Archive for the ‘Email’ Category

Email: Pokemon

So I’ve got a slew of email reacting to the One Thing series – everything from young kids to high schoolers. Because we’ve focused so much on high school (and will continue to next week), let’s take a break and look at a question from a mom with a 9 year old boy.

Julie,

After bouncing around doing different things for my two children, while homeschooling for 5 years now, I am falling in to a more relaxed homeschooling pattern.

I am very much into the idea of “one thing.” But, finding one thing that my 9 year old son and I can both focus on seems to be impossible! I want to study things alongside him and enjoy what he enjoys. In addition, he is not interested in my interests.

Today I am going to a wildlife refuge to hear a talk about bats. He wants nothing to do with it. He wants to stay at home and study the evolutions of Pokemon. Blech! That is his only love right now. How can I make that “one thing?”

First of all, I am wondering how to incorporate HIS “one thing” with learning. I have been desperately trying to figure out how I can make Pokemon educational. Knowing the evolutions (what they turn into after each stage of life), or knowing how to spell them has stumped me as to how he can use this later in life. He is past learning to count so we can’t use that as an excuse. In addition, there are not hundreds of sources to study to learn about it. Wouldn’t it be easier if he studied something like, Albert Einstein or Rachel Carson? Or the trees or the weather? Or Shakespeare or even Scrabble to learn spelling?

Does it even matter if his “one thing” is related future uses in life? I am just worried that this phase ultimately will be a waste of time and further his educational career.

Thanks,
Casey Lee
Bravewriter Mom

Hi Casey.

I’m so glad you asked this specific question as my son went through a Pokemon phase. Then his interests graduated to Yugi-oh cards and I came along for the ride. You ask some good questions. Let’s take them one at a time.

What if your son isn’t interested in what you’re interested in? I mentioned in another blog entry (Undefining Unschooling) that moms need to pursue what interests them regardless of whether or not their kids are interested in those same subjects. You can learn anything that is interesting to you, right in front of your kids, for its own sake (not because you hope your kids will want to learn it). At the same time, being the more mature of the pair, it is up to you to discover what it is that is interesting about your child’s interests. If you show genuine curiosity about the areas of interest your children have, you will gain several benefits right away:

  1. Your child will like you. We love people who like what we love, who show interest in our interests, who admire our expertises.
  2. Your child will trust you. He’ll believe you when you say, “I think you might enjoy X.” Why? Because he’ll know that you know what kinds of things he likes and that you support who he is (you’re not trying to draw him away from what he loves to do because you disapprove of it). He will be more likely to assume that you’ve got his best interests in mind if you find the interests he already has valuable.
  3. You will discover the value of any interest because through patient engagement, you’ll see the subject/area of interest up close and can discover the aspects of it that are intrinsically educational and valuable.

How are Pokemon cards educational? The danger here is trying to see value in the content of Pokemon rather than the process of playing with these cards. Content shifts, varies, has value or doesn’t depending on context. For instance, a mother may consider playing a musical instrument more valuable long term than playing cards with Japanese cartoons on them. Music is universally approved by mothers. But the content of playing is only valuable if the child likes the flute or piano and goes on to continue to play it for pleasure for the rest of his or her life. I played both flute and piano and never play either any more. Was it a waste of my time? What value did it have, if content is the measure? The content is no longer relevant to me. I don’t enjoy playing either instrument and haven’t in twenty years.

And yet I don’t regret having played when I did. I enjoyed it then. And I learned valuable skills: daily practice to improve, reading music, playing with a group, performing for an audience, appreciation of various musical styles, learning how to write music, and even the discovery that I don’t really want to be a musician.

The point is this. You may or may not enjoy Pokemon as a subject, as a content area. What you can do, however, is note it for its educational value apart from the pictures on the cards. Here are some learning processes that your son is internalizing without any special work from you that are extraordinary and useful to him for the rest of his life:

  • Sorting and classifying: He is naturally putting cards into groups based on particular features related to each of the characters and their powers.
  • Ranking: He is determining the hierarchy within the cards themselves, evaluating one power against another and which is more valuable when playing these cards against each other.
  • Strategy: He creates a deck that he believes is stacked in such a way as to beat his opponent. (If he doesn’t have an opponent yet, you get to be that person!)
  • Writing: Some kids (both of my boys who played these types of games) write lists constantly. And they were more than happy to do copywork when they were able to make lists based on card games.
  • Teaching: Since you don’t know anything about Pokemon, your child is in the perfect position to be put in the driver’s seat. That means he teaches you how to play, how to create your deck, he explains why some powers are more valuable than others, what happens when you play one card instead of another etc. It will be a challenge to him (and to you). You’ll feel bored, frustrated, wishing you were done, wondering why this matters (all the feelings he might have when you are trying to interest him in something you care about). This is your chance to learn how to learn in spite of yourself, it’s your chance to validate his expertise and to help him learn how to express in language what it is that he knows.
  • Calculating: All these card games relate to math (not just counting). Calculating damage when playing one card against another, understanding the ratio of cards with certain powers to other cards in the same deck (there are rules about how to stack a deck and they have to be observed), and so on. All of these skills are the same ones taught with tedious categories and examples in math text books (sorting, ranking, calculating, strategizing).
  • Saturated Interest: We can never really know how a deep interest relates to other subjects until we deepen the interest and watch it naturally interconnect to other parts of our world. Two of my boys have been avid card gamers. The oldest (Noah) is now deeply involved in Role Playing Games which have provided him with extensive understanding of the history of philosophy, for instance. Liam’s love of Yugi-Oh cards has given him transfer skills to bird watching and ornithological study (sorting, attention to detailed differences between birds, classification and so on).
  • Friends: A lot of times, the areas of interest we care most about lead us to people who are similar to us. Even if the interest doesn’t last longterm, the friendships founded during that season continue because the area of interest led us to people more like ourselves.
  • Entertainment: Don’t forget that having fun is perfectly fine when learning! 🙂

The point is: every subject is rich with learning opportunity if the student becomes deeply interested and has time to develop that interest. At the point of deepest interest, the student relies on the tools of learning to become expert in the subject area. These tools are what are critical to his future (not content as much).

Will it be a waste of time if he doesn’t use it in the future? I have a theory that nothing we truly care about is ever wasted. The mistake is assuming we will make use of things we hated doing based on the theory that we would need that material later.

For instance, I grew up truly resenting math. I felt like a failure in that subject, never did discover how to grasp it in a way that served me or helped me with life and was told repeatedly by my dad (bless his heart, he didn’t know better) that mathematical aptitude was the only measure of true intelligence. Despite earning a 3.85 in high school, going to UCLA for college and repeated success in writing, I felt less smart than my peers because of my dislike for math.

To this day, I don’t use math. I resist counting, I skip numbers when I read them in articles, and I get all shaky and teary when I go to any financial meeting with my accountant.

Fortunately for me, I did devote myself to writing and acting (and singing and dressing up and playing Barbies and making my toy animals talk to each other) from an early age and developed proficiencies that continue to reap dividends in my life every day.

So bottom line: Pokemon turns his crank. Get on the adventure with him. Discover together what uses it may have in his life. You can help him create a deck, ask him questions, draw his favorite characters together, jot down details he doesn’t want to forget, write up a list of instructions for you so you can play with him, watch the TV show and learn who the characters are, and more. I just looked up Pokemon on Wikipedia and discovered all the tournaments and opportunities for competition associated with Pokemon!

Let me know how it turns out. (Remember: he’s only 9. This interest will pass and will lead to others. Enjoy it while it lasts.)

Posted in Email, General, One Thing | 4 Comments »

Email: What about all those “things”?

Hi Julie,

I want to start “jotting it down”, but I have a big question. My language-challenged son is awesome at building things out of Legos, K’nex, etc. I love when he shows me his creations, and I take photos for both of our benefits. But when he describes his gadget to me, it involves the word “thing(s)” repeated over and over, pointing to all the various parts and explaining how he put it all together. On paper it is absolutely unintelligible.

He is the student I most need to encourage in writing and I would love to capture him in words, but I feel like I can’t. I thought you might have some ideas for me. Thanks.

Sharon

—

Fabulous question!

“Things” is his shorthand for what’s in his head. He’s finding the work of selecting words more difficult than pointing and building. You can help him by modeling (suggesting) words. So when he says, “And then he’s got this thing that goes like this and it blows up this other thing and the thing in his hand is the thing that he uses to kill that guy’s thing over there….” Slow him down. Point to the first of the “things.” Ask him: Help me better understand what this “thing” is. Is it a weapon? If he says, “Yes,” follow up: What kind of weapon is it? What is it similar to? How does it work?

If he doesn’t know what it is or what to call it or what it’s like, you can offer casually, “Wow, this thing reminds me of a boomerang. It’s got that cool bend in it. Do you think it kills bad guys by clocking them in the head or by throttling them across the throat?”

In other words, you can express the kinds of descriptions you hope to hear from him yourself, asking him if you are close to the right kind of description, close to what his aim was. You need to do this for a long time, over time to help him get there himself. You model the kind of response you hope to hear, and then you ask questions and jot down his answers. You can also jot down your descriptions when he agrees with them, as he gets comfortable with you pressing gently for more information. (Only press to his edge – don’t push him to despair.) So in other words, if he accepts your description, use it. Jot it down as part of the whole. Later when you read it back to him in the context of his own thoughts, he’ll begin to see how better descriptions fit into his natural speech. He’ll learn to emulate your use of descriptions and specific terminology.

As you get comfortable together, you can move from showing him how it’s done through your own comments and example to asking better questions and letting him work to find the answers. The key is to slow him down to focus on one thing at a time (literally one “thing” at a time :)).

Julie

Posted in Email, General | 6 Comments »

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 »

Email: What about the classics?

Elaine asked some great questions about the value of reading classic literature last week. My answers are interspersed.

Hi Julie and Jon —

We need to be making some literature decisions with my 16 yr-old dd as she embarks on her sophomore year. She does not find literature readily engaging, preferring Reader’s Digest and Calvin and Hobbes to Pride and Prejudice (she did make it 3/4 of the way, yeah!). She has found she enjoys James Herriott’s writing. And after sticking with To Kill A Mockingbird in the discussion forum with Jon and the other students, she did find that she enjoyed reading the book. I new it would be a stretch for her because it wasn’t particularly relevant to her. I think having the forum made a huge difference. (Thank you again!)

Wonderful! To Kill a Mockingbird is more accessible than a lot of “classic” literature since it is set in a more recent era and written in the 1960s. It is a well crafted novel dealing with profound themes. Literature (versus fiction) is said to be those novels that have layers to be investigated. Fiction is simply any novel that tells a story. TKAM falls into the literature category for that reason.

I was leaning toward signing her up for the Slingshot because of our previously successful experience and then I read the list. Ugh! Hemingway and Steinbeck–two of my personally least-liked authors I was forced to read in high school.

I totally understand! Reading “classics” is one reason I didn’t become an English major in college. I chose history. I didn’t like being made to read anything fictional that I didn’t choose for myself. I did not like American lit in high school and really didn’t develop any affection for American authors until my late thirties. Jon, by contrast, got his Master’s in American lit because these are his favorite writers.

Hemingway was too opaque for me. It wasn’t until I took to reading short stories that I gained any appreciation for his brilliance (I was 37 at the time). I still don’t like his novels. I appreciated Steinbeck because his book The Grapes of Wrath dealt with a historical event and made it come to life (fits more with the history side of me than the lit side). I read that in high school. But his other books were so depressing, I have never returned to Steinbeck myself.

When Jon was picking books for the Slingshot, he chose the ones he likes. Amazingly. And he likes these books a lot. He sees the levels and he enjoys bringing those to life for readers and students. When he talks to me about books like these, I find myself suddenly interested and more willing to “take a second look.” Since he leads the discussions, he gets to pick. 🙂 And of course, these are modern classics because truly Hemingway and Steinbeck are brilliant writers. Whether you enjoy them is an entirely different way to assess them.

Jon has always loved literature and would read anything with print on a page. That’s the difference between us and why he went the lit route and I went the history route in college.

While examining my own gut response to these authors and remembering other “classics” I thought were tedious at best and trash at worst, I could see I was chasing my tail again trying to come up with a sound philosophy for our approach to literature. I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on the reason people should read various fictional authors. I personally enjoy literature. My all-time favorite is Austen, but I have enjoyed Twain, Dickens, Les Mis, Cather, Shakespeare and more. I don’t enjoy Steinbeck, Hemingway, Tess of the D’urbervilles (sp?), Poe (although he could turn a phrase). I think you get the gist.

Right! This is how it is with literature. Not all of it appeals to everyone. It’s important to find out what you enjoy, to taste novels you might not naturally select for yourself to discover how literature speaks to you. But I certainly don’t think there is a list everyone has to work through by a certain age. In fact, I had never read Jane Austen until I was 35. I read more classic literature in my twenties and thirties than at any time prior. Why? Because Jon had a kickin’ library! We lived in Morocco at the time—no TV, tons of time. I slowly worked through the shelves of his bookcase and became a “literate” person. And I discovered all kinds of writers and novels I would not have read otherwise through that process. Wonderful, rich time of reading and discussing with Jon, the Master. 🙂

I also discovered that I love short stories. They’re my favorite. I love the layers. I don’t enjoy summer beach reads or the typical novels on the NYTimes best seller list. But I discovered in my twenties and thirties that I loved a “classic” that had those layers to investigate. That doesn’t mean, however, that I like all classic novels. Some just aren’t my taste. Some of the subject matter isn’t of interest. But I can recognize now what makes a novelist a brilliant writer as opposed to a good story teller.

Jon and I were talking the other day about his college fiction class that he teaches at Xavier. I’ve taught it for him before when he’s been out of town. He was saying that I’ve developed a real knack for seeing the layers in stories, in the writing. I told him that that skill has come mostly through writing (as in mastering the craft) more than through reading (which is the way it came for him). We had a great discussion about it.

So, what’s the purpose as you see it for reading fictional literature? And given Brave Writer’s orientation to student-centered learning, how do you meld the two?

I think it’s perfectly fine to save even classic works of fiction for a time when the student is genuinely interested. One way to support a student who is not inclined to read “the harder stuff” is to start with film versions of the books. If the film version entertains and captures the student’s imagination, then reading the novel can be an easier task than facing it cold. I also think it helps to have someone read those books with you so that you can talk about them, can discover themes and symbolism that you would miss otherwise. That’s what enriches the classic novel reading experience.

If your daughter is not naturally inclined to read “the classics,” then you might want to simply select quality fiction that matches her areas of interest (like for me, it was anything that also had a historical component). Keep her reading to a few well-chosen books rather than slogging through a list that kills any affection she has for reading. And trust that over a lifetime, as she matures, she’ll have ample opportunity to expand her own reading list (and will perhaps have the joy I had of reading a classic for the first time as an adult, and enjoying it because I had life experiences that helped me relate to the stories that would have gone over my head as a teen).

A great example of this principle.
I read The Great Gatsby in high school. I liked it so-so. Then I reread it two years ago. I loved it. It is now in my top two works of fiction I’ve ever read. (My top book is A Room with a View by E.M.Forster). I was mesmerized by Fitzgerald’s mastery of language, the creative use of point of view, the symbolism, the dialog, the descriptions… and the story line. Everything. I can’t say enough good about that book. But in high school? Didn’t even totally get it. I don’t think I had a teacher who did a good job of unfolding it to me either.

In 9th grade, I had a fabulous teacher who helped me to love Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and even James Thurber. So it really can be a matter of having the right teacher to help you dig into meaty, difficult material and then come out better for it.

I know this is a big question, but I am genuinely interested and hope you have time to answer. I trust you both have reasoned this question beyond the standard response of “it’s a classic, so she should know what it says.” I have never personally bought into the notion that just because a number of people were persuaded that something was good, doesn’t in fact make it good or worthy.

Jon would say that there is a benefit to reading classic works of fiction because they enhance your cultural literacy. When someone references Ahab and the whale, for instance, I still don’t really “get” the reference having never read the book. But I do get it if someone says that so-and-so has a “Mr. Darcy-like” air about him. That kind of thing.

Also, reading master writers enhances your vocabulary, enriches your awareness of the complexity of human interactions and relationships, and populates your imagination with “others” – those people different from us, who come from other times and places we would not “travel” to even if we could. Literature expands who you are and your place in the world.

Hope that helps you think more about how to incorporate classic fiction into your particular family.

Posted in Email, General, Living Literature | 11 Comments »

Email: To Workbook or not to workbook

That is the question Debbie asked me:

Hi Julie,

I am new to Bravewriter.  I bought The Writer’s Jungle and am going to add the Arrow.  Your style is wonderful and fits so well with current research about children’s learning.  I am excited to start our program this fall.

I have a question about vocabulary that I couldn’t find a direct answer to.  Do you believe in a stand alone program or just learning in context?  Thanks so much for your time.

Regards,
Debbie

My reply:

Vocabulary is best built by reading a lot. Consider not just fiction, but quality non-fiction, myths, poetry, Shakespeare, magazine articles, television (yes, even TV builds vocabulary), movies, plays and more. A rich language environment does the best job of expanding one’s vocab. Some kids still work through vocab books for the SAT etc., but honestly, there is no substitute for a rich language experience which comes mostly through reading, acting and viewing performances.

Debbie responds:

Thank you for your reply.  I thought that was what was indicated in your book but it’s hard to resist the sales line of programs like “Wordly Wise” (my child will be an ignoramus without their sequential program).

And I can’t resist saying just a little bit more:

One quick thought…

When I’ve been in doubt about something and it is inexpensive, I buy it and try it. There are kids for whom working in workbooks is deeply satisfying. I have one out of four (still at home) like that. When she embarks on a workbook program, though, I am very relaxed about it. We do it as it suits her. Sometimes we even skip around in the book or past what she doesn’t feel like doing. But mostly, she enjoys plodding through the
pages and checking them off.

Worldly Wise was tedious to one of my kids (so we dropped it and his vocab is ridiculously off the charts without it – college age now) and was enjoyable for one year for another child. Yet both of these are huge readers, acted in Shakespeare for six years and enjoy poetry and language for its own sake. So I don’t know that it helped (or hurt) their development. I try to pay attention to what they like and focus on how they feel most happy about learning.

If you have a workbook kid, then Wordly Wise might be just the thing. The principle, though, stands. Vocab development occurs through rich language environments. 🙂

Hope that helps a few more of you with similar questions. 🙂

Posted in Email, General, Homeschool Advice | 1 Comment »