A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Brave Writer is different from other writing programs because we use a contextualized approach to:

• literature,
• grammar,
• and mechanics instruction.

Rather than a linear-sequential approach, we focus on meaning-making (how children internalize what they are learning, rather than merely being exposed to material and tested on it).

The Arrow is a literature-rich program that allows parents and children to learn about the mechanics of writing as well as grammar and literary devices. These are taught through the literature and lead to depth of understanding and personal insight.

If you begin with the Arrow, you will cover a wide variety of grammar and writing mechanics concepts this year. Your child will experience great literature. You will discover how to connect to your learner.

To add a writing component, take it one thing at a time. If your child is needing help learning to put pen to paper and gain confidence, I recommend either:

• Brave Writer 101: The Guided Writing Process (our online class with an instructor)
• The Writer’s Jungle (similar content, self-guided by you)

If you feel comfortable with the writing process, start with Jot it Down or Partnership Writing to add what we call writing projects (writing assignments). These are month-long excursions into writing that result in a completed work (poem, report, letter, etc.).

Here at Brave Writer, we work hard to hear our parents and to make the programs accessible and useful to you.

This year, we’ve even added lifetime membership to the Brave Learner Home when you purchase a bundle (or take our classes). We will be a part of walking you through your programs that you use. We’ve added skills trackers and even planning tools.

What I’ve found in my time talking with customers over the last 20 years is that they are sometimes nervous about a program that asks them to read. They make a purchase and stop short of reading the program. They want the program to be “self-teaching” in a way. That they can open it and discover the instructions while standing next to their kids at the table. A “fill in a blank” or answering a single question or following specific criteria kind of writing assignment.

Brave Writer is not designed that way because that’s not optimal for writing growth—the kind of writing that

• has power,
• connects to a reader,
• and is enjoyable to read.

The Writer’s Jungle is meant to be read with a lemonade in one hand and a highlighter in the other. I seek your conversion to a new way of thinking about writing. There are activities to do in each chapter, but there is information to read first. The primary guidance for implementation is simply: read the chapter, do what’s in it.

The Dart or Arrow—same thing. Read the guidelines, then try one book, one week and see how it goes. Learn to have natural conversations about grammar and mechanics rather than chugging through worksheets.

It’s a different style of learning and education. It does take parental investment. We want to help you experience the shift. If you connect to my work in video and podcasting, you can have confidence that what we have built follows those principles. But it may take a leap of faith to experience it for yourself.

Hope that helps! You can always reach out to us at help@bravewriter.com with specific program questions.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebogartwriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!

Learning, at its best, isn’t about getting a job or finding a career. Learning is for its own sake:

• personal development,
• skill acquisition,
• a wider lens into history and other populations,
• community participation,
• global awareness,
• moral development,
• and an appreciation for scientific advancement, including today’s technologies.

Taken together, the fruit will likely be a career path today’s student will eventually enjoy. Yet if career is the goal, sometimes we undermine learning with pressure to perform.

We learn because learning grows us. Growth, not grades—that’s the objective.

When I spent the weekend with octogenarians, what stood out to me were two items:

1) Their education had focused on reading widely, auditing classes in college for the sheer pleasure of it on top of coursework, and a continued appetite for history, literature, the arts and sciences, even beyond career. Many of the priests who taught them made these subjects come to life for their students.

2) The second item was more troubling. The school methods for securing learning in the 1950s (particularly Catholic schools) were often harsh and punitive. Tongue-lashings, boxing a boy around the ears, cracking a textbook over a boy’s head, rapping the knuckles with a ruler, ridiculing one boy against another, using the threat of low grades as coercion… One lovely gentleman told me he was deeply soured and scarred by his experience. Others laughed off the abuse, saying it toughened them for adulthood.

To me: I’d call that education gone wrong—where behaving like a good student was prioritized over learning.

As homeschool parents, we may not crack kids over the head with a math book for not paying attention, but the undue pressure to like a subject or our expectation of a particular outcome can create a similar antagonism to learning. Learning thrives best when it’s an unfolding process of discovery—shared with a trusted partner. YOU!

It means a loss of control (at some level) but it’s so worth it when you see the lights go on!

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebogartwriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!