Should all family members have to do chores? Why or why not?
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Archive for October, 2014
Friday Freewrite: Chores
Mother Tongue
I want to live in a world where the content of written communication is more important than spelling and punctuation.
I want to live in a world where people are generous about typos and the accidental homonym-switcheroo.
I want to write in a world where readers value the risk of self-disclosure that goes into all writing, even blog comments, even Facebook status updates, more than grammatical accuracy.
I want to read in a world where voices very different from mine have access to being published, in their natural writing voices—whether or not they use “prestige English.”
I wish for a world where communication of all forms is regarded as self-expression, and the vibrant ever-changing shape of language is appreciated, not judged as good or bad or in need of protection or preservation.
I like language and people and varieties of spellings and deliberate and accidental misuses of grammar and creative punctuation.
I love seeing the explosion of self-expression that is the Internet—the spontaneous need to share and express and be heard. I love that that hunger overcomes the endless drum beat for perfectly edited copy.
I am less fond of the pride that stems from “being a grammar snob.” But I’m trying to love and understand that impulse, too. After all, I know it takes quite a bit of work to master the prestige form of English, and most people who do so are passionate about language, and have been rewarded for that effort.
If there is one soapbox that I still mount occasionally, it is the one that says, “There’s no officially right way to say or write anything. There is only custom and convention—and these evolve all the time. In the meantime, please—hear the content before you eviscerate the copy.”
Image by Quinn Anya (cc polka dots added)
Have You Been Avoiding Writing?
An email I received:
What do you do if you’ve been avoiding writing for a long long time? The child in question is 14. He is male.
My reply:
First, congratulations! Thank you for not damaging your writer. It is far better to ignore and avoid writing than to require it and create writer’s block due to applying methods that harm the child’s natural ease of self-expression.
Any child who has simply “not written” can be taught/encouraged to find his or her writing voice no matter how old. The older the child, the more swiftly this process can happen. Why? Because older children (12, 15, 17!) have been speaking fluent English for many more years than their younger siblings. They have read more words than new readers. They’ve handwritten or keyboarded to the point of near fluency (spelling, punctuation, how to make that weird cursive ‘r’, where the question mark is on the laptop). They have thought about ideas and have mastered facts that were unfamiliar to them at ages 6, 8, and 10.
When we turn our attention to writing with a child who is already a teen, we are greeted with a person who is truly ready to write! So if your way of avoiding all that trauma that attends most writing programs was to ignore it—well done! You’ve waited for the key moment to make real progress. I’ll help you with that in a minute.
If you are the parent of a teen who won’t write because the programs you used have created writing paralysis (a block that is bigger than “I don’t know what to write,” but is more like “I hate writing and will never use it therefore I will not do it now or ever, forever more”), you have a slightly different issue but no less solvable.
Here are the two strategies.
1. For the writer you neglected to cultivate: Start from scratch! You can. Start by listening to him, having great conversations, jotting down some of the great stuff he says in words out loud to you. Read back what he says to his dad or siblings or to him later in the day, talking about the content of what he said.
Begin with copywork—song lyrics, humor, his favorite quotes from books. Do it at the same time with him, copying your favorite quotes. Read your quotes to each other. Pick quotes for each other as a surprise. Light a candle or eat brownies or use fountain pens or create an entire passage by snipping the words from magazines and gluing them in order on a page. Make a collage of favorite quotes! Make up your own quotes!
Freewrite—about anything, about everything. We have prompts on our blog, but you can get them anywhere. With teens, you want the topics to be interesting to the teen. Provocative positions are often best: What makes X band better than Y band? If you could change one law, which one would it be and why? If 18 year olds can be asked to fight for our country, does it make sense to say they aren’t old enough to drink alcohol? What’s one part of your education you’d like to take control of and how would you do it?
Get into fan fiction or NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) or blogging about gaming or online discussion with kids who have similar hobbies or texting or Facebook or whatever drives a kid to write without thinking about “school.”
Play with words—use them, write big ones on a white board to stump each other, recite Shakespeare or poetry or quotes from Seinfeld.
Then, over the course of a year of this kind of practice, talk about moving into some preparation for college. Look at the Brave Writer online classes or local classes in a co-op or junior college. Move one bit at a time, but first, focus on reading, copying, freewriting, and language play. Like you would at any age.
2. For the damaged writer, the same process applies, but you have to rebuild trust and that happens through this little conversation that you need to have.
“Son, gulp. I’m just realizing that the writing programs we’ve used have been really unhelpful to you in becoming a competent, comfortable writer. I feel awful about it! Can we start over? I promise to pay attention when you say something is boring or isn’t working for you. I want us to start with writing that has meaning for you. Here’s a brownie. Let’s talk.”
Some version of this with more or less apology depending on how much damage is there will work. Brownies or going out for Cokes helps.
The goal with any child or teen is to recognize that the writing voice is already alive and well within. It may be hidden from view or afraid to come out, but some attentiveness to your child’s speaking voice and some humility about how difficult writing is for many kids will lead to breakthroughs. Start where your child is. Kids can go from not writing to college level comp between 16-18.
Promise.
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Poetry Teatime: Helping a neighbor
I wanted to share what we did today anyway so maybe others will be encouraged to reach out.
Our widow neighbor has been battling loneliness and depression lately. The kids and i picked up donut holes, brought a picnic blanket and invited ourselves next door. With books and donuts in hand, we set up teatime on the floor of our neighbor’s living room.
She relaxed in her comfy chair while we read poetry and sang songs to her. She was soooo thankful! (I found out later that she called her daughter to tell her we were coming. Then her daughter made her promise to call her back when we left because she was so intrigued by this “teatime” we were doing!)
We were able to bless each other using teatime today! I wonder- how have others used teatime to reach out to neighbors, friends, etc.? Think of it – using language arts to make someone’s day!! It was fun!
Jen
Image (cc)
Visit our Poetry Teatime website!
It’s a trap!
Don’t stumble into it! Surely you can see it coming a mile away. As you watch the smudgy shape on the horizon become bigger and more real, you have two choices:
To stand there and let that perfectly coiffed, smart, capable homeschooler with the engaged happy learners and the bright smile dim your shine with the enormous shadow she casts…
OR
…you can step aside, into your own pool of light, and lift your eyes to the sky—its boundless open expanse of reassuring space to grow and evolve and become.
You have that choice every day.
The perennially eager learners are a fantasy—children are like us.
Some days they are engaged and enthusiastic.
Some days they are bored and whiny.
Some days they are content to simply follow the program, too distracted or tired to commit energy to creativity or imagination.
Some days you have so much fun—then you tuck in your darling dear to hear him declare that he never has any fun.
You can’t control how your children respond to your best efforts and conscientiousness.
You can’t manage your children into “model unschoolers.”
You can’t keep up with your best friend or the fantasy homeschooler you think lives in another state, doing it more skillfully and with ease.
What you can do—what you can do right now today—is to be present to the children, home, and life you have. The small moments that accumulate to create the feel and memories of your family are happening all day today.
You can help establish some of the mood of your family simply through paying attention to:
- a smile directed at you
- a clutter-free space on a table for lunch or copywork
- the spontaneous sharing between siblings
- diligence even if displayed for only 5 minutes at a time
- humor and little jokes
- completion of one subject’s demands today (even if all the others fall through the cracks)
- one line of quality writing in a read aloud
- picking a flower from the back yard and putting it in a glass of water
- eating something yummy
- snuggling a child
- explaining a concept and seeing the light go on this time!
More goes right than you appreciate.
Keep a record of what goes right today and side-step the visage of model homeschooling. It takes self-will and discipline.
I know for me, I get caught into the snare of comparison when I spend too much time looking at photos of other families. I project my biggest fantasies onto the happy smiles. As my mom says, “Facebook shows us faces, not lives.”
We can’t know the lives behind the images. If the stories we make up in our heads make us feel worse about our own lives, we are literally stepping into the trap and are immediately whipped upside down, hanging by a snared foot, from a tree branch.
Instead, get off the well-trimmed path.
Make your own way through the forest and notice what you notice. It’s quite possible that if you move away from examining what other people do, and pay more attention to the amazing tenacity of effort you give to your family, you will discover much to be proud of.
I dare you!
Cross-posted on facebook. Image © Yuyuyi | Dreamstime.com
