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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Wednesday, 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!

Posted in Poetry, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | No Comments »

New to Brave Writer

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Brave Writer has three components to support your writing and language arts goals:

Home Study Courses

Online Classes

Language Arts Programs

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.

Posted in Arrow, BW products, Boomerang, Brave Writer Philosophy, Help for High School, Homeschool Advice, The Writer's Jungle, Tips for Teen Writers, Young Writers | No Comments »

Writing through the tears

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Who can do anything well while crying?

Can you type while crying? Make dinner? Have sex? Probably not.

Tears are an indication that something is dreadfully wrong. They signal pain:  emotional or physical. In writing, emotional pain may be writer’s block or fear of making a mistake. Physical pain may be that the hand hurts from squeezing the pencil too tightly, or eye strain, or physical exhaustion from a poor night’s sleep. Crying is not a sign of laziness or lack of character. Crying is the last release, the final “giving up” and admission of failure. Crying signals: I need comfort.

When the tears come, the writing’s done.

Take a break. Acknowledge your child’s feelings: I see that you’re unhappy. Let’s talk about this later. Offer a hug.

Later, come back to your child and find out what’s going on. Ask:

Are you afraid of making a mistake?

Is it too hard to grip the pencil for ten minutes straight?

Are you having a hard time spelling?

Do you wish you could play outside in the sunshine rather than sit at a table?

Does it feel like you have nothing to say?

Are you sleepy? Hungry?

Be an investigator and a comforter. A cup of tea and eye contact will go a long way toward soothing the hurting writer. Remember, writer’s block is the usual reason for writing paralysis (not strong wills or sinful natures). Writer’s block means the child doesn’t have access to the words inside. The words are hidden behind anxiety, fear of failure, or a vague sense of the topic (not enough depth in the topic to be able to talk about it meaningfully in writing).

Writer’s block is experienced by everyone (pros, professors and prodigies) and at its most acute, produces tears. So give oodles of empathy, hugs, and comfort foods. Then talk about how to make writing less painful. Take some time to remind yourself of the goal - a free, brave writer who is at ease when writing, not gripped with anxiety and fear.

Julie

P.S. If you find it hard to know how to get beyond the tears and writer’s block, peruse my website and the archives of this blog for ideas. I also devote a good chunk of The Writer’s Jungle to this subject as well.

Freewriting is one of our favorite tactics for unblocking stuck writers. Another idea is to stop writing all together for awhile and work on building a relationship where talking freely and well is cultivated. That means, of course, that you will seek opportunities to drive your kid to his destinations so that you can chat the whole way, drawing him out, listening to what he knows lots about and encouraging him to share as much as he can as well as he can… so he’ll grow in verbal self-expression.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice, The Writer's Jungle, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | No Comments »

You gotta be home to homeschool

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

There are two kinds of “being home” that I want to explore in the blog. Today’s post focuses on the physical choice to be “home” more than away. For families with young kids (particularly if you’ve got kids under 12), cultivate a home life, in your house. For families with teens, be choosy. Outside activities are important, but consolidate when you can. If you’re in that awkward phase of life where you have some of each (little kids and big ones), your choices have to be that much more creative and deliberate. I’ve got a special section just for you further down.

The second kind of “being home” has to do with attitude—how do we treat each other when we are home as opposed to away? What does it look like/feel like to be educated in a home? We’ll look at “home” as a way of being tomorrow.

Choosing to be at home:

The first step in creating a better homeschool environment is to be home. Long stretches of time that go uninterrupted by orthodontists, trips to the tutor, vet appointments for the dog and shopping for food are essential to create a feeling of time and space to learn. One of the best bits of advice I received early on is to not make my doctor or dental appointments in the mornings. Just because I’m “home” doesn’t mean I’m free! If my kids were in a school building, I wouldn’t want to take them out for a check up. I’d wait until the afternoon. Likewise, my time at home is full and therefore I’m not available for appointments before noon, either. Better to schedule all such meetings after lunch. (If you have napping kids, then you have to wait until naps are done or let them nap in the car or stroller.)

Additionally, limit outside activities. We had a rule in our family of five kids that only two kids could be playing on a sports team at any given time. That meant that some of our kids couldn’t do their sport year-round. We had no prodigies so I didn’t have to weigh the merits of possible college scholarships against my decision for sane living, so your mileage may vary. But we discovered early on we could only support two weekend games and two sets of practices per week, per season. The same could be said for musical instruments, tutorials, co-ops, dance lessons and so on. When you have lots of kids, this becomes even more important. You do not want your youngest children to spend their early childhoods sipping Juicy Juice boxes in a car seat watching DVDs in the back of the van while they are schlepped along with hockey pads to the next practice!

Hire people who will come to you or live within walking distance. The midwife I chose on my fifth birth traveled to me to do my check-ups. That’s the sole reason I picked her over my previous midwife. When my youngest decided she wanted piano lessons, I sent her across the street. Our piano teacher isn’t my favorite as far as technical skill to teach, but for the early stages, living two minutes from my doorstep outweighed all other concerns. We hired a violin teacher who drove to our house. We also hosted literature discussion groups, writing groups and study sessions so that we could stay home.

Carpool. Do activities that other families do so that you don’t have to do all the driving.

Save some activities until your kids can drive themselves. We didn’t have our kids get jobs outside the home until they could drive themselves. Three of them, however, earned money while at home babysitting and selling cookies in our neighborhood. Neither of these required me to drive anyone anywhere (except when one of them ran out of chocolate chips and forgot to tell me… grrrr!).

Consolidate activities. It’s better to have one long busy day of appointments than to have 30-60 minute trips three or four times per week that interrupt your time at home.

Make one day your inviolable day that you never go anywhere. Once you decide to do this, it will feel nearly impossible to make happen. You’ll find all kinds of reasons you can’t keep this commitment. Of course. Just like dieting or exercise. It’s a discipline. But just as you would clear your schedule to be available weekly for a co-op day, you can do the same in reverse. Make Tuesdays or Fridays (or whatever) the day you never leave the house. You always have the full day at home and are ready for it with good food, a lesson plan, fun TV programming to watch and no pressure to go anywhere. Even if you pull this off three Tuesdays of the month, that’s wonderful! You’ll be amazed at how jealously you guard that day once you commit to it. (Tuesday has traditionally been that day for me since we have co-op on Mondays which is all-day away from home.)

Teens: I’ve shared before that teens need to sense that they are getting out into the big world, evolving into young adults. Home can feel confining, redundant, risk-free. What felt safe and nurturing as a young child becomes confining and tedious past 13. These feelings are normal; they aren’t signs of rebellion or an inability to be happy. I recommend that your teens get involved in something much bigger than they are. One of my Brave Writer students became enamored of low cost, energy efficient housing and built eco-friendly homes in her backyard! Another started a fish breeding farm in the creek neighboring her house. These activities kept these students home, obviously. But home had become a bigger world!

And that’s the point. Home is either the refueling station between community college and aiding at the local elementary school three days a week, or it’s the means to pursuing a dream (writing a novel, inventing a language, crafting a quilt, remodeling the basement).

In our family, two of our teens joined a Shakespeare company that met downtown with professional actors and a wide variety of students once a week on the weekends with performances at the end of the year. I know teens who’ve gone on mission trips, have built computers from scratch, are on high level sports teams, acted in plays, started parttime high school or junior college, worked for the first time, gone to art institutes, joined community or high school music programs, written for publication, and started businesses. Doing written narrations by themselves at the kitchen table is not enough for a teen’s education. Supervising the small children in the family is not a teen’s daily responsibility. We had the babies; they didn’t.

Teens need driver’s licenses and money. They need peers and challenges. And they need a home. That home is their anchor. They tack between feeling bold and anxious, mature and needing a mommy. Home is the place where they can suck their thumbs, curl up and recharge. Each teen is different so remember that some need more down time than others. You can monitor this by evaluating how well they manage emotionally. Paring down the outside activities can be one way to help them reconnect to themselves. But be cautious here. Sometimes we moms imagine they will be happier with less, when what they crave and need is more. Teens have a remarkable capacity to juggle many demands and some need that stimulation to become the competent people they want to be.

So what do you do if you have teens needing adventure and little kids needing a stable home routine? This is the trickiest period, but it’s important to be intentional. There are a couple ways to help your teens get out without sacrificing the little kids in the process (and there are ways to keep a nice, vibrant home life without forcing teens to sit home all day). Try some of these ideas and see how they work for you.

  1. Commit to one big “out of the house” project for your teen. Support one big project (Shakespeare, biology class, refurbishing a car, All Star soccer). Pay for it, help get the teen to that project, show up for performances or whatever is required. Then, above that one big project, put the responsibility on your teen to make the other stuff happen. That means if it requires money, they earn it. If it requires rides, they coordinate (create the car-pooling, or drive themselves, or work it out with you so that it doesn’t interfere with your routine with the younger kids). They take responsibility for making the stuff they want… happen. That’s part of adventure, responsibility and risk. They choose to make their lives more interesting, richer.
  2. Find one big project to work on at home. This can be as sophisticated as constructing a language (I have one kid who did this) or as simple as becoming really good at World of Warcraft. It’s great if your teens have a goal that can be pursued at home: watching all the top AFI films, writing a novel, studying art history, planting a vegetable garden, rebuilding the engine of a car, building a website, learning photography. School work (the stuff that goes on the transcript) is necessary, but if it’s all that your teen does at home, home will quickly become a chore rather than a place your teen wants to be.
  3. Protect your mornings. Let your teens know that you need the mornings with your younger kids. That means you will resist being a ride between 8:00 and 11:00 every day. (If a teen needs a ride home from school or something routine like that and it doesn’t take you more than 15 minutes round trip to make it happen, then that’s not unreasonable… but be wary of interruptions that take a half hour or more.)
  4. Triangle in other teen families. It’s sure nice if your daughter and her best friend are both in the play together. Car-pooling! It’s great if a group of kids takes biology together so they can study, ride-share and have friends all at the same time.
  5. Pass home responsibilities down to the younger kids; free your teens to do less at home. Remember when your oldest was 10? You expected a lot (cleaning a bathroom, laundry, setting and clearing the table). But now that your youngest is 10, you still expect the 16 year old to do those chores while the 10 year old seems “too young.” Nonsense. Get your younger kids to do the chores and free the teen to study, have a social life, work a job, and pursue extra-curricular activities. This helps your teen want to be home, too.
  6. Keep a computer in the family room. This enables you to be with your youngers while your teens have a reason to leave their bedrooms.

More ideas? Post them in the comments section.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Family Notes, General, Homeschool Advice, Tips for Teen Writers, Young Writers | 4 Comments »

Email: Reports from the front and a question!

Monday, October 19th, 2009


Julie,

I have been reading the Brave Writer Manual (The Writer’s Jungle) and LOVE IT.  I really like the easy approach you give us to teach our kids.  I’m still waiting for the October book to come into my library to start the Arrow program, so I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

The charter requires everything that the state requires but my rep is also a college Language Arts teacher.  She wants Daniel writing long book reports, essays, and paragraphs when completing school work.  My son, up until Brave Writer “hated” anything that required writing.  He would cringe when constantly reminded that he needed to be able to write an essay for the state tests in April.  Even writing the answers to questions in our history book required my writing the answers he dictated to me and then he would copy them.

Yesterday, we went on a nature walk, in between the rain storms, and collected flowers he wanted to put in a vase and do a writing project on.  We started with using the five senses and listing descriptive words.  When he finished that I asked him to write one sentence (no worries about spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.) and to my surprise he wrote two very good sentences.  He was so proud reading them to us when his dad came home from work.  When he was done, I congratulated him and let him know that he could be done for the day.  To my surprise he asked if he could write more.  Of course I said yes.

Julie, thank you for this great easy to understand writing program.  We are very blessed to have found you.

Ann

Thanks Ann! It’s always such good news to know that kids discover the power and pride of selecting words to represent their inner experience. You’re doing a great job!

–

Julie,

It’s wonderful to see you up and blogging again. You’re blog has encouraged me greatly these past couple years. I started a blog a couple years ago, because of your encouragement. Writing in it occasionally, my essay like entries reflect upon what I am learning on my journey. Rereading my blog, I notice how much of your philosophy on life (not just writing) has helped me flesh out the things I struggled with through my 19years of home educating. You have also made me realize the importance of example in my life to inspire others. The purpose I have for my blog is to impart to my children as they go through their journey of parenting. Your blog is one of two I come back to, continually. I just want to say thank you for inspiring me to inspire others.  : )

May God shower you with many blessings today!
Diane

Wonderful to hear from you Diane. I’m thrilled that my blog has encouraged you, but even more thrilled to know that you are writing your own! That’s what it’s all about.

–

Hi Julie-

Thanks for sharing at PEACH tonight and for signing your “autograph” on Stefanie’s writing book. :) That will be inspiring for her! I have been using your TWJ (The Writer’s Jungle) electronic since Sept. and we ordered various older electronic Arrows to jive with our TOG readings this year,too.  At any rate, as I told you, it has been going really well. Stef is happier and not as reluctant anymore. She likes the freewriting.   Would you recommend our next step to be just keep doing what we are doing? [buy other Arrows as needed]. I wasn’t sure if doing the Kidswrite Basic would be doing more of the same but with a larger audience and seeing the other kids’ writing with the teacher interaction? Since she is 10, do we just keep going until she gets to middle/high school and use your other essay writing classes, etc? Just wondered your thoughts,

Cindy

Hi Cindy.

You’re doing all the right things. Glad she is growing and relaxing. Your understanding of KWB is accurate. It’s a great place to get feedback, to see other student writing and to ask your in-depth questions about becoming your daughter’s most effective writing coach and ally. If you want an experience that is similar in terms of level, but that uses the tools of TWJ for a different product, I suggest taking a look at the Just So Stories course. It starts on November 2 and gives your daughter a chance to apply her newly found enthusiasm and skills to a specific writing project. This course is not offered again this year and the instructor is our longest-term writing teacher. In other words, she’s fabulous.

In fact, I hope lots of families sign up for JSS as it will close soon. Your kids get to write stories about animals that make use of Rudyard Kipling’s delightful use of language. You’ll love the process and the results.

Posted in BW products, Brave Writer Philosophy, Email, Language Arts, The Writer's Jungle, Young Writers | No Comments »

Visiting the Art Museum

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I posted this awhile back, but I think it’s worth another posting. When we recommend going to art museums, sometimes moms wonder what it’s got to do with writing. Isn’t art its own course of study? Why would Brave Writer specifically promote it?

I promote the enjoyment and study of art because a visual vocabulary is critical to a verbal one. We’re primarily stimulated every day through sight. As we observe the world around us, we form impressions that inform our attitudes, beliefs, preferences and habits. Art uses a visual vocabulary to communicate. We’re awed by the precision of strokes (to an almost photographic accuracy) in some paintings and then moved by the blurry soft edges of impressionism that tend to evoke a mood more than provoke a compliment. We see color manipulated to create atmosphere, we observe other times and eras (habits of dress, style of architecture, expanse of nature). We get to see style (we can compare and contrast artists within one era, and we can compare and contrast artists of different eras).

These encounters are different than nature or TV or flipping through a photo album. Artists are deliberate in ways similar to authors. They select the point of view, they edit the scene in front of them choosing what to paint and what to exclude, they pull from a palette of colors like authors draw from a lexicon of language. They tell a story through images. They create pathos or joy, indignation or peace. And all we have to do is stand and look carefully, allow the painting to speak through its images.

For writing, having a rich visual vocabulary is just as important as having a big word-filled one. Words help to express images and images give rise to words. They partner together to create meaning. A trip to an art museum also offers visuals to go with some of the legendary stories of our collective western history (the Greek and Roman myths, Christian imagery, specific historic events and figures, legends, Shakespearean tales, and the daily lives of people who really did live before our time). Together, paintings partner with language to create new levels of appreciation.

What follows, then, is a window into how frequent trips to the local Cincinnati Art Museum have enhanced our home education. Be not intimidated! Get the stroller and go. You’ll be glad you did.

–

2005

One thing I love about Cincinnati is that the art museum isn’t that far away. We went to it yesterday for the afternoon. We’ve been many, many times. I noticed that especially yesterday. As we walked in the door, Liam exclaimed, “I love that Chihuly chandelier.” Jacob added, “I could look at it every day.”

We made our way into the Greek and Egyptian displays and Caitrin noticed that they had rearranged them. She went on to point out which of the vases she liked best compared to last time. Liam wanted to stop and look at each of the hieroglyphs again.

We moved on and went into an exhibit that was put up by Proctor and Gamble - all Cincinnati art. I honestly didn’t recognize the exhibit but the kids did. They started reminiscing about the pieces they had loved the last time we’d been there. We marveled at the quality of the artwork. Later we found an entire exhibit devoted to Frank Duveneck (Cincinnati native) and were thrilled to see all his paintings together. That was new.

We made our way upstairs to see the Monets that are on loan from Paris and were blown away by the size and colors. Caitrin immediately told me the story of why this particular “Bridge at Giverny” was so hard to see close-up - “because Monet lost his eyesight as he got older and he would make paintings that were less and less realistic as a result.” She pointed out how much the bridge showed up if we were at the back of the room compared to up close when we could see each swirl of the brush up close.

Liam reminded me of the “Linnea in Monet’s Garden” book we had read and Jacob remembered the movie we had checked out from the library. We were amazed that the Cathedral at Rouen was so dull close up and so vibrant at a distance. You could see the source of light behind it and it glowed from across the room.

We walked into the modern art exhibit and all agreed again that we don’t like modern art, except that I really like Mark Rothko. Rothko asserts that he isn’t interested in form, line or color but in creating emotions. He says that he knows he communicates because when people look at his work, many report that they cry. Jacob, who couldn’t remember who Rothko was when I spoke of him last week, was eager to see our Cincinnati Rothko. He didn’t cry. He didn’t understand why anyone would. I didn’t cry either, but I did feel this weird surge in my chest.

Liam wanted to see a real Van Gogh so I took him to the only one in the museum. He remembered it then and commented that, “That guy must really have liked paint. I like his blue.” Caitrin added, “He uses globs of it. It’s nice to see the real painting so we can see the globs up close.” We wished for a Van Gogh exhibit to come to Cincinnati.

Our favorite rooms were closed for renovation. We were sad. So we went to other rooms we frequent less and noticed all the Italians. Jacob asked, “Will some of these painters be in Italy when we go next summer?” We discussed the benefits of great art being dispersed throughout the world rather than collected all in one town. We talked about why the Italians artwork was so much more dramatic than the British in the room next door. We shuddered in front of a boyish, rosy-cheeked David holding the recently severed head of a bloody Goliath.

We ended up in front of a painting that showed a woman deranged with a pale face, flowers dripping down her white gown, restrained by a man in a renaissance costume. They stood before a queen in anguish and a king with his face in his hands. Jacob called out, “Mom, this is from Hamlet! That’s Ophelia.” And it was. The man was Laertes, her brother. Apparently this artist had wanted to make a series of Shakespeare paintings to display together in England, but the project failed and the pieces he painted have been bought up by a variety of art connoisseurs. This painting is the first to have been purchased for the Cincinnati Art Museum and its purchase preceded the museum’s construction by about five years.

It was a great afternoon. And it was fun to see that repeated visits yielded so much in my kids.

Posted in Appreciating Art, Brave Writer Philosophy, General, Tips for Teen Writers, Young Writers | 1 Comment »

One Mom’s Lapbook Success

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

This summer we offered a Custom Writing and Language Arts Planning Program to moms who were interested in having me help them create a tailor-made writing and language arts curriculum for the year. The projects they’re completing are rolling in and I wanted to share this one as an example of how a lapbook can be used as a way to foster writing. Thanks Teresa and Joshua (10) for your permission to share your wonderful work!

Joshua’s lapbook features what he learned about sharks, a passion of his. Teresa and I discussed what to do about spelling errors, etc., via email. The basic idea is to slowly develop the skill of self-editing (kids edit their own work) and I gave her strategies for how to foster that practice successfully.

Enjoy!

–

Hi Julie,

This is for Joshua’s (10) September assignment - a mini report on Sharks.

I have attached 3 photos and retyped his text below.  This is completely his design and content.  What is interesting is that he wrote more about sharks in his freewrite, but he did not want to include it all in the report.  He knows SO much more than he was willing to put in there.   I am typing the text exactly as on the report, errors and all…

Photo “Sharks1″:
He designed it so that the photos are numbered and on a slide.  When you open the book, the center writing area has the corresponding number for that photo with a blurb about it.

Youngblood

Photo “Sharks2″:
Center text:

News flash, this just came in about sharks

1) One of the five most dangeres sharks the Great white.

2) Sharks have a sixth sence of sencing energy, this shark is sencing the fishes moovment or energy.

3) This picture is about how sharks find there food.

Right flap text (fictional story):

The dog and the shark
by Joshua Youngblood

There once was a dog and shark and this is the story of how they became friends.
One day John went on is boat whith Jack his dog. They went out into the ocean, but John forgot to poot the boat tale gate up so when he made a sharp turn and Jack slipped and fell into the ocean. When John got home he realised that Jack wasn’t there, meanwhile Jack was swimming around when he saw a shark coming at him Jack thought he was going to be eatten but he was not eatten, Jack asked the shark if he could bring him home and the shark said yes and they becaum friends. The shark took Jack to John and they lived happely ever after. THE END!

image008

Photo “Sharks3″:
Left flap text (Prelutsky poem copywork):

In the middle of the ocean,
In the deep deep dark,
Dwells a monstrous apparition,
The detested RADISHARK.
It’s an underwater nightmare
That you hope you never meet,
For it eats what it wants,
And it always wants to eat.

Its appalling, bulbous body
Is astonishingly red,
And its fangs are sharp and gleaming
In its huge and horrid head,
And the only thought it harbors
In its small but frightful mind,
Is to catch you and to bite you
On your belly and behind.

It is ruthless, it is brutal,
It swims swiftly, it swims far,
So it’s guaranteed to find you
Almost anywhere you are.
If the RADISHARK is near you,
Pray the beast is fast asleep
In the middle of the ocean
In the dark dark deep.

image009

Tags:
Posted in Activities, Poetry, Spelling, Young Writers, lapbooks | 4 Comments »

That Absurd Little Bird: the topic sentence

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

If you want to see my dyed gray hair stand on end, talk to me about the importance of the initial topic sentence.

My left earlobe is very attractive for three reasons.

I like anchovy ice cream more than pizza.

Captain Diaperpants is an entertaining book and I highly recommend it.

Need I go on? ::yawn::

Truth is: The topic sentence is to the paragraph what support hose are to vericose veins. We don’t really want to be aware of the work they’re doing. They offer support, yes, but why announce that fact to the world? The best ones are hidden in the compelling-to-read prose.

I was trolling the Internet the other day and read a whole bunch of sample paragraphs on a writing site for homeschooled students. The curriculum writer stressed the importance of both the topic sentence and structured, orderly writing as hallmarks of correct writing. She then conceded that this kind of writing would be “stiff and stilted and even boring in most cases,” but it didn’t matter. Didn’t matter? In what universe? The point was to learn to write these orderly, cardboard, stiff, spiritless, uninspired, i-n-s-i-p-i-d paragraphs (::grinding teeth:: ::mad hair standing on end::) with duty and diligence no matter how painful to the reader.

Oh break my writerly heart!

Reverse the curse of the initial topic sentence.

Here’s how:

  • Start in the middle.
    Don’t tell me all I need to know in the first sentence. Once I find out that you are a black belt in karate, what interest do I have in reading how you earned the belt? Start with the struggle, facing the brick with your sore hand throbbing as you prepare to sever it in half as with a cleaver. Leave me hanging out there, flapping in the breeze, worried and curious.

  • Get me involved.
    Use sensory detail to suck me into the scene without revealing your point until I’m hooked:

    I sneezed when I leaned over the basket of cumin to examine it for bugs. The spicy fragrance reminded me of kasbahs and Moroccan stews. Unfortunately, I found myself in a modern Farmer’s Market in downtown Cincinnati instead. I miss North Africa, where I grew up.

  • Put the main idea at the end of the paragraph.
    Most freewriting will start with a typical topic sentence that generalizes about the subject for writing. That’s fine when getting your thoughts together. To help hide the know-it-all sentence when you revise, move it to the end and see what happens. Like in the sample above—the topic sentence is last to appear. It’s so much happier modestly revealing itself at the end.

I know, I know. I didn’t even talk about the all important topic sentence in academic writing or in subsequent paragraphs. We’ll get to that another day. For now, hook me, seduce me, scare me, move me, grab me by the collar and don’t let me go. Lure me into your writing by concealing the point. That’s the point! (And that second-to-last sentence you just read, the one with the hairy mustache pretending not to be a topic sentence, is the topic sentence for this piece, artfully concealed until the end, incidentally…)

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice, Language Arts, Words!, Young Writers | 6 Comments »

Why Poetry?

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

It’s been awhile since I’ve made my case for poetry. So let’s do that today!

Why poetry?

Lots of moms are intimidated by poetry, imagining that poets hide mysteries within their rhymes. They feel inadequate to plumb those depths sufficiently for insight and meaning, thinking their kids will not “get it” either. High school poetry units often left many of us scratching our heads rather than savoring language.

In the homeschool, you get to reclaim poetry as a legitimate tool of language arts. Poetry is all about the words: choices, sounds, relationships, punch. Poetry aims to get a message/story across within limits: meter, rhyme, alliteration or assonance (or both!), stanzas, numbers of words. It’s the Sudoku of language!

Here are the ways I recommend you dip your toes into the stream of poetic expression:

  1. Read it. Don’t worry about meanings, themes, alliteration, rhyme schemes or meter. Simply let the words roll around in your mouth. Read the poem and ignore the temptation to wonder at it. Let yourself feel the words. You might only react positively to a word pair or one ending rhyme. That’s perfectly fine! In poems that don’t offer up their meanings easily, start with reading and letting yourself connect to whatever it is that draws your attention. (If nothing does, it’s fine to move on to the next poem. No need to squeeze “blood from a turnip.” You might “get it” some other year.) Also, read it through multiple times before you render a judgment. Poems benefit from multiple readings.
  2. Listen to it. As you read it aloud (or as the poem is read to you), listen to the sounds. Ignore meanings completely. What stands out? Rhyme? Repeated vowel sounds (assonance)? Repeated initial consonant sounds (alliteration)? Repeated consonant sounds throughout the line or poem (consonance)? How about interesting word uses (a noun acting as a verb, or a made-up word like you’ll find in Carroll or cummings)? Is there a rhythm you can anticipate? Can you beat your hand to the sounds - the accented syllables versus the ones that don’t make you slap your leg? Is there a pattern (each line starts with “I wish…” or ends with “…and so it goes”)?
  3. Listen to it for word choices. In addition to noting the sounds, note the word choices. Are there surprises (words used in ways you wouldn’t ordinarily think of them)? Are they plain Jane words (nothing special except they all go together in an interesting way)? Do you find yourself thinking about the way a word is used? Does the poet focus on concrete experiences or metaphor or something else? Is it funny? Why? Puns? Irony? Punchline humor?
  4. Meaning or theme? Now we get down to the point of writing the poem. What’s it about? You can be as superficial as you want. Just get the gist. Consult your kids if you feel stuck. They are surprisingly insightful. Figure out if the poem paints a picture of an emotion or experience, or if it is detailing a story or telling an idea. Perhaps it is commenting on a theme such as patriotism or friendship or love or autumn.
  5. Do you like it? Guess what? No right answers here. If you find it inscrutable, hard to read aloud, beyond your reach intellectually, of course you won’t like it and you don’t have to. It may be that you aren’t the right audience or it could be that you haven’t yet cultivated your poetic “sensibility” enough to get this more sophisticated poem. Remember: there are just some arenas where depth supports understanding (algebra and calculus are two of them; poetry is another). So if it so happens that you can’t appreciate some famous poem all your teachers told you was the best in its genre in 1762, that’s okay! You’re not there yet and you don’t need to be.

When you read poetry with kids, choose books that are high on rhyme, humor and concrete experiences. You’ll know they like it if they want to keep reading more from the same book. If they don’t, pack it up. Send it back to the library and go to the next book. The goal here is enjoyment of language. So many good (subconscious) things are going on in your head and in your kids’ heads when they play with poetry. Serve tea, cookies and a big side of optimism and your poetry experiences will become the highlight of your week. Trust me. I’ve seen it happen thousands of times.

Share favorite poetry books in the comments or ask me questions (or tell your story!). I’d love to hear from you.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Poetry, Tips for Teen Writers, Young Writers | 5 Comments »

One Writing Project Per Month

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Brave Writer philosophy suggests that you only tackle one writing project per month, per kid. That’s right. One a month. I figure you’ll get sidetracked by Thanksgiving or surgery or a ski trip during a couple of those months meaning, you may not complete the project slated for that month. Therefore, if you have ten projects slated and get 6-7 of them through the revision process in a school year, be happy! You’ve done good work!

But wait, how does this work? you ask. I understand. It sounds like so little output. So let me give you some guidelines for why writing less equals more value.

Let’s look at the four week process for writing any piece (paragraph, letter, essay, poem, article, story).

  1. Week One: Saturation
    During the first week, you aren’t writing. You’re reading, talking, watching videos, looking stuff up on the Internet. You might also be doing the thing you will write about. If the topic is Native American basket weaving, perhaps you will even try to weave a basket! No writing comes forth without saturation in the topic/subject matter. This is why we always recommend that your kids write about what they know well. They’ll have richer vocabulary and a deeper grasp of the topic. If the topic is new-ish to your student, you need more time to absorb the material before becoming saturated. Might take two weeks or three. Don’t rush it. Writing is the result of an overflow of knowledge about a topic. You can’t read a paragraph about Columbus and then require your child write a paragraph about Columbus. The sane response from a child is: But didn’t we just read about Columbus?
  2. Week Two: Freewriting
    The second week is when you put pen to page. This is the time to get words from the guts upchucked onto paper. We do this in any way we can. We use freewriting to help catalyze that process. You can do several freewrites over a period of days. There’s no law in the writing world that says the first draft is the only draft. You can select parts of the topic to write about and do those over two or three days with breaks in between. During the freewriting (or drafting) week, the goal is to get as much raw writing to work with as possible. Think of a specific aspect of the topic (gathering materials for basket weaving) and write about it. Then on another day focus on another aspect (patterns in basket weaving). Break it up! Makes life so much happier.
  3. Week Three: Revision
    Revision is not the same thing as editing (when I use the term). Revision is injecting new vision into the raw writing. It’s re-imagining the piece so that it springs to life. During revision, you want to focus on content, not mechanics. That means you’ll read the freewrites and look at places you can narrow the focus and expand the writing. Perhaps your child wrote, “Basket weaving is hard work.” You can look at that sentence and ask for more! What does he mean by “hard work”? Can he describe the process? And so on. You might want to rewrite the opening line (I always recommend that). Make it pop, surprise, sizzle. Draw the reader right in. Revision can take many days or short bursts of energy tackling a little bit at a time. Don’t do it all in one day. Don’t fatigue your young writer. Revise two or three important content related items and leave the rest alone. (Psst. I promise anything you don’t correct in this piece will magically reappear in another for you to address at a later date.)
  4. Week Four: Mechanics Mop-up
    Now you edit. Editing is simply cleaning up all the stuff that makes the paper hard to read: misspellings, missing punctuation, grammar errors, typos, indentations. Have your child look over his or her work first. Let the student find as many errors as possible. You only make the additional changes once the child has taken a whack at it. Never complain about something he or she missed. Make a mental note that you need to address the semi-colon in copywork or dictation. Let what they miss be information to guide you in teaching; don’t use it as a way to shame your child. Print and share with readers.

Once you work through this process, you’ll have had a rich experience of how writing is supposed to work. Believe me, doing this 5-6 times in a year is a huge amount of teaching! Far superior to cranking out contrived paragraphs based on tedious writing prompts in a workbook. Give your kids the chance to experience what writers actually do. They saturate and incubate. They mess around with words, getting their ideas onto the page or computer screen however they might. They revise those words once they get a little distance to make them more compelling and interesting. Then they mop up the mistakes and share it with readers! Your kids get to do that too. For more information on how to do this process, see The Writer’s Jungle.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice, Machete Mechanics, The Writer's Jungle, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | 9 Comments »

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