thought, time, and willingness. Effective writing includes quality of content, organization, mechanics, word choice, and fluency, voice, presentation. There is a plethora of resources on the internet about the 6+1 traits of writing. Your son needs to tackle writing as a process: planning, drafting, revising, and editing. I advise not to evaluate your son's writing for every criteria of effective writing. Begin with writing one paragraph, Maybe first begin with writing effective topic sentences. Then move on to details, then elaboration. . As far as mechanics, emphasize 2-3 skills at a time.

It sounds like your son needs to review and practice writing and grammar skills and then apply them in paragraphs and essays. There are many resources on the internet to help him. Have him check his college website for resources they have online.

The writing center at Purdue is an excellent resource that I have used with my English classes. https://owl.english.purdue.edu

Another electronic resource I have used with students.

Searching grammar practice websites or grammar practice websites for college students yields many results. The resources I like best are the ones that include both tutorial and practice.

Planning- There are many good organizers on line for each writing intent.

Drafting - get your ideas out without being too concerned with grammar etc.

Revising- The hard part. Your son needs to read aloud to check for clarity and organization, and making sense, formal language and sounding grown-up. Writing checklists, criteria, and rubrics can be found on the internet. Your son should refer to these before and after he writes.

Rewrite- then revise and edit again.

If your son is using a computer, he should save and print out each draft.

Your son will not learn if you alone revise and edit his work. He should not give the writing to you until he has revised and edited it himself 1-2 times. You should give him feedback after he has revised and edited. He should ask you to focus on a particular problem he is having. For instance, does this part make sense or are you able to follow my ideas. As the writer, he should point out a part with which he is having trouble. When you come to a place where he needs more detail or is confusing, tell him, write a note or a question in margin, Just a question mark is okay too.. Ask him questions to help him add the details or improve the clarity. He does the thinking, not you.

Editing- Fix errors- capitalization, usage, punctuation, spelling. You may fix some of the mistakes, not all which is overwhelming for any writer. Then have your son practice the rule.

I second the books that Mtn Rd Redux suggested. Others are: These can be ordered here.

I hope I have not overwhelmed you. (also hope there are no writing errors in this post) Your son has his work cut out for him this summer, but he has your support which is invaluable. Lucky son.

I am involved in proofing and editing every day, and here's my tip. One thing which is often lacking in even the professional writing I see is the lack of good opening and closing paragraphs. Set out the point and purpose of the writing in the beginning. After discussion and examples, close with a strong paragraph reiterating the point.

Thank you for your thoughtful responses. To clarify, he will not be home for the entire summer, but will be in and out. He will work as much as possible this summer. He pays his own rent and is now beginning to take out loans for tuition. We have paid his tuition up to this point. He went to our local community college. I don't think he would be willing to seek help there but he may be open to a former high school English teacher so thank you for that idea. I will explore that one. I will also explore all of the websites mentioned.
He will not respond well if I try to MAKE him do anything. He will just stop coming to me, just his personality I guess. I think that teachers in the past have focused on not inhibiting his creativity. However, not enough attention was giving to forming thoughts, executing in a grown up way, starting and ending sentences and paragraphs, ect. His writing is a hot mess since he writes like he talks. I KNOW he does not give near enough time to revising and editing. He thinks his teachers are too picky. There is a bit of laziness I'm sure.
I will continue to seek out a tutor he will use and resources online. Thanks again.

Have him take something that he has written and read it out loud. If he has run out of breath before the end of the sentence he has a run-on sentence. If he has two different thoughts in a sentence he has a run-on sentence. One thought per sentence.

If he pauses in a sentence he needs a comma.

My son was having trouble with writing in high school - very similar to your son. I don't know if there is a Sylvan Learning Center near you but that's who we used and they were fabulous. They taught my son little tricks without going over board on the whys and wherefores.

Have him read aloud what he has written as part of his editing process. Reading aloud uses a different parts of the brain. Additionally, it allows the text to be heard and processed as auditory input.

A lot of what I was thinking has been said. I agree a pro tutor might be more effective than you tutoring him...not only are they experienced, but they also don't have all the family dynamics going on.

I agree with blfenton on reading out loud. My old boss did a lot of writing for his job and I would help him edit it. While he balked at first, he soon realized the importance of reading the material out loud...it is amazing how it helps you spot mistakes, areas that are unclear, run on sentences, etc.

When I was at work they paid big bucks for all of us to get trained by Edith Poor on presentation skills. But she used her book on Executive writing as the basis as, she believes presenting and writing are basically the same thing and both rely on the underlying logical thought patterns. So writing is actually an extension of logical thinking. It may be that he needs help with logical structure of his thoughts and then the words will follow the structure. I'd highly recommend her book, with or without a tutor. It was handed out to all the new execs at work.

When I was in school, we spent a lot of time outlining before we did any writing at all. It forced you to really understand the content of what you wanted to say and how to logically state it and where logically the various points you wanted to make fell in order to have continuity and make sense to the reader. From that, things like topic sentences and conclusions arise naturally.

Lots of great suggestions in this thread! My only thought is that academic writing is a very particular skill to unlock. Once the grammatical errors are caught, it may be worthwhile to focus specifically on how to write an academic essay as opposed to more general writing tasks. Academic writing is boring for everyone so I wouldn't focus so much on engagement as how it can be used as a tool to convey information. To be honest, if your son can write a properly structured and cited research paper, proofreading is the easiest part (and the non-cheating part) to outsource. Many professionals struggle with the mechanics of spelling and grammar and rely on editors. That said of course mastering grammar would be the ideal endpoint.

I posed your question to one of my oldest friends, a retired high school English teacher. She said to definitely hire a tutor if you can. She also suggested getting a copy of Warriner's grammar book and doing a chapter a day as well as the exercises.

When one of my kids was in 6th grade the teacher said most of the writing assignments would be done in class to allow for proper evaluation of the child's ability ... it seems the longer writing assignments that used to be done at home, were being written or highly edited by parents/tutors. The kids lose either way ...

I love everyone's input. It is very helpful. The correlation between writing and presenting/or public speaking is fascinating to me because he is an excellent public speaker. He has no problems formulating thoughts or expressing himself in a logical way. He also actually likes to write things like songs and letters. I think he just gets lost when he has information that he has been told that he has to present: organizing it, defending it, making it interesting, and making it useful to the reader, on paper - that's where it all goes wrong. Grammar isn't so much a problem or spelling or capitalization. We know spell check can pick those up. It's really the run on sentences and formulating what needs to be written at a college level. Thanks for helping me think this through.

He sounds like a bright, capable student who just missed out on some important instruction. Given the time constraints and the his unwillingness to work with a tutor I would probably buy the following from Institute for Excellence in Writing:

Student Writing Intensive Level C or

College and Professional Writing with Structure and Style

The Elegant Essay

SWI is DVD lectures with all accompanying texts, assignments and scoring helps included. It is high school level.

CPWSS is a self directed, self paced course which the student streams.

These would take the planning and materials assembly off your plate.

TEE will refine and elevate his writing.

My BFF's son had a similar issue, and unfortunately, he did nothing to remediate his writing. He believed he would "get it" as he progressed in college. He did not, and it kept him out of graduate school.

EDited to add the link:

Iew.com

Thank you riosamba

Institute for Excellence in Writing is a great resource. Another option to evaluate could be Writing Strands. I will say that it is great that he is willing to have you look over his papers before turning them in. With all due respect to George R.R. Martin, everybody needs an editor, no matter how strong their writing is.