Archive for the ‘Brave Writer Philosophy’ Category

Good news, good news

I never get tired of hearing how Brave Writer students fare in college composition classes. Just yesterday, I ran into one of my local friends. I helped her son write his college admissions essay. He also took Kidswrite Basic back in junior high when I taught it. This is not a kid who I remember for his writing. He struck me as a typical boy writer who simply needed some coaxing to discover that the thoughts in his head deserved to be recorded in writing. He is more than able to tell a good story about himself and his experiences given the right set of questions and time to develop his thoughts. In working with him on the admissions essay, it was very enjoyable for me to see him develop insight into his experiences (more than merely reporting them).

So when I ran into his mom, she stopped me to say, “Dan got his first essay back in English Comp 101 at Miami of Ohio.”

“Oh?” I said. “How’d he do?” I expected her to tell me he had done well, earning an A or B (figuring she wouldn’t stop me to tell me he failed).

“Well, he not only got an A on his paper, the professor asked him to sign a permissions notice so that the department could publish his essay in the English department journal as an example of what a well-written essay should look like for incoming freshmen.”

“Nuh-uh,” I replied articulately.

“Yuh-huh,” she countered. And we both cracked up. Dan – her son, not her naturally-gifted writing daughters.

There’s something about those opening hooks, the ease with which Brave Writer kids learn to express themselves combined with their confidence in applying their writing voices to academic formats. Their writing wins over their professors. It keeps happening.

If you have a story to tell, please share it here!

Posted in Alumni, Brave Writer Philosophy, General | 2 Comments »

Scheduling The Writer’s Jungle

Scheduling the Writer's Jungle

Some of you wonder how to use The Writer’s Jungle once you’ve got it. You wonder how to make a schedule that will help you execute your intentions yet also allow you to realize that you have in fact covered material that benefits language arts and writing. I’ve given the following advice when emailed or asked these questions.

The Writer’s Jungle is set up so that you can do one chapter per week (particularly the first 9 chapters). The first chapter focuses on language arts. I usually suggest reading the chapter and then actually doing the suggested practices (just one or two to get started).

So often we homeschool parents are in such a hurry to “get through” stuff, we miss the chance to really take our time and learn how to do things, to really enjoy them and make them successful one thing at a time.

From chapters 2-9, you will want to schedule (to your heart’s delight!) a week for each one. You can read the material and then execute the task, exercise, or writing idea that goes with each one. These chapters focus on the writing process and they are the ones you will return to again and again as you repeat writing tasks (like forever…).

The rest of the manual can also be used one chapter at a time. Read it over the weekend, think about how it would be useful to you in the coming week and then *actually do* what it suggests.

  • Word games
  • Poetry
  • Reports
  • Turning an assignment into a high quality writing topic

…these are all worth doing and can be scheduled.

For parents and kids who struggle with writing and the teaching of it, I suggest in the intro to the second edition a practice that has helped lots of Brave Writer parents: the eight-week freewrite.

Here’s how it works

  • You and your kids freewrite once per week (a Friday works well).
  • On the Thursday before that first Friday, have everyone freewrite a list of topics he or she knows really well.
  • Then on the next day and the seven Fridays that follow, select from the list a topic for writing (or use a freewriting prompt from the blog posted every week) or the writer may choose a totally different topic that means something to the writer that day.
  • Set the timer for a length of time that is reasonable (younger kids – 5-6 minutes, older kids 10-15 minutes). When it dings, stop writing.
  • Offer to share your writing (as modeling) and invite the kids to share theirs. *They don’t have to.*
  • When sharing is done (with or without full participation), thank the kids for writing and have each of you (parent included) put the freewrite into a manila envelope.
  • Do this for a total of eight weeks worth of freewrites.
  • On the ninth week, have each writer open the envelope and take out the eight pieces of writing.
  • Ask the writer to select the freewrite he or she would like to work on for the revision stage of writing. That’s the only one that will go through the revision process.
  • You can then spend the next three weeks revising that one piece.

Effectively you could do this process all year and wind up with four or five high quality writing products that have gone through the revision process while having promoted writing every week of the school year.

One more “check list-y” idea

Sometimes the science and math types are used to measuring school in terms of quantifiable work (grammar, pages, spelling tests, paragraphs written, punctuation taught). I like to recommend making a different kind of check list.

Example:

  • I had a long conversation today with one child about a topic that really interested her.
  • I laughed at something in a magazine article and shared what I thought was funny and why with my kids.
  • I watched TV with my kids and we talked about what we watched (including new vocabulary, the campy dialog – isn’t it always? – and stereotypes).
  • I complimented one child for a great use of a new word, an insight, his sense of humor or the clarity with which he expressed himself.
  • I let one child teach me how to do something I didn’t know how to do.
  • I read aloud to my children.
  • I read one poem with my kids.
  • I paid one child a quarter for identifying a typo in published material. (We’ve been doing this since my kids were little and my 20 year old still calls me to tell me the typos he finds in books! Still wants the quarters too.)
  • I provided stimulation for new ideas, beauty or experiences (cool new book, artwork, nature…).

Sometimes if we just put the intangibles in a list, we’ll be more likely to execute them and believe we’ve actually done something worthwhile.

Brave Writer Online Classes

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, BW products, Homeschool Advice, The Writer's Jungle | 1 Comment »

Introducing: One Thing!

Brave Writer presents: The “One Thing” Series

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the good homeschooling advice available today. Homeschool can quickly become a slog through “wonderful ideas” rather than the inspired, natural rhythm and routine that fosters a love of learning and healthy educational growth in your kids. Good ideas abound, but they are only as “good” as they are satisfying to parent and child in the application of them to our lives.

To help overwhelmed mothers, I’ve often suggested that they focus on “one thing” at a time. Pick a practice or event or strategy that is appealing, that you believe in, that you hope to bring into your family life and focus on it. Plan for it (learn what it is and how it’s done), prepare for it (get the right materials, set aside the right amount of time, talk enthusiastically about it with your kids), execute it (with the phone turned off, with your full attention in the moment, not rushing ahead to what you’ll do when this event is over), give it all the time it needs (until interest flags). Then clean up and before doing something else the next day, reminisce about the event/project/activity. Then try it again, in a few days or a week later. Once you have begun to see a routine practice develop into an effortless part of your life (or at least, not painful or agitating), it’s time to add something new again.

One thing.

You can develop a pleasing homechool routine “one thing” at a time.

True to our philosophy, we’ve decided to offer a series of short, one-month classes that feature “one thing” at a time.

The Brave Writer Lifestyle includes experiences like art appreciation, nature walks, freewriting, dictation and copywork, poetry enjoyment and writing, revision of one writing project per month, grammar study through games and interaction with real literature. Rather than sending you off to invent how to do these all on your own, the Brave Writer team is heading up short, intensive workshops to help you develop the skills and creative applications for each of these ideas, one thing at a time.

One Thing: Copywork and Dictation
Our first one-month session starts October 8 and features an in-depth treatment of copywork and dictation. Rita Cevasco, Brave Writer instructor and professional speech pathologist, will teach this month-long workshop. Families with children who struggle with language processing disorders are especially encouraged to sign up as Rita’s expertise makes her an invaluable resource for the mom wanting to help her language impaired student.

However, these kids are not the only ones who will benefit from Rita’s instruction. This course is designed to show any family how to maximize the values of copywork and dictation in ways you haven’t thought of before. If you’re new to copywork and dictation or you want someone to hold your hand in showing you how to take advantage of great literature to teach language arts naturally, this is the perfect setting for you.

For families committed to copywork and dictation as the primary tools of language arts (grammar, spelling, punctuation, literary elements, and handwriting), this four-week course will take you a good distance in establishing copywork and dictation as regular practices in your homeschool (and will help you past the anxiety that drives you keep those workbooks stashed in a closet as a back-up plan).

Included in the course: One issue of the Arrow and one issue of the Boomerang (you will decide which level to use for each child during class; both will be provided).

Tuition is: $99.00 (per family)

The tuition is per family as you will be doing the work with your children at home and therefore can apply anything you learn to any number of kids. In other words, we’re offering you a real deal in terms of tuition!

Registration opens Wednesday. I’ll post a link here and on the home page of the website. Hope you’ll join us!

If you have any questions, please post them here in the comments, or email me.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, BW products, General, One Thing | 1 Comment »

How Brave Writer REALLY Works

How Brave Writer REALLY Works

I get emails often asking how Brave Writer works. I sometimes get a little agitated by the question because I can’t just point to an outline of assignments and say: “Do these. They work.” I know many mothers hope to hear something like that.

I’ve devoted dozens of pages on the website and this blog to helping parents catch a vision for how it works. And I’ve tried to make it clear that Brave Writer is not just a bunch of writing techniques, but rather:

  • a whole lifestyle
  • a philosophy

…which undergird any and all writing and reading you do as a family.

This came home to me in two ways this week.

My son Jacob just started full-time high school. Leading up to the fateful day, he shared off-handedly in the car that he was looking forward to going to school because “we hadn’t done anything for three years” at home.

Excuse me? After I picked up my slain ego off the floor of the van, I reminded him of a few things he could “count” as school… He cares about me, so he listened sympathetically but perhaps unconvinced.

He returned from a long day “in the building” on that first day of classes exhausted. We peppered him with questions anyway.

He told us that in his English class, every book (save one) and most of the short stories the teacher had slated for the year, he’d already read. In fact, he was a bit miffed that they had assigned Lord of the Flies and he had not read it yet. He said, “Dad kept telling me to read that book and I haven’t yet. I’m so bugged at myself.” I reminded him he could read it over Christmas break, and he cheered up.

When the teacher asked the students who had seen a Shakespeare play, he raised his hand along with a few other students. Some had seen Romeo and Juliet. Jacob listed the plays he’s seen (about 20) and when he got to A Winter’s Tale and The Merry Wives of Windsor, the teacher shut him down chuckling saying that when they read Julius Caesar later that fall, they’d consult Jacob as the resident Shakespearean expert.

Then she assigned a freewrite on the first day of class and his comment to us was: “I used three huge vocabulary words in my freewrite just to play around. It was fun.”

In his geometry class, he got 100% on the algebra review quiz. In Spanish, he aced the first quiz as well. In science, he had already worked at home with a variety of measurement systems they introduced. In band, he’s playing saxophone as well as the rest of the section.

At the end of his recounting of the day, I chuckled:

“Jake, you were homeschooled. Get it now?”

He got this incredulous look on his face as the light dawned. “You mean, all those plays? All the freewriting? The books and stories I read? You mean that counts as homeschool? I did those because I like them, not for school.” “Yeah, I know.”

Somehow through his relationship with public school kids, he got to thinking that our lifestyle couldn’t “count” as school. He had not realized that our style of education was an education, and yet now, he discovered how prepared he is (not only prepared, but in many cases ahead). Yeah, satisfying for that recovering ego, I tell ya.

The second example of how the lifestyle works was posted on our forums about the steady growth of a dysgraphic/dyslexic son. Rachel’s son made loads of progress with his learning issues through the Brave Writer lifestyle as well as piano lessons. Her post is written to help other mothers wondering how to help their similar children. She writes:

One tip I would have about another dysgraphic child is to treat writing (and education) like most of us treat other developmental milestones. Julie so gets this!! I don’t believe that piano instruction is “the answer” for every child with dysgraphia by a long shot. It has worked for us because my son had an interest in music so he was plugged in and wanting to learn. That WILL (as Charlotte Mason called it) or desire to learn factor is *huge*!! Maybe your son is motivated by music too? That is what makes all the difference, I’m sure.

We started Brave Writer in the Jot It Down phase with him. 14. Yup. Jot It Down. That’s where he was when I looked at chapter 14 in The Writer’s Jungle [now Growing Brave Writers]. To my friends who have purchased The Writer’s Jungle I tell them to read that chapter first.

We more or less had to build up his idea of what writing is all about through Freewrites. He needed to want to write before we could go onto each of the the next steps. Next we incorporated Tuesday Teatimes. As the year went on we added a Boomerang subscription and copywork. Then dictation. That started one word at a time at first. I can’t believe it that I can now read whole sentences through, then once or twice more with natural phrasing and he gets it. We do pull our spelling words out of this and we do the grammar lessons that crop up from it too. Finally we’ve been doing the process pieces (these are freewrites taken through the revision phases). Three in the spring of last year and he’s working his way through a book review this month. (His choice…and not that easy for him to do!)

He types his answers. (We use a Dana by Alphasmart.) There is just no way for him to keep up with handwriting. He only prints and it’s nearly illegible still. That probably won’t change for him. If he someday wants to work on that I will support him in it. He’s just not ready for that. The school used to say that if we wanted good handwriting we could get it and nothing but it. It would take up all of his time and energy to do that one thing. So typing is what they were teaching him and it has been the right direction for us to follow.

If I can bore you further!! Here is how our Teatime went yesterday:

We had Teatime outside with iced tea, lemonade and animal crackers in the shapes of insects. I read from our “Nature Watch” book about what’s coming up in September all around us. The 13yo read “The Walrus and the Carpenter” from our poetry anthology. Our youngest shared poems from his latest issue of Ladybug magazine. Then this oldest son pulls out this poem that he wrote that morning to surprise us:

When a bright day meets a quiet night,
all of the animals on earth take flight.
To and from their nests they go,
in a hectic yet silent twilight show.
The bats take off and the birds touch down,
always around never touching the ground.

In a last yawn before bed
the sun spread
it’s colors wide,
and the moon will no longer hide.
One by one the stars do arrive,
to dance all night long was the goal to which they strive.

He did this poem without editing in one sitting. He says that he still wants to work on it. I can’t believe it. He actually *wants* to revise!

This is the Brave Writer Lifestyle for a child who struggles. Jacob’s life is an example for a kid who thrives and excels. (I have both kinds of kids in my five. In fact, I have one right now living the very same kind of BWL described above.)

Brave Writer is more than a book or a manual or a course.

It’s an approach to learning that creates momentum for your child through providing language related experiences one at a time over time, building on successes, taking advantage of interests and passions in the process. Writing is a part of that.

Writing is the written version of the mind life of your child.

You get to help him or her discover what is worth putting on that paper, and then how to manage it:

  • revise it
  • expand it
  • clean it up
  • shape it

Reading, viewing plays, seeing movies, drinking tea and reading poetry, having long conversations over dinner and in the car really are your homeschool now. They really do teach your children what they need to know.

Then when they show readiness, they can take that high school essay class and it won’t be intimidating.

It’ll feel just right.

Party School!

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Email | 5 Comments »

Reasons #1672, 1673, 1674, 1675, and 1676

Overheard this summer…

Johannah (17): JK Rowling really is a master storyteller, but she can’t put words together like Charlotte Bronte. I’m obsessed with Jane Eyre suddenly. Every sentence is a masterpiece.

Noah (20): So you won’t believe what I bought in California. Books. I have a whole suitcase of them: Aristophanes’ plays, a set of three E.M. Forster books (A Room with a View is so well-written – I just flip to any page and I can’t stop laughing), James Joyce and this book called Hopscotch (it starts in chapter 73 and then you have to follow the directions to which chapter comes next… very postmodern). And that’s not all of them. I love used book stores.

Caitrin (10): Book two of Harry Potter is much more interesting to read after book seven. It’s amazing what muggle cast (radio show for HP fans) missed that is right there, plain as day, that gives away the whole story! …Well, we all missed it, I guess.

Liam (13): I can’t read books that aren’t good. Jack London is a good writer. There aren’t very many writers I think are very good. Well, Avi is good, too.

Jacob (15): When I get that tired from reading, my eyes glaze over and I have to reread the sentence, like, fifteen times and I still have no idea what it says. But staying up all night? It was worth it. A couple of Cokes and changing positions, and I kept going. It took me only twelve hours to finish book seven. It was the happiest and saddest twelve hours of my life.

I realized the other day… it’s happened. They’ve caught the bug. Our kids are telling me what to read. They’re the ones evaluating which books have good writing and why. Heck, they’re reading books I haven’t even read and didn’t want to… And they’re doing it during the summer, spending their own money and free time on them.

Yep; more reasons I love homeschooling.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Family Notes, General, Living Literature | 4 Comments »