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Mini Reports: Put the Fun in Non-Fiction!

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

By Brave Writer Instructor, Christine Gable

It was one of those evenings when all I needed was a hot soak in the tub—with lots of bubbles. That was where I was headed when my daughter asked if she could type on my laptop. Sure thing! I can’t imagine ever saying no when a child is volunteering to put words on paper (well, cyber-paper).

As I soaked my tired bones, I could hear my daughter busily typing away at my desk. Every once in a while I would hear a chuckle. (Hmmm, could she actually be having a good time?) Half an hour later, relaxed and pleasantly warm in my fluffy robe, I shuffled past her on my way to the bed, to read.

“Don’t look, Mom! I’ll show it to you when I’m done—I have to finish the last section.”

It was getting late by that time so the final installment was put on hold until the next day. Fast forward two evenings and I had the privilege of holding in my hands the very first issue of “Loose Ends,” her mini mag.

There were bullet points, an advice column, and a listing of 10 ways to use a bandanna. With a table of contents and catchy subtitles, this was quite an entertaining read.

Hold on here. Was I actually holding a piece of writing that had been voluntarily produced? Without warnings and threats? Something that didn’t have to be done for school … or for a grade?

Be still my heart.

My daughter had tucked in some health tips and historical tidbits she had learned from the past week in school. She had “created an expert” and quoted an attention-grabbing article. She had chosen fonts and colors that gave it the finishing touch. And best of all: her voice and personality shone through in the subject and word choices.

This was a mini report! She had created an original piece of writing that was witty, had insight—and (mostly) correct punctuation!

She had tapped into her current academic base of knowledge and had put her own unique voice and twist on it. She had chosen a format that allowed for creativity—and most importantly, one that “spoke” to her. It was a choice that she made as an author.

This is one of the most exciting events that we can witness as our kids are maturing and their writing abilities expand. While it can seem as though writing projects fall to the bottom of the to-do list because they can be fraught with angst and indecision, I’ve found that using mini-report formats can be very beneficial. Your children can use everyday real-life experiences and their current knowledge-base in concrete writing forms that help them distill those ideas into words.

Just the word “mini” in and of itself is sublime. We think “mini skirts” and “mini Coopers” and “Minnie Mouse.” The word “mini” feels easy and naturally small. Link “mini” to “report” and it becomes manageable, chic, and not too big—for not only does this non-fiction 750-word format take the Brave Writer philosophy of writing into the world of formats, it helps retain the playfulness that is at the heart of all good writing.

Write a mini-report? Hey, I can do that!

Each of the formats that we use in the Mini Reports Brave Writer Online Class offers kids a way to tap into their experiences and knowledge. It offers them a chance to use academic sources, to interview real people, to take notes while watching a DVD or TV show. Mini reports offer kids a means of growth from freewriter to academic writer—the perfect transition tool.

There’s just one thing I have yet to figure out: could taking bubble baths while handing the laptop to our kids be an important part of nurturing the mini report writing process? (I’m betting that Julie would approve.)

Now that’s one writing tip that I know we moms wouldn’t mind implementing at all!

Sign ups for the Winter Class Slate start on Monday December 5, 2011.

PS — I’ve included pictures of several mini reports from recent classes. It’s such a joy to work with students and parents on these projects! (Check out the Winter Quarter Mini Reports Online Classes here.)

This first one is about make-up! You can download and open it here.

The following photos are of a Lap Book about the NFL!

Posted in Advice from the pros, Brave Writer Philosophy, BW products, Young Writers | 3 Comments »

State Slogans

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

My daughter (21) and I got into a little chat this morning about state slogans. Oh my gosh, how we laughed! If you’re looking for a great way to foster discussion around word play or if you want to expose your kids to the various cultural associations with each state, be sure to Google the list. Here are our favorite top ten:

10. Texas: It’s Like a Whole Other Country (Sometimes, it seems they wish they were!)

9. California: Find Yourself Here (If there were ever a state where finding yourself rose to the level of imperative, California would be it!)

8. Delaware: It’s Good Being First (If you say so…!)

7. Indiana: Restart Your Engines (Home of the Indy 500)

6. South Dakota: Great Faces. Great Places. (Can you name both?)

5. Illinois: Mile After Magnificent Mile (Look up Chicago’s shopping district to understand this one.)

4. Kansas: There’s No Place Like Home (Used to be “The Land of Ahhs” – can you identify the irony in this one?)

3. West Virginia: Wild and Wonderful (Awesome! I want to live where people are wild and wonderful!)

2. District of Columbia: Taxation without Representation (snort)

and finally, drum roll please…….

1. New Hampshire: Live Free or Die! (I ask you: who enforces that?!)

These slogans give you a great chance to discuss word play, the history of various states, their selling points and how advertising is a vital part of any state’s economic growth (is the state emphasizing travel? business? historical importance? shopping? buying a home and staying put?). Here’s a link to the Wikipedia page: State Slogans.

Enjoy!

Posted in Activities, Words!, Young Writers | No Comments »

Surprise! No one teaches it.

Monday, November 15th, 2010

In all the writing literature I have crammed between DVDs on my book cases, the one literary element that gets short shrift is: Surprise. I can’t find it—no chapters devoted to expounding its importance. Exercises for plot, dialog, essay format, poetic structure, yes. Surprise? Well, occasionally it gets a passing mention. But almost always it’s tied to some other element (like, powerful verbs should be surprising, or a thesis statement is best constructed in a “surprise reversal” format). But that’s not what I mean. I mean, writing is absolutely dependent on subverting reader expectations over and over and over again, to be considered powerful.

Surprise means bursting through the door unannounced with cookies and milk, just for the reader, right when energy flags and minds wander. I’m not talking about big plot twists or even hiding information only to reveal it later. I also mean surprising the reader with a fresh metaphor; casting a commonly known term into a new grammatical role; picking unusual proper nouns for characters, street signs, shops; starting the story in the middle of the action; saving your best argument for last in an essay; hooking the reader’s attention at the top of the paper and saving the resolution for the conclusion (hook and return); littering the writing with alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme and consonance… and so on.

The best writing is as dependent on generously ladled portions of surprise throughout its lasagna layers of meaning, imagery, cool logic and vivid language as middle-aged readers are on good lighting and corrective lenses!

What’s more, it can be taught! Part of what makes your young writers’ quirky, poorly spelled and punctuated early attempts at written communication so enjoyable is the way their view of the world surprises your jaded, middle-aged one. You “crack up” when they surprise you.

It’s not hard to be surprising, once you know where to hide before you pop out!

Let’s take a look at this mysterious little element and introduce our kids to it. (Psst! They love surprises, so this may be your own subversive way to get them from the couch to the kitchen table, too!)

The “personal experience metaphor” trick
The hardest thing to do is to create fresh comparisons (metaphors, similes, analogies). Readers are sick of the “tried and true,” “old as the hills,” “dry as toast,” cliches that have served since the Spanish-American war! To wake up your readers, take an old cliche and buy it a new outfit. Draw from contemporary experiences that are alive to your kids.

Example: Her body twisted and flipped like Play-Doh in the hands of my baby brother.

Example: He focused his attention like a gamer trying to find the secret passage on level 6 of Mario.

Example: My Mom is older than an Atari play station.

Example: The early bird may catch the worm, but in my house, the early homeschooler catches up on math left unfinished from the day before.

The “grammatical transformation” trick
When I say, “What part of speech is ‘couch’?”; you think ‘noun’.” Right? How about this: “Don’t couch your words in flattery when you talk to me, mister!” Suddenly this ho-hum noun takes charge of the whole sentence (and the offending party!). If you flip the grammatical use of a few words, on a regular basis, you keep your reader vertical and awake! Not only that, habitual meanings can be subverted by using verbs and nouns in unusual pairings. “Dinosaurs marinate in the earth.” Do they? Well, yeah, kinda! It makes you pause and reconsider your internal vision.

Example: Drew lego-ed the sticks together into a kind of backyard fort.

Example: The birds pinwheeled through the autumn sky.

Example: The solution became a schmear of peanut-buttering one side of the argument while jellying the other, until the two competing options were slammed together into a single sticky whole.

The “collecting crazy names” trick
Get a moleskin notebook—the kind that fits in a pocket, or a purse. When you’re driving around, pay attention to signs. Jot down interesting names. Look at billboards, freeway exits, stores and hotels. Record terms that will serve as good choices for your writing. Names of people can be gathered from Greek myths, the Norse Gods, fiction you are reading, TV shows, cartoons, comic books, Shakespeare plays, a directory of your homeschooling community. It really doesn’t matter how you gather them, but pay attention and collect when you are not writing. Then when you need one, pull it out!

An expert in the field of surprising name choices is none other than J.K. Rowling. Whatever you think about her books, her use of creative names is unmatched. She tells her readers she’s been keeping a little notebook for more than a decade where she jots interesting names to be used at a later date. When she’d create a new character, she’d flip through her book looking for the right name.

Example: There’s a reason Rowling has “Hermoine” paired with Harry and Ron. Much more interesting than “Mary” might have been.

Example: Shakespeare has great names like “Hero,” “Benedick,” “Ophelia,” and “Iago.”

Example: The Greek myths include epic names: “Persephone,” “Demeter,” “Agamemnon,” “Xanthe” and “Kallisto.”

This hunt for a good name applies not only to people, but to stores, cities, street signs, organizations, tournaments—all fiction depends on a slew of proper nouns carefully selected.

Example: Diagon Alley (play on words: diagonally)

Example: Island of the Blue Dolphins (using a Native American name)

Example: Camp Kooskooskoos (Trumpet of the Swan: funny to say)

So join the game! Make “naming” a joy, not a chore.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Language Arts, Literary elements, Words!, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | 4 Comments »

Email: After the convention…

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Welcome new Brave Writer readers. I so enjoyed meeting many of you at the convention last weekend. I received the following wonderful email on Sunday and want to share it with you. It tickles me no end when someone puts into practice the ideas I share so effectively and quickly! Hope it encourages you too.

–

Julie,

My name is Kari McGrath. I sat in on three of your sessions with my friend this past weekend, and ended up buying your book, and I just can’t wait to get started! I have told every friend I’ve run into that homeschools, and I shared last night with my husband, who thought it sounded great. Unfortunately, I got sick at the convention and lost my voice (now you might remember me!), so I stayed home today from church, and my oldest daughter stayed home with me. I was so excited, I told her about this new writing program we are going to be doing, how it will be fun, and I don’t think we’ll cry anymore! I know you talked about “Freewrite Fridays” and said that it would work Mon-Thurs…well, I have to let you know it will work on a Sunday, too! I just had to share this with you.

After I told her today what we’d be doing (freewriting), I couldn’t wait! So, she and I went into the kitchen, got our paper and pencils. I told her what we were going to do, and told her I was setting the timer for 3 minutes. She looked scared, so I said, “okay, we’ll write together for one minute!” One minute went by, and she was still writing, so she gave me permission to set it for 2 more minutes. At the end of 3 minutes, I stopped, and she said, “hold on, I still have another sentence to finish!” (This is my daughter who CRIES and gets spankings for her attitude when we write!) We stopped when she was done, then we read ours to each other. Here is hers: (note: The first sentence is from Lemony Snickets-when Count Olaf died, the second sentence is from Star Wars, then the rest of the sentences go back to another scene from Lemony Snickets..whose books she LOVED!)

count olaf laid in the water with the helmet in his hands. but master i Just saved your life. As the harpon {harpoon} hit his stomach he flew threw the wall and in to the fountin as he was drowing violet Klaus and sunny ran to the fountin they said they were sorry he drowned.

Ha! It was ALL I could do to not ask why she changed courses from Lemony Snickets to Star Wars and back, but I didn’t!!! I told her it was very good! Then I read her mine. It went:

I love my daughter, Myra. She is a precious gift from God to me. I wanted a child for so many years, and God gave HER to me. I am so thankful He heard my prayers! She is compassionate, kind, a great helper to me, a friend to me. She’s a beautiful girl, but she doesn’t see that. Others do, though-they tell me all the time. I don’t know what she’ll do when she grows up, but I think she’ll make a good mother.

I couldn’t get through reading that to her without crying. And, I kept crying. (I think it was half love, and half relief that she actually wrote!) She came over and hugged me. I explained that this was all we were going to do-once a week-for the next eight weeks, and then I explained how we’d pick one to revise, etc… Her response? “Aw..just one a week? Can we do more than that? That was alot of fun!!” WHAT???!!! Wow!!! Then she said, “Mom, your ‘poem’ you wrote was really nice…can I keep it?”

All I have to say is, Thank you, Julie! And, I haven’t even started reading ‘the jungle’ yet! Ha!

God bless,
Kari McGrath, Kentucky

–
And that’s how it’s done!

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Email, Friday Freewrite, Young Writers | 2 Comments »

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 | 1 Comment »

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, Boomerang, Brave Writer Philosophy, BW products, Help for High School, Homeschool Advice, The Writer's Jungle, Tips for Teen Writers, Young Writers | 2 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.

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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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 Brave Writer Philosophy, BW products, 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 »

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