Archive for the ‘Writing Exercises’ Category

Tired of Writing? Make a List!

Writing Lists

Writing wears kids out, have you noticed?

Children may get that burst of linguistic energy working for them (when the inspiration strikes, they’re hard to stop!), but when they’re done, they’re done. Sometimes after a successful writing project, all anyone wants to do is lie about doing nothing.

While taking some time off, or while your kids aren’t quite proficient enough to write lengthy passages of prose, you might try writing lists. Lists can be an incredibly therapeutic way to interact with language. For one thing, there is no shortage of topics for lists.

Here’s a list (ha!) of what you might list:

  • birds
  • roller coasters
  • Lego sets
  • favorite lines of poetry
  • seeds to plant in the garden
  • items to purchase for a bedroom redesign
  • hairstyles to try
  • funny jokes
  • not-so-funny jokes
  • words that rhyme with…
  • famous lines of Shakespeare
  • the original old English vocabulary in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (with translations)
  • items in a junk drawer
  • all the vocabulary needed to sew a quilt
  • favorite TV shows
  • past American Idol contestants and when they were voted off
  • types of tanks used in WWII
  • American Girl trousseau items

As you can see, there is no limit to what can be listed!

Lists allow your kids to continue to work on handwriting, vocabulary development, categorizing, ordering, and information gathering. They also offer a place to house disparate thoughts or ideas or fantasies. It’s nice to keep a list of all the things you’d buy if you had $100.00. Cheaper than spending the dough-re-mi!

Lists can be kept in notebooks, on white boards, on sheets of paper. My daughter kept a list on her bedroom wall (all the friends she had and something funny about them).

Lists often mushroom into sub categories too: birds in my backyard, birds I saw on vacation in Florida, birds I saw at the zoo, birds that live at the beach.

So get out a notepad and start a list.

P.S. I love the little moleskin notebooks that fit inside a purse for listing, jotting down words, keeping my thoughts together so that anywhere I am, I can write them down. Your kids might like that too – a portable list!

The Homeschool Alliance

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Copywork Quotations, Games, Homeschool Advice, Language Arts, Nature Walks, Unschooling, Words!, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | Comments Off on Tired of Writing? Make a List!

Who are You?

Who are You?

If you write a lot, I know you get tired of hearing your own voice. I call my tired writing voice, my “whiny voice.” I hate when I get into that mode. It’s when I drone on and think I’m being profound when really all I’m doing is complaining about some mental puzzle I’m not actually solving. Most of the time, I write from my comfortable, worn in, blue jean voice. I write the way I write after years of writing. It feels natural and I don’t think about deviating.

But that voice doesn’t encompass all of who I am. I’m a mother and a business owner, yes. But I’m also a southern Californian who prefers to nap on the beach than in a bed. I like flip flops and sun on my bare shoulders. Yet, I’m also a tireless snow shoveler in Ohio. And someone who lived in foreign countries. I’m smart about ideas and stupid about practicalities. I’m wise about relationships and hopelessly sentimental about love. I get angry at injustice and tearful in movies.

I can write from all these places… if I remember to.

Sometimes, just to change things up,
it helps to adopt an “opposite voice.”

Instead of being reasonable and clear, be unreasonable and chaotic – say things the way they feel rather than the way they should be thought. If you’re a mother, perhaps it’s time to write as the daughter that you also are. Perhaps you can write from the place of child, instead of adult.

Make a list. Who are you?

  • reasonable,
  • whimsical,
  • artist,
  • shy,
  • employee,
  • tightwad,
  • hermit…

Write from one of those identities and see where it leads. You can also write from an inanimate space: tornado, ocean wave, breeze, fierce wind, tree, bulbs in spring. Or pair two things: good/bad, angry/peaceful. Give a freewriting space to each one consecutively.

Once you’ve tried these on your own, help your kids to make a list of identities and see if they can write from new ones. Kids are much more comfortable shedding their traditional voices. They may eagerly choose to write as a favorite character in a book (Luke Skywalker) or they may use the voice of a gaming role online or they may create a voice for themselves (southern belle). Imaginary voices can be just as productive as authentic ones, so don’t put any limits on this exercise.

Shake off the habitual and play with something new.

Brave Writer Just So Stories Online Writing Class

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When freewriting isn’t fun

What to do when freewriting isn't fun

Not everyone likes freewriting. Some kids feel pressured by the timer, they worry about making mistakes (even after being told that they can make all the mistakes they want!), they resist the idea of writing about any random topic. Others just don’t like writing and freewriting feels like one more writing task no matter how many times they are told that this is an easier form of writing than the one they are used to.

Our oldest son (Noah) told me that while he can write (and I’d say he writes well!), and while he certainly does know how to freewrite (and has done plenty of it), writing has never gotten easier for him. When he faces a blank page, he still fights the sensation of momentary panic and inertia.

And yet, I still firmly believe that every person can learn to write so that they are competent as adult writers. Even if they have that initial surge of panic when staring at a blank page, they will have cultivated some strategies for tackling the topic anyway!

Freewriting gives writers a chance to get the swirl of words inside, out of their heads and bodies and onto a page or computer screen. Those words, once out and visible, can be honed, revised, enhanced and massaged into better prose or exposition. Freewriting helps to untangle the jumble or to at least put the writer in touch with what there is to say (or not) about a topic.

Part of the charm of freewriting (its lack of structure, its freedom, its open-endedness) sometimes causes a surprising counter-reaction in some kids. These young writers feel too much freedom! They want guidelines, structure, clarity about the expectations. They want to avoid making a mess that will be required to go through a revision process later. So let’s look at how to help them over the hump with some novel ways to make freewriting less “free” while retaining the essential messiness that is most beneficial in terms of real writing later.

What to do when freewriting isn't fun

Image by Brave Writer mom Melody

TOPICS
Some kids really do need a subject to get them going. Asking them to simply “write” whatever is on their mind is too big. Their minds are busy places and they can’t narrow the swirl of ideas down into a manageable size for writing. To help these kids, we suggest the “freewrite list.” One week, instead of freewriting, ask your kids to write a list of all the things they love and know lots about. This list can be written straight down the page and can include things like: soccer, horses, Harry Potter, how to make cookies, quilting, pet ferrets, hacky sacks, Starcraft, decorating Christmas trees, blow drying hair, WWII tanks, Star Wars, American Girl doll outfits and planting bulbs. There are no right topics. Only those your kids love and know well. Once you have a list, each week let your child pick a topic from the list to write about.

TOO MUCH TIME
Some kids do better with a few more boundaries around the freewrite. Rather than a 7-10 minute period, limit the time frame to 2-3 minutes. Ask your child to write as quickly as possible, without stopping, putting anything that comes to mind onto the paper. Keep the sessions short and don’t worry at all about content. The idea here is to just keep the pencil moving for 2-3 minutes.

PERFECTIONISM
Some kids are haunted by a need to know how to spell, how to punctuate, when to capitalize and so on. To be told that errors are permissible doesn’t ease the anxiety. Usually there are two reasons for this. The first is that the child is just one of those neat-nik kids who prefers order and hates a mess. For that child, simply tell him that if he doesn’t know how to spell a word, to call it out to you and you will instantly recite the proper spelling so he can continue without stopping. If this happens every third word, then you will need to let him know that he can make his mistakes but you promise to correct them with him as soon as he finishes.

The other kind of perfectionist is the one who knows that any mistake she makes will be required to be fixed by you. These kids are the ones who’ve figured out that if they don’t write perfectly the first time, they’ll have to revise and edit until you are satisfied with the product. First, reassure your child that this freewrite will not go through any revision. When it’s done, it’s done. Second, take a piece of scratch paper, crumple it up and then smooth it out again. Tell your child to freewrite on the crumpled page. Often, just seeing that the paper cannot possibly be used as a final copy will prevent the tendency to be overly careful with the freewrite.

What to do when freewriting isn't fun

Image by Brave Writer mom Anne

HURTING HANDS
Some kids grip their pencils so tightly that when you add the pressure of a timer (and the instruction to write speedily), they cause themselves pain when they freewrite. No wonder they hate it! For these kids, you can try two options. For younger kids whose handwriting skills are still developing, offer to type their freewrites while they narrate orally to you. For older kids, let them freewrite on the computer from time to time until they learn to relax their hands.

NATURAL WRITING RESISTANCE
Some kids are naturally less verbal than others. They fight to find the words they need in their oral communication and find writing that much more of a challenge. Freewriting is an invitation to pain, for these kids! It’s like they have to openly admit that words don’t come easily to them. It’s not that they can’t speak, but they find themselves moving at a slower verbal pace than the chatty-Cathy’s around them. For kids like this, sometimes a timer feels like pressure rather than release. I suggest instead of timing these kids, ask them to keep writing until they are tired. That may mean they write one sentence and that’s all they can muster. Encourage these kids especially to write about that frustration as it comes up. They can write things like:

    I love playing lacrosse with the junior high team but i hate it when I don’t get to play attack. I’m so mad that I have to write. This is hard. My hand is cramping. I want to play attack.

Like that. They need to be helped to really express what is in the way of the words. These kids tend not to give language to their frustration or their physical sensations. So you can draw them out with questions, etc.

Top image by Cinder’s (cc text added)

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Friday Freewrite, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | Comments Off on When freewriting isn’t fun

Shaking the dust off writer’s block

I spent some time surfing the web looking for ideas to help us knock open the internal world of words and found some good ideas! So if you and your kids want to kick off the fall with some new ideas (or if you are down under and feeling a little weary going into spring) try these! Here are five writing ideas. Don’t do them all in one day. Space them out over weeks.

  1. Write a collage made up of full-lines of selected source poems. (Choose the poems, grab lines from them, type them up, print them, cut them into strips and then reassemble in a new order to make a new poem! You can certainly add a line of your own if it helps.)
  2. Write a poem composed entirely of questions.
  3. Make notes on what happens or occurs to you for a limited amount of time, then make something of it in writing.(You pick a predetermined amount of time – like an hour or a morning.)
  4. Write on a piece of paper where something is already printed or written. (You might try writing in the margins of a book, or the margins around a photo-copy of a poem, or on the edges of a flyer…)
  5. Type out a Shakespeare sonnet or other poem (or song lyric!) you would like to learn about/imitate double-spaced on a page. Rewrite it in between the lines.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Tips for Teen Writers, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | 1 Comment »

How to break old stuff!

Yesterday, Liam and I sat together in the living room while I worked and he read Living Bird (a magazine put out by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology). He started giggling. Then he chuckled. Next thing you know, his body shook while he laughed out loud. Now it’s nearly impossible to get any work done when someone is enjoying a good joke in a piece of writing that is only feet from where you sit! So I had to know the source of such good humor.

Pete Dunne: How to Destroy Your Binoculars

Nobody could have anticipated this problem. Only a few decades ago birders took pains to keep their binoculars in good working order so they would provide years of service.

No longer. Now, with new-and-improved, super-whiz-bang binoculars appearing every other week, birders who already own quality instruments that don’t have the latest technological innovations—coatings that deflect images of European Starlings and House Sparrows; squishy gel-packed bodies as squeezable as toilet paper—are crying for an excuse to ditch their built-to-last-a-lifetime glass so they have an excuse to buy the latest and greatest.

But they can’t. Their current binoculars work just fine. Replacing them will mean hours of negotiation with their conscience, their spouse, or both.

So here, for the benefit of birders suffering new binocular envy, are several proven ways to destroy the binoculars you are using now. I have personally tried every one and will attest to their success.

With that introduction, Dunne then reels off six detailed methods for deep-sixing your aging binoculars. And they are hilarious! Here are two:

1. The ol’ bioncular left on the roof of your car trick. Although this used to be the binocular abuser’s default setting (the equivalent of the dog eating your homework), unfortunately this is not the fail-safe technique it used to be. There are instruments out there now that can take a standard tumble onto tarmac and survive. In order to achieve maximum damage levels as defined by the new, enhanced, bino-destructo scale, you must place your instrument with barrels parallel to the car roof (i.e. not standing upright) so that you can achieve freeway speeds before the instrument goes airborne. If possible, when backing up to retrieve the wreckage, (for insurance purposes) run the instrument over with tires of your car…

(snip)

5. While scanning for hawks, consume a New-York-deli-sized roast beef sandwich (making sure that half the mayo lands on the glass), then introduce the binoculars to a six-month old Labrador retriever with the counsel, “Now be a good dog, Armageddon, and leave those binoculars alone.” Leave the room. Make sure the instruments are within reach and remove all doggy toys from the vicinity.

And if all else fails:

6. Loan them to me. I guarantee you’ll need new instruments by the time you get them back.

We laughed so much reading about the destructive methods of cleaning the lenses using the equivalent of a brillo pad and packing the binocs in a backpack, on a hot day, with a loosened jar of honey to ooze and lubricate the working parts of the instrument.

It occurred to me that this format would make an ideal writing exercise. How many of us have kids who want the latest X Box or Wii or the best saddle for a horse or the newest bicycle or the most recent iPod (the iTouch!) even while the stuff they have works perfectly and used to entertain them for hours? I see that show of hands. Everyone!

So turn them loose. Let them write about how to destroy that old stuff in order to justify the expense of the new stuff.

Hmm. Am I’m unleashing criminal activity against otherwise still-in-good-condition stuff? For the record: I said write about it. Don’t actually do it. 🙂

Posted in Activities, Brave Writer Philosophy, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | 2 Comments »