Would you like to have enjoyment, playfulness, and connection in your homeschool? In the recorded broadcasts below we talk about the foundations needed to create that kind of dynamic family culture.
Such as:
Can we have a little heart-to-heart? I feel moved to talk about a topic that keeps popping up in email, phone calls, and messages. It’s this:
They sometimes call in tears. Or they email to tell me they thought they were the only ones.
Nope. I cried too.
I cried when I was overwhelmed—so much to do for so many.
Maybe you cried when the middle child (7) read before the oldest (9).
We cry when all our best efforts—the field trip planned weeks in advance—turns into a toddler meltdown and is ruined for everyone.
Some of us dissolve into a hot mess because the partner we trust to encourage us questions our strategy, judges the not-yet-proven results, sows doubt.
The tears slide off our cheeks in the shower, out of view. But they’re real.
I remember taking time each week when my kids were small to book a room in the library for myself. My husband took care of the children at home while I spent 2-3 hours in a sound proof closed space, alone, ostensibly to work on freelance writing.
Many weeks, however, I wound up on the floor—sobbing, and then sleeping the deep sleep of emotional exhaustion. More than once, a kind librarian had to gently knock on the door to wake me so the next user could enter.
I didn’t always know how weepy I was until I had space to be alone, to feel it. In the quiet, my worries bubbled to the surface.
And the worst one of all:
Who do I trust: me? my spouse? my friends? the school system? other home educators? authors of books? curriculum designers?
A different kind of tears.
And then… and then!
One of my kids would hand me a page filled with writing, happen-stance. On that page: a poem, a story transcribed for a non-writing sister, a diary entry, a letter, a list of birds watched at the feeder entered in a little notebook!
The bundled nerves unwound, grew slack.
Different tears—the good kind, the “I’m so glad I keep at it” kind.
My kids’ eager need to share their inspired work moved me, touched me.
A dawning awareness grew over a decade.
I could trust my children. I could trust their voices. In writing. In sharing. Certainly they didn’t know everything about how they were preparing for the future. The need to prepare them was still on me.
But in the midst of the doubts, one unfailing truth became clear:
Nothing reassured me the way my children’s own growth did. When I could recognize the spark of learning, the personality of my children popping through their writing, the happy confidence of accomplishment in whatever task, I knew I was on the right track.
You can know it too. Look to your children.
The best home education moves YOU to tears, not your kids.
Stay the course!
We like to say in Brave Writer: When the tears come, the writing’s done.
Let’s flip it around:
Different cultures have different table manners. For instance, in some places slurping is frowned on. In others, it’s encouraged.
If you could make your own etiquette rules for eating, what would they be?
New to freewriting? Check out our online guide.
by Rita Cevasco and Tracy Molitors
Day One: Laying a Path
Day Two: Bits & Pieces I
Day Three: Bits & Pieces II
Day Four: Story Symbols
“You have helped ease my mind . . . Seeing you demonstrate that there are choices to be made in every passage is liberating. I see more clearly that we are laying a path. What that means is this: it’s a process!” —Tara, Homeschool Parent
Connecting with Characters is one of the chapters in our book, Trees in the Forest: Growing Readers and Writers through Deep Comprehension.
Cartooning Characters is a strategy we explore in order to enrich understanding in a story. We readers are more likely to relate to a story’s theme when we relate to the story’s character. Cartooning is one step in Laying a Path to deeper comprehension.
In interpreting our character’s conflict and the stories themes, we begin to relate the story’s ideas to both the broader issues of the world and the narrower issues of our own lives. This is the definition of connecting with text and active reading: the ability to understand the writer’s themes, analyze how and why ideas are revealed, and to relate those ideas to our own lives and to all of humanity. Connecting with text is a tall order; all of us—children and adults—grow in these skills throughout our reading lives.
Helping readers develop a habit of making connections and analyzing text can happen at any age, especially when we capture and record our thoughts while reading. In our book we use the practice of copywork to help us capture and record our thoughts. We teach strategies to intentionally turn a story’s passage into a language arts study, taking a small bit of learning (a tree) and using it to gain understanding of literature (a forest). We call this in-depth study of copywork (the equivalent of studying a tree) Intentional Copywork.
Intentional Copywork must begin with comprehension—after all, understanding is a necessary first step in deep learning. I discovered in my Foundations class through Brave Writer that many families weren’t using the practice of copywork and dictation to its fullest, and therefore, either giving up or missing opportunities. Sometimes families assigned copywork, but didn’t realize their kids weren’t reading and understanding the chosen passage. Thus, part one in our Trees in the Forest Series gives various ideas for one aspect of language arts—comprehension—that can be used within a week of Intentional Copywork. Like our Cartooning Characters activity, we provide strategies that can be used again and again—all containing Bits and Pieces of writing.
Today we will add context to our cartoon. One way we add context is by engaging in copywork. We will add a quote from the story that seems to fit our cartoon. It might be a favorite quote, an oft repeated character line, or just something that tickles our fancy. The quote might illustrate the symbol or the theme. The quote might illustrate the conflict. It is the artist’s choice! But since the writing is going onto our week-long project, let’s write as neatly as we can. If you have a young or struggling writer, be sure to add lines for guidance.
Voila! We just gave our children a great reason to be neat in their copywork.
Lastly, we will add context to our story by drawing in the setting. Every story is told in its own little world. But story worlds are designed to help the reader relate the conflict and themes to two other worlds: the larger human world and the smaller world of our own lives. We use another activity in our book to help children make this connection, but Cartooning Characters is a great start.
If you haven’t already, download the free PDF to see how we encourage children to think about their character’s world, adding context through setting and quotations. We will add context to our drawing sheet that now contains all five days’ worth of activities. There is an example for your reference.
Over these five days, we have
We began with a simple drawing, and ended with a complex character sketch! We gained insight and added our thoughts to the story. As we say in our book—without a reader’s response, there is no story.
Download our PDF, or continue with Day Five . . .
Trees in the Forest: Growing Readers and Writers through Deep Comprehension
by Rita Cevasco with Tracy Molitors
Think deeply to write deeply. . . Geared to parents, educators and Speech Language Pathologists, this creative resource can be used to aid children in becoming lifelong readers and writers. Available in PDF or PRINT formats.
For the digital PDF version:
Take $5.00 off at check out!
Enter Discount Code: RITA5
(expires January 31, 2017)
[This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. When you click on the link to make a purchase,
Brave Writer receives compensation at no extra cost to you. Thank you!]
by Rita Cevasco and Tracy Molitors
Day One: Laying a Path
Day Two: Bits & Pieces I
Day Three: Bits & Pieces II
“He was convinced you were going to ask him why he has trouble writing, so I think he was relieved when you talked about the brain and helping other kids (some who struggle more), allowing him to be honest about how he hates writing. Plus, you were so positive about his strengths and interests.” —Melissa, Homeschool Parent
Non-struggling readers and writers find it easier to match their writing skills to their thinking skills. They can achieve a flow from head (thoughts) to hand (writing on paper). Yet even those of us who easily flow from head to hand find writing in Bits and Pieces a great way to capture and stimulate our ideas.
Most children who struggle with reading and writing have perfectly wonderful thinking skills, but their writing skills cannot keep pace. For children who write more slowly than their thought process, Bits and Pieces of writing is a useful tool in helping them grow as independent writers. Bits and Pieces keeps the emphasis on their thoughts.
The Bits and Pieces of writing strategy also serves as a bridge from writing for your children to them writing independently. Even though we, as parents, applaud our children’s thinking skills, they become convinced of their abilities when they can write their ideas for themselves. In all things, kids believe real progress is defined by “I can do it myself”—from tying shoes to driving a car.
Cartooning Characters gives kids new ways to convey their ideas. This is empowering, especially since they are still learning how to analyze a story and interpret a writer’s message. Yesterday we gave attention to what our characters want. When we make personal connections with characters, we become more comfortable interpreting our character’s thoughts and desires. Once we understand our character’s thoughts and desires, our story’s conflict is revealed. As conflict is revealed, our story’s themes begin to rise to the surface.
One of the ways we gain insight into our story’s theme is by watching for symbolic language within a story. Today in Cartooning Characters, we will begin to identify our story’s symbols.
Some symbols are the result of the writer’s intentional efforts. Noticing these symbols, and the messages they represent, is important to understanding a story below the surface of the text. Other symbols occur in the head of the reader, based on personal experience. For instance, to some readers, a character’s car might represent socioeconomic standing or cool-factor, while others may disregard the car as unimportant. Some readers might resonate with a specific scene, so an item within that scene may be their choice to represent one of the story’s main ideas.
Remember: Symbols often point to themes. Recognizing themes in a story is easier when we identify not only the character’s conflict, as we explored yesterday, but also the story’s symbols, as we will explore today. Symbols are signs, so we want to imagine what our signs are saying. Like advertisements, they allow the writer to share the story’s sound-bites with us, the reader.
When we draw today with our children, we will look for symbols within our story, and then write a tag on the symbol to tell what the symbol signifies. Again, it may help to think about an important event in the story, and what items are in that scene. One of those items can become our symbol for important ideas in our character’s world. We will also create a sign for our character to carry—like a placard—broadcasting each character’s personal message to their world. We will again use Bits and Pieces of writing on signs and symbols to explore our story’s themes.
If you haven’t already, download the Cartooning Characters PDF to see how we encourage children to identify and interpret their character’s symbols. You will receive a packet that contains a blank drawing sheet, five days’ worth of activities labeled Day One through Day Five (each adding to the original drawing), and an example of Tracy’s completed cartoon for your reference.
We are on Day Four of the activity, so be sure to work up to that day. Tomorrow, we will give you insight into Day Five’s strategy. We will explain why the next step matters, so be sure to return to the blog. Spreading cartooning over many days allows us to revisit our character, each day digging deeper into our thoughts and writing a bit more.
Trees in the Forest: Growing Readers and Writers through Deep Comprehension
by Rita Cevasco with Tracy Molitors
Think deeply to write deeply. . . Geared to parents, educators and Speech Language Pathologists, this creative resource can be used to aid children in becoming lifelong readers and writers. Available in PDF or PRINT formats.
For the digital PDF version:
Take $5.00 off at check out!
Enter Discount Code: RITA5
(expires January 31, 2017)
[This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. When you click on the link to make a purchase,
Brave Writer receives compensation at no extra cost to you. Thank you!]
