Archive for the ‘Email’ Category

Email: Going on vacation and journals

Dear Julie,

Hi! I just came across your Brave Writer website from a fellow homeschool mom and it sounds great.

I have a 7 year old daughter who writes very well, she creates stories and illustrations, and she also does copywork, all on her own. She is a good reader, too. I pretty much stay on the side of this whole natural process. I supply supplies for her and give her encouragement and listen when asked but pretty much not actively involved in it.

We are getting ready for a move from California to Indiana and we are planning on a 2 week camping trip from CA to IN. Camping down the coast of CA to the Grand Canyon and on from there. She has been designated as our Secretary and Artist of our trip. I took her and she picked out a travel journal and a special drawing pad and pencils. Can you think of anything further I can do to encourage this process? She has been actively involved in the planning, too and has already prepared a scrapbook for our photos. I am thinking that on a daily basis, back at camp, we can sit and record our days activities. Should I do it with her? What are your thoughts? I already have a notebook filled with all the things that we are hoping to see on the way. Should I also get a travel journal and we do it together? I want it to be fun for her. Should you have any further ideas or suggestions, please let me know!

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely, Renee

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Hi Renee.

Great question! We drove across country from California to Ohio ten years ago and took a similar route. I think you’ve already got as much going on to encourage her as possible. The main thing to keep in mind is the opposite. Don’t push. Let this project ebb and flow as suits the trip. You might even take this attitude. Rather than trying to get her to be stimulated or interested, each night you can pull out your own journal, markers, stickers, maps, scotch tape etc. and begin working on your own book. If she wants to join you, how much more fun! You may even consider turning on music to create a mood (if appropriate). As you go through your trip, collect old tickets to museums or the Grand Canyon park. Glue these into the book too. Sketch as you go. Do your own book and she’ll want to do one too.

The main way to incentivize any activity, is to do it yourself. Kids want to do “adult” things. They love using grown up tools and participating in grown-up activities. If journal making is for her “education,” she may resist. If it’s the cool thing adults do on trips, she’ll likely be asking you to “get to do it too.” See what I mean?

You may find that activity therapeutic for you too. One thing I’ve noticed in homeschool is that many moms are so thrilled by the possible activities and studies, they feel compelled to “get their kids to do them” so that they can enjoy those same activities vicariously. I say, “Do the activity! Right in front of your kids.” Let them see you having fun, learning, buying supplies, getting absorbed. They’ll be drawn to try it out. Remember, though, sometimes even the coolest projects aren’t interesting to our kids. Or they try them for a few days and then are done. There’s no right length to this project, no right number of pages or days. Enjoy it as long as there is interest and time. If there isn’t time, you can do it once you return home. Keep the souvenirs and fill the journal in then.

Above all: savor the trip! Don’t ruin it with nagging or heavy-handedness. Have a great time, and save a little of it in journals. (smile)

Julie

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Email | Comments Off on Email: Going on vacation and journals

Feedback: Freewriting, helping our kids in college

I get so many great comments in email, in classes, on the phone. I’ve decided to post them here more often so you can hear how this lifestyle plays out in the lives of families like yours.

Freewriting: a new metaphor!
I just wanted to share with the group, a way of explaining–an analogy–freewriting to my kids that seemed to help them and, if it’s not incorrect, might help others. I compared it to the kids tuning into their own radio signal. Instead of turning the dial, they “tuned” their minds and pencils, to locate a good signal. I’m happy to say that by the second freewrite, WAUGIE and WLINZ, while still young stations, with only a few Mega-hertz each, and a little static-y, were coming in loud and clear. Over and out!
-Parent station WBrett, reporting in for affliate stations, WAugie(15) and WLinz(13)

Seriously, this is one of the best freewriting analogies I’ve ever read! It gets all of it: the idea of voice (radio is all about voice), the idea of tuning in (paying attention until the communication is static-free and clear), and persisting until you know you’ve really got clarity (a subjective experience). Thank you so much WBrett!

College writing help
I remember reading an old blog entry in which you said that you had proofread your college student’s paper. At the time, I remember thinking that sounded nice and cozy, but that I doubted I’d ever need to do something like that for one of my sons once they had left home. Well, this last fall I corrected my oldest son Tommy’s first few Composition 1 papers! I was glad I had read your story because it kept me from hesitating when he informed me that he had a paper due tomorrow and he would be emailing it to me to look at. After the first few papers, he found that his high school had done a better job of teaching him to write than his classmates’ high schools and he stopped needing me, but I was glad I was there for him. As much as people complain about email as a sloppy form of communication, I think it is wonderful. This entire year my son has written to me every day! Email’s asynchronous-ness and ease makes him willing to communicate far more than he would if he had to telephone or write by hand. Anyway – I just wanted to say thank you for giving me a glimpse of what it is like to have a college student.
-Nancy Gorman

I love this! You know, it’s fine if they don’t need your help. And I like to remind all homeschooled kids to take advantage of the Writing Centers in colleges. These offer editing and revision support. Still, if you’ve become your child’s writing ally, it’s not surprising when they want that bit of support as they make the transition to college. What a privilege (and success story) to know that your kid trusts you with his written self-expression – and relies on you to help him improve! Thanks for sharing.

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Email: Spelling

Hello, Julie.

I have some samples and questions regarding my son’s horrid spelling that I was hoping you would not mind giving me some guidance with.  My son, Clay, just turned 9 in March and he says he hates to write (and read).  He reads at grade level (3rd) or a little below.  He enjoys stories ~ he says he hates reading however because he stresses himself out regarding the length of the story and the amount of writing per page.  He does plenty of copy work and has very neat writing.  He is struggling with creative writing because he is challenged to get his thoughts out of his head and onto paper.  We don’t do a lot of creative/freewriting becasue he is young and I don’t push him.

(more…)

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Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Dictation and copywork, Email, Homeschool Advice, Language Arts, Young Writers | 5 Comments »

Copywork and Dictation: How Often? (Revisited)

Homework

Julie,

Could you briefly share with us how copywork and dictation look in your home and include the highest grade you’ve had at home? I’ve shared your arrow and boomerang (the concept) with several friends and the common concern is that it doesn’t appear to be enough. Many believe that copywork and dictation should be daily not weekly. I would love your insight on this matter!

Lisa

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Hi Lisa.

Sure, I can share.

My oldest kids are in college (the oldest two are 21 and 18). I homeschooled both of them through high school, though the second one went part time to our local high school as well. Our third child is a junior in high school and goes full time. He was homeschooled through 9th grade. We have two more kids: 8th and 7th grades – all homeschooled.

Copywork and dictation can be done more frequently than weekly. The Arrow/Boomerang are designed to support the homeschooling parent, not to replace her own good judgment and her skills as a home educator. In fact, when I first designed the Arrow (which came first), I used to always say that the goal was to model how copywork and dictation can be done (how to select passages, how to teach them, how to make them more meaningful). Mothers can learn to do it themselves, if they like.

I included only one passage per week for several reasons:

1) Discouragement: Many mothers set out to do copywork/dictation more than a couple times per week and then when they fail to hit their target, they give up and stop doing it all together. I’ve found that copywork/dictation once per week is way better than not doing it at all while holding the ideal of doing it twice or three times or every day of the week. In fact, I’ve found that once a week adds up to a lot of copywork/dictation if done all year.

2) Length of passage: Some of the passages in the Arrow and particularly the Boomerang are long. They benefit from being broken up into multiple days of work.

3) Personal preference: Kids like to pick their own copywork. Not all copywork has to be selected for them. By offering only one passage per week, your have the freedom of selecting other passages to copy (song lyrics, poetry, passages from a beloved book, refrigerator magnets, a religious text). If I give you more than one per week, you will feel you must impose those passages on your kids to get your money’s worth. But this way, you focus on one passage, really teach it, and then can allow your kids to select the ones that they want.

4) Stress: For reluctant writers, it is a lot to ask them to do handwriting work (in a book, for instance), copywork, dictation, freewriting, and any writing project all in a week. The Arrow and Boomerang allow you to feel that you are covering the material necessary to a good language arts program without putting your child through too much pencil trauma.

Brave Writer is different than other programs. I believe firmly in a parent’s role in the homeschool. We are supports to what you do. We offer products that teach you how to teach. Of course you can do more copywork and dictation if you like. I have a son (14) who copied things every day and did special handwriting therapies for his dysgraphia. Yet two years ago, he could hardly write even one passage a week. I have an 11 year old daughter who doesn’t like the passages I pick who writes in her journal and her Greek notebook every day, even in summer. We talk about grammar over lunch or in the car. She is learning spelling through Facebook status updates!

My older kids credit their years of dictation with their punctuation skills (the ones in college). They feel like they learned mechanics painlessly. My junior in high school has successfully gone straight into Honor’s English without having ever done a formal grammar or spelling program. He’s learned it all through less than once per week dictation over his lifetime.

Pay attention to your kids. Do what you believe nourishes them. Let them tell you what is working and what is not. Kids don’t learn as well when they are numb to the subject matter, when they feel obliged to fulfill your expectations without their buy-in. If once a week copywork/dictation is tolerable (even enjoyable) for you kids, they will learn a lot! There’s no reason to think that more is necessarily better.

Image by Alastair Vance

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Copywork Quotations, Email, Writing about Writing | 3 Comments »

Email: How it’s worked over the years

You know, I appreciate how amazingly kind the Brave Writer community is. This has been a tough winter for me personally, but I feel bouyed up by the generous comments, enthusiastic reports and even the sincere, heart-felt questions that I get in my in-box or on my phone each day. It’s great to know you’re still applying Brave Writer insights to your children’s lives. Here’s one of the wonderful ones sent to me today, just when I needed it. (Btw, I use Help for High School in the co-op where my kids participate too. It’s a great resource to use in that setting.)

—

Julie,

Rough winter?  Well, they say, “what goes around, comes around,” (anonymous).  Since you’ve been so generous with encouragement to other homeschool moms, here is a little dose for you. 🙂 (sorry, the smileys are part of my vocabulary)

I’ve corresponded with you before. . . over the past five years I’ve used Writer’s Jungle in my homeschool with my own four, two of whom are now high school students, still homeschooling, one 6th grader, and a third grader.  One of my best memories is of Tuesday teatime in which we had checked out the audio book for Tom Sawyer (a few years ago) and giggled our way through it together over tea and snacks (the best part for my son) on sunny days, in our Florida room. (yes, even in Central Ohio!!).  I have the notebooks of illustrations, dictations and copywork from Prince Caspian, The Magician’s Nephew, and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  They are worth all of the bad days of our 12 years of homeschooling put together! (not that there have been that many!—God if faithful!)

I started a new co-op a few years ago (The Shema Academy for Excellence in Homeschooling—we are the Shema Mamas!!) with some friends to address science, but alas, we were having such a good time that we have included writing and literature in our course offerings in the past year or so.  I teach the high school class, writing component, using Help for High School, and we have been working through the modules successively.  It is going. . . somewhat swimmingly!  My students have found that writing is work, but having worked through the various exercises, freewriting assignments, rough drafts, revisions and submission of final copies, I am thrilled to say all 15 students are growing! And that, of course, is very exciting.  This spring we will have our second foray into research projects, and I will say, that each student will research something that he/she cares deeply about and is interested in personally.

So while I have had to put my own writing endeavors on hold over the past few years (I haven’t submitted or published anything since 2005), having the opportunity to invest in the lives of some pretty terrific homeschool students is a pretty good tradeoff.

I pray God’s faithfulness will minister to you in your situation.  Your materials have been a great help to me in my homeschool journey!  I hope to be able to work with you some day!

Sincerely,
Jacquie Stevanus
Hilliard, OH

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