How Does Brave Writer Work?
Shared in BraveSchoolers:
One of the things I’ve noticed when parents are confused about how Brave Writer works is that our program asks them to shift paradigms. All paradigm shifts feel “confusing” at first because they are unfamiliar.
The key difference between what we offer and what many are used to is that we divide writing into two distinct categories:
1. Mechanics of writing
2. Original thought
We give attention to the mechanics through literature and the practices of copywork and dictation. We teach literary devices, reading, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and handwriting using someone else’s writing. We’ve found that kids can give full attention to the demands of the physical act of writing when they are first borrowing someone else’s thoughts—already written ideas.
We then turn to original writing in our product The Writer’s Jungle or our The Writer’s Jungle Online class. In these, we focus on giving you and your kids training in how to work together to help your child access his or her inner life—how to put those thoughts and ideas into words, how to get them out of the body, how to expand and enrich them as a team.
Eventually, these two sets of skills come together (the mechanics and the original thought) into writing projects. As your child feels free to self express in written form, you can now slowly add projects that match that child’s current developmental stage.
