Archive for the ‘Email’ Category

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.)

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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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Forums: How it works

The following is posted on the Brave Writer public forums. I loved it! Such a great example of how it’s supposed to work. 🙂

Today, I wanted my nine year old to really get into telling a story so rather than bog him down with the handwriting, I figured I would type for him while he dictated his story.

At the breakfast table this morning, we developed a character. I started off by saying the character was a boy. Then he added a detail about the character, then I did, and so on until we had quite a description going of this kid who lives in a jungle and has a pet monkey.

Then this afternoon, I grabbed my laptop and we hit the couch and curled up with blankets and pillows for him to “write” his story. I started him off with the typical “One day…” and he took it from there.

It was a bit of a struggle to begin with but then he was cruising and had so many thoughts flying out of his mouth. After I had typed a whole page, he said he was out of ideas but the story was at a cliffhanger moment actually so I told him that was enough and we could call it Chapter One.

He was so excited by the whole process. He has been running around all afternoon with his story that we printed off. He even decided to start a new club with his 6 year old sister called “The Story Club.” He asked if he could use my laptop and they both sat at the kitchen table while he guided her through the process of developing her own character. He typed while she dictated. Now, he can’t really type so this was a long laborious process but he was not deterred. My daughter lost interest before he did which I was surprised at as he had to do the typing. So he saved her character and I have a feeling they will come back to it another day.

I’m looking forward to him continuing his story and having fun with his imagination and words!

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Email: How it works for Donna

How it works for Donna

Sometimes I think it helps to hear a practical, personal description of how a homeschooling mother embraces and applies the Brave Writer philosophy to her homeschool. I loved this email from Donna (sent a little while back) and thought I’d share it today.

Hi Julie,

Radical Unschoolers would look at what we do and say we’re totally UN-radical. Yet, we live a pretty unschooling lifestyle in MANY ways. We DO use curriculum (Sonlight), so others might say we’re “inside the box”, however, those who use curriculum would probably call us “eclectic” ~ or something. We use it in our own way. We simply do not fit a mold and I need a new word to describe our style!

Our process is much easier to describe. It is simply this: let go of ALL expectations. Now, the kids might have some for themselves, which is great because that is how they will become all they were meant to become: by being WHO THEY ARE and setting goals for themselves. I have no expectations except for this: that no matter what, they are not to use failure or mistakes as an opportunity to beat themselves up or tear themselves down. Instead, they are to be used simply as an experience to learn by – a stepping stone. They are never “behind” ~ they are where they are at. That is where we start and go from.

This was scary to do – especially for my husband and even for the kids. I’ve been unschooled all my life. Oh, I went to school, but my education took place outside of that building on most days, on my own time and in stolen moments while I HAD to be inside that building. The kids and husband were never comfortable with “radical” unschooling, and I simply could not and would not abide school-at-home, so we needed to find a “happy medium”. That is how we eventually formed our “method.” It was pretty easy for me to let go of expectations, but I still like to hug a bit of fear to me now and then: am I doing enough? Will they be ready to take on the adult world? Will they pass their SATs? What if they simply don’t get algebra (I never did – and yet here I am! Alive and well without full knowledge of algebraic formulas! A fully-formed human being, though some might argue that!).

My husband has let go of his expectations V E R Y S L O W L Y…and he still holds some pretty tight. He has had to completely revamp the way he views education – he played the education game very well as a student. But his eyes are slowly being opened to what a true education is (8 years after we began)! This has sometimes been a painful process for him, as he has seen how his own fears and expectations have affected the kids and even his relationship with them. He is working hard to change and we are loving him through it!

I have learned to be where the kids are – not try to drag them to where I am. I learned to get interested in THEIR world – the video games they love, the music they listen to, TV shows, movies and even inside jokes (which sometimes push the line a bit and make me feel that boys can be really, really gross!). I’ve learned to listen ~ JUST LISTEN ~ when they are speaking. That means to STOP what I am doing and give them 100% of me. I notice that they do the same when I am speaking…pretty cool!! I’ve learned to monitor my reactions to things they say or tell me. Teenagers are funny creatures – if they catch the slightest whiff of judgment, they clam right up!

I’ve learned to see them, myself and my husband and our family as a whole as unique. Comparing us to others: our kids’ progress (or lack of); what our education looks like compared to others; what our family life looks like; how we dress; how we worship; how we keep our home (or not)…this is like quick sand. It is a slow, suffocating way to kill joy and stop learning. We are who we are – and that is a beautiful thing!

I’ve had The Writer’s Jungle for over a year now. I have longed to use it, but the time was never quite right. I’ve carried this book around with me, reading and re-reading parts of it, trying to visualize a Brave Writer Lifestyle. I think in a lot of ways I had to become brave. I know how to write pretty well, but I have no clue how to explain it to my children. It is intuitive. So, rather than take a chance of making them hate writing, I’ve never bothered to teach it. I love writing and I so want them to love it, too! Words are magical and powerful – I want them to experience the JOY of that!

These kids are so FULL of stories, ideas, events to be shared with others, commentary that I knew that when the time was right, it would all happen – just as they learned to read and do cursive and play video games and beat them. Step by (sometimes slow) step they have each wandered down the personal path of their own educations and I have been privileged to be a part of it.

By giving them freedom to be who they are, right where they are, they have learned much of what I was so afraid that they would not learn. I truly believe with all my heart that writing will be no different. And just as they have learned most other things in joy, step by step, so, too, will they learn to express themselves through the written word in their own voices, if only I will be brave enough to let it happen!

Yesterday we were looking at objects through jewelers loups and my youngest (13) said to no one in particular, “I can’t wait until Friday Freewrite! I have alot to say about what the inside of this shell reminds me of.” Unable to contain myself, I said, “Oh, you could write it now.” And he replied without even looking up, “I’ll just wait until Friday.” Ok…

Later on, my other son (16) and I were out running some errands and he told me that he had written a 2 page poem the night before. He said it wasn’t anything great, but it “was a start”. You bet!

So, I am looking forward to Friday Freewrite to see what these guys have to share with the rest of the world (even if the rest of the world never gets to read it)! It seems that they are, too. And not an assigned topic in sight! Woo Hoo!

So, in the same way we meander through our education, I’ve meandered to the end of this email. Just wanted to share this with you!

God Bless,

Donna in the ‘Burg

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