A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Brave Writer Mom, Kim, writes:

Hi Julie.

My two daughters didn’t attend a public school until they attended our local community college at age 18. During my years of homeschooling them, figuring out how to teach writing challenged me. I have no recollection of how I first heard of your program but they were in their very early elementary years when I purchased The Writer’s Jungle [now Growing Brave Writers], and it became the only writing program (maybe lifestyle is a better word?) I ever used.

This note is a thank you for your instruction, encouragement and hand-holding via that program and your blog. Over the years, we covered a lot of ground:

• poetry tea time,
• freewrites,
• copywork,
• revision on some pieces,
• nature journals,
• read-alouds…

They took one online Brave Writer class (the essay class) and really appreciated the format; I continued to provide feedback on their writing in the same way they got used to seeing it in that class. I learned to trust the process without knowing exactly where it all would lead.

It led to a bounty of fruit. During their high school years, they each had an article published in a magazine (one daughter bought a small herd of sheep with her earnings). When the girls attended college and took the required introductory writing courses, they both consistently scored in the top of their class.

My favorite comment came from my youngest daughter when someone asked her how I taught them writing. “Well, Mom gives us feedback on what we write by highlighting in different colors (maybe yellow for spelling issues, maybe green for punctuation, maybe purple where she’s commenting on awkward phrasing or more effective ways to organize the writing). So after doing that a bunch of times, you learn how to write better. Then, you go to college and see that other people need help with their writing, and you do the exact same thing for your fellow students!”

Thank you, Julie! I would do it all again given the opportunity!

Kim

Brave Writer mom, Christa, writes:

Dear Julie

I just wanted to send you a note to say I appreciate your fun podcast. I’m listening to the Roadschooling episode now. The World Schooling one was fun also and you mentioned you wanted stories of other homeschoolers that are “world” schooling.

We live in Switzerland. My husband is Russian and I’m American. Possibly you remember me writing to you a few years ago. Our twin 13 year olds have taken a couple of your online classes over the past couple of years. We also have a 3 year old boy.

As an international family we’ve had the challenges and adventures of living in both Latvia and Switzerland. My twins recently got to go on a trip with my husband to Germany and sit in business meetings and see Berlin, then to Estonia to an event and sightseeing, and then Latvia and Lithuania. I love when they are learning through travel and new experiences.

We go to Minnesota/North Dakota each summer for two months and then we take full advantage of English speaking opportunities, time with family, and my twins love playing street music outside my dad’s store in a cute little resort town, among other adventures. We wouldn’t be able to do that if we were in the Swiss school system because they only get 4 weeks of summer break.

Over the years we’ve gotten to visit Iceland, France, Turkey, Dubai, Germany, Liechtenstein, tour around Switzerland, and tour a bit around the US.

I love hearing stories of other traveling homeschoolers. Traveling has provided some of our most memorable family/school times together and I’m grateful for all of the opportunities.

I don’t know what you’d call our approach exactly – lately I think its a “do it all, see it all” sort of fly by the seat of your pants sort of a deal. One son decided he wanted to try cello so off we went to get a cello to rent, in addition to his violin and piano. The other twin wanted to add guitar to piano, so we ran off to rent a guitar and he’ll have his first lesson tomorrow. Alex, with the violin and cello, is crocheting animals to sell at a Christmas market. Erik is redesigning our house and designing his dream house in Archicad, the real Architect’s program.

So there’s never a dull day. Our normal week includes classes in English, Russian, German and French, which is a logistical nightmare that I hope works out in the end but we are required to learn German and French, I can only teach in English, and my husband’s first language is Russian.

It’s an adventure and most of the time it is fun. Thanks for your encouragement for homeschoolers. I’ve learned much from your podcasts and Periscopes.

Have a great day.

Sincerely,
Christa