Why is exercise important to someone your age?
A Brave Writer’s Life in Brief
Thoughts from my jungle to yours
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
March 17th, 2010
How about writing a limerick with your kids today to celebrate?
Here’s the format (each space is a syllable, not a word):
______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______
______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______
______ ______ ______ ______ ______
______ ______ ______ ______ ______
______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______
For a fun Irish twist, look up some cities on a map of the Green Isle and use them in your Limericks:
- Dublin
- Galway
- Kilkenny
- Cork
- Derry
- Armagh
- Belfast
- Lislurn
You might add Irish items like pots of gold, rainbows, leprechauns, and shamrocks. St. Patrick is also a perfectly suitable character to include in your St. Patrick’s Day limerick, too. Of course.
Here’s a Limerick by the intrepid Edward Lear (his are most famous and can be found in a quick google search):
There was an Old Man of Kilkenny,
Who never had more than a penny;
He spent all that money,
In onions and honey,
That wayward Old Man of Kilkenny.
Please post your delightful results when you finish!
The One Thing Principle
March 16th, 2010
I haven’t posted this for awhile, but it’s critical to good home education, good writing practice, good living! Before you read, take a deep breath. Take another. Maybe pour a second cup of tea. Did you know that you are more likely to feel successful in homeschooling if you do one thing really well today (invest in it, spend energy on it)? If you let other things go and are fully present for one thing, you’ll feel like you got a lot done. Conversely, if you do a whole bunch of things in a hurry, covering all the material, you will feel discouraged like you didn’t get enough done.
Depth, not breadth, creates momentum in the homeschool. Here’s how you can shift gears to doing one thing at a time… well.
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The discussion of how to create a flexible routine as well as how to create a home context conducive to nurturing relationships prompts me to revisit a plank of the Brave Writer philosophy: The One Thing Principle. Some of you already know it well. Others of you are new to Brave Writer so this will help you begin to shift the paradigm from which you teach and guide your kids. Remember: we are home educators. We are not recreating school. One of the biggest advantages to being at home is the ability to go in-depth when studying or pursuing an interest. This is the key principle to help you do just that guilt free. Enjoy!
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When was the last time you really tasted the food you ate? If you’re like me and millions of moms, you wolf down your meals in an attempt to clean your plate before someone in the family needs seconds, needs a face-wiped, needs to be breastfed, needs you on the phone.
It’s easy to run through the homeschool day the same way - Everyone’s doing math. Good. In just ten minutes I’ll get the older two started on spelling. While they’re spelling, I’ll read with the eight-year-old and nurse the baby. Then I’ll make lunch and think about which creative project will go with the history novel.
As you race along, you might even have the strange feeling of not having done anything worthwhile, even though you are exhausted and have been pushing the family at breakneck speed. There’s a sense in which we “hover” above our lives rather than living right inside them when we’re filled with obligations, good ideas, lots of children and the endless demands of email and phone calls that intrude on our best plans.
Spring Class Registration opens at Noon EDT
March 15th, 2010
Check out the class schedule. We keep registration open until classes fill.
Sign up early!
Friday Hodgepodge
March 12th, 2010
Freewrite prompt: What is the best birthday present you could receive?
I’m out of town for the weekend to go to the Indiana Homeschool Support Convention. I’ll be in New Paris, IN.
On Monday, we have our Spring Class Registration. Be sure to sign up early, if you are concerned about getting into a class. We filled every one in winter quarter and some were filled within days of registration opening. We’ll keep registration open until a class fills.
Last thing: keep trucking! I’m getting a lot of email lately from moms worried about teens who are late in developing their writing skills. Not to worry! If you start over (take me seriously on this - go back to the very beginning, a very good place to start), you’ll find that your smart teen who is simply a damaged writer, will rebound and develop at a much faster rate than your younger kids. You can start at age 16 and get all the way to college prep by 18 if you address the fact that your teen has been damaged by the programs you’ve used to date. If you take his or her writing voice seriously, you can re-boot the system and help your teen unclog the passage through which his or her words will flow.
Start with Kidswrite Basic. It will change how both of you see writing and will put you in the right space to be that coach and ally for the rest of your teen’s academic career at home.
I’ll check in over the weekend, if I can get some computer access. Have a great Spring Forward (clocks change on Saturday night!). Hurray for sunshine and temps over 60!
Email: Freewrite poem
March 7th, 2010
Freewrites are Wacky
Freewrites are Weird
Freewrites are funny
They’re worse than you feared
Freewrites are writing the stuff in your mind
When the timer rings then you might find
you’ve a poem ’bout pliers
a book about tops
You know you’ll have something when the timer stops!
Sam Morris (12)
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I love when your kids send me their writing. How delightful is this? Thanks Sam for letting me share it with the world.
If you have a child who needs some writing encouragement, send me their work and I may share it here just like I did Sam’s. Could be a great way to connect the power of writing with the power of publishing.
Friday Freewrite: Song lyric
March 5th, 2010
Turn up your iPod or radio. The first song that pops up on shuffle or on the station, use it to freewrite. Listen to it and write as you listen. Or you can listen all the way through, turn it off and start writing.
Lucille Clifton (Poet, RIP 2/13/10)
March 2nd, 2010
Today I’m reading some poetry by Lucille Clifton, an African American poet whose work is bright with the power of self-creation, triumph and the fierce embrace her female-ness. I want to share a couple with you:
won’t you celebrate with me?
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay.
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
–
hips
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don’t fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don’t like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
–
my dream about being white
hey music and
me
only white,
hair a flutter of
fall leaves
circling my perfect
line of a nose,
no lips,
no behind, hey
white me
and i’m wearing
white history
but there’s no future
in those clothes
so i take them off and
wake up
dancing.
Friday Freewrite: Best buds!
February 26th, 2010
How would you feel if someone told you that you were his or her best friend?
New to Brave Writer
February 24th, 2010
Brave Writer has three components to support your writing and language arts goals:
The Home Study Courses are divided into two. The Writer’s Jungle teaches you, the parent, how to be the most effective writing coach in your children’s lives. The principles, exercises, and guidelines apply to every level of writing from beginner to pro. If you like to work at your own pace, need a manual to which you can refer when you get overwhelmed, if you benefit from having your entire philosophy of writing stood on its head and recreated for you, then start with The Writer’s Jungle. It will work for all your kids.
Help for High School is our home study course for teens. It’s written to your student and is intended to be self-teaching. The course is organized around specific modules and in each module, there is an exercise or writing assignment to complete. These can be done multiple times if you swap topics. They are writing processes, not specific assignments geared toward a period in history or a work of literature. Help for High School provides models of how to write expository essays (both open and closed forms) as well as the steps necessary to understand the structure of argument, thesis and points and particulars.
The Online Classes provide moms and kids with instructor support and accountability. They cover a wider range of choices in terms of specific writing genres. If you prefer to be in a classroom style setting with an instructor, other students and the gentle accountability of due dates, start with Kidswrite Basic. This online course transforms your understanding of how to best facilitate writing in your home. It gives you the tools to know how to encourage and foster good writing habits rather than merely editing poor writing for mechanical errors.
Kidswrite Intermediate is the course to consider if you want to make the transition from parent-led writing to student-led. It’s designed for kids just on the cusp of essay writing. The processes in KWI make up the first half of Help for High School. The benefit to taking it as a class is that the online class offers instructor feedback and the opportunity to read other student writing. KWI prepares students for all levels of essay classes, as well.
The other online classes round out writing experiences. We offer fiction, literary analysis, poetry, grammar, freewriting, SAT/ACT preparation, Shakespeare, literary discussion (Boomerang Complete) and more. The courses help you and your kids to widen their writing experiences while giving you the support and modeling that make you a more and more effective writing coach. The courses also prevent a feeling of isolation in the homeschool, putting you in touch with other parents and students from around the world who are embarking on a similar journey.
The language arts portion of Brave Writer supports and enhances the writing programs. The Arrow, the Boomerang and the retired Slingshot are designed to provide you with easy-to-use tools that teach mechanics, spelling, grammar, handwriting and literary elements in the context of great literature. The Arrow works best for kids 3rd - 6th grades. The Boomerang is designed for 7th-9th grades (though some high school students do quite well with the Boomerang). The Slingshot (already published issues) catered to 10th-12th grades. We now offer literary analysis classes for 10th-12th grades instead.
You can either subscribe to the current year’s lists of the Arrow or Boomerang (paying monthly on your credit card), or you can purchase already published issues ala carte and design your own year’s program around books you and your kids want to read. These tools are meant to supplement your writing program, not replace it. When the Arrow or Boomerang are used in tandem with The Writer’s Jungle or Help for High School, or along with Kidswrite Basic or Kidswrite Intermediate, you will be offering your children a complete language arts/writing package.
Jump in. Try not to figure it all out or become overwhelmed at the choices. Pick one thing that you find fascinating. Purchase it or sign up for it. Use it, do it. Experience and enjoy it. See how it goes. Then do the next thing. As you take it one thing at a time, you will build momentum. You’re not in a rush. You don’t have to solve writing and language arts this week, this semester or even this year. You only need to take the next logical step toward the goal of becoming the best writing coach you can be. In turn, your kids will grow into more and more effective writers.