Archive for the ‘Writing Exercises’ Category

Boggle your writer

Anne said:

Julie:
I really appreciate your Brave Writer site. Your words have removed much of my fear and rigidity around teaching writing.

My ten year old daughter and I often play Boggle or Cribbage during mealtime. We sometimes play Boggle cooperatively, just seeing how many words we can jot down together. Lately we have been taking the word lists generated from one or two sessions of Boggle and then writing poems or snippets of a story. Starting with a word list is so much easier than starting with a blank page. When (and if) she grants me permission I will send you a sample of her writing. No guarantees.

Thanks for your site.
Anne

I said:

Thank you Anne!

I’d like to post your suggestion to the blog this week. Would that be all right with you?

Julie

She replied:

Julie-
Posting it would be fine.
Here is a sample of what my daughter, Natalie, wrote from this exercise. Words from the Boggle list are italicized:

“I seek a set of leeks,” said a rabbit.

“To eat?” questioned an ant.

“Yes,” replied the rabbit. “I will eat them to loosen my tooth.”

“Do you think a tooth fairy will take your tooth?” said the ant.

“Of course! But I will need to send a hint.”

“Who is the tooth fairy?” wondered the tiny ant.

“I am,” declared a small, smiling creature in a hood. The tooth fairy disappeared, however there was still a tune in the air.

Thanks.
Anne and Natali

Isn’t this a great idea?

Posted in Activities, Email, General, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | 1 Comment »

New Year’s “Revolution”: Project 365

Happy New Year everyone!

Caitrin keeps asking me what my “New Year’s Revolutions” are going to be. I realized this is a great way to think about those “resolutions” isn’t it? Let’s change the way we do something, do something revolutionary!

I want to share one of mine with all of you. A friend put me onto Project 365. The simple task of this project is to photoblog each day of the year, for one year. That means that you will want to take one picture each day and then upload them to a blog as often as you can (you may certainly upload a week’s worth at once; the real idea is to be sure you take a daily photo).

One of the nice things about this project is that you create natural opportunities for writing: your kids may want to tag the photos with captions, for instance, or one of you may take a photo worthy of a freewrite or that might catalyze a poem. Somehow putting a camera in a child’s hands leads to a new view, to energy released, to enthusiasm for paying attention to the small things in life.

To set up a blog, I like Blogger.com. The platform is free and you can upload photos directly from your computer to your blog without having to host them at a photography platform first. Flickr.com is a great website for creating a slideshow of your photos to share with others. Simply create an account and start uploading your photos to it. You can also use Flickr.com to directly post to your blogger blog.

If all this sounds too technical, please don’t be intimidated. Perhaps the New Year’s Revolution you might like to attempt is getting familiar with some of these public Internet tools so you can expand your online horizons. Remember: teenagers can figure this stuff out. It can’t be that hard, can it?

So have fun! If you create a photoblog, feel free to send me a link. I’ll list it in the sidebar.

Posted in General, Writing Exercises | 1 Comment »

Fall Collage Contest winners announced

This picture comes from Susie Hairston and Isabella Soparkar, Honorable Mentions.

On the Brave Writer Moms Yahoo List, we had a writing contest during October. The contest asked Brave Writer Lifestyle Families to write a collage about fall. Each family member was asked to contribute at least one piece of writing, but all in one piece.

The collage could include poetry, quotes from books or songs or poems, a color walk, a freewrite, dialog, jokes, personal experiences, memories, or fiction… in short, the collage would be a collection of pieces of writing written by several family members and submitted all together. Collages don’t have to have transitions. They benefit, though, from an organizing theme. Quotes from outside sources were allowed as part of the finished project.

I asked the families who submitted collages to include a short description of the writing process they went through so that I could share those with all of you as you learn how to apply the Brave Writer philosophy to your family. These brave families did a superb job of taking this ball and running downfield with it! I kept calling out to my husband as I read the entries: listen to this terrific analogy, or don’t you love this word pair?

I promised to announce the winners here. The Grand Prize winner will receive either a copy of The Writer’s Jungle or Help for High School (or an equivalent in Brave Writer materials if the family already owns these). The runners-up (two) will receive two back issues to our language arts programs (the Arrow, the Boomerang or the Slingshot).

Over the next couple of days, I’ll post some excerpts from the truly wonderful pieces I received, as well as how the writing process unfolded for these families. They have great ideas for how to inspire young writers. I’m floored by the outpouring of creativity and energy. Even a few dads and one grandpa joined in the fun! Our winners come from two different countries. How cool is that?

Without further ado…

Grand Prize Winner: The Guy Family, headed up by the very capable Anna Guy from down under: Australia

First Runner-Up: The Page Family, led by the delightful Teresa Page from the good ol’ U.S.A.

Second Runner-up: The Lippert Family, galvanized into creativity by the ever industrious Stacy Lippert also from the U.S.A.

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to all the participants. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your work. I have a great job. 🙂

Posted in Contests / Giveaways, General, Writing Exercises | Comments Off on Fall Collage Contest winners announced

Rewrite a Fairytale

Here’s a quick writing idea that you can try if you are in a rut and want something to do besides freewriting.

Write a fairy tale with a new ending. Start with the familiar (any tale, like Little Red Riding Hood who goes to Grandma’s house and meets a wolf…) Then change it.

Here’s how to change it:

  1. Introduce a new item into the story: such as, a curling iron, a motorcycle, a packet of pop tarts…
  2. Introduce a new action: such as, dancing, fencing, climbing a tree, racing a Nascar racer, braiding hair, casting a spell
  3. Introduce a change in personality for a primary character: such as, a persnickety wolf, a dangerous grandma, a forgetful Red Riding Hood…

If you do these three things to the original, a new ending will automatically present itself!

Posted in Writing Exercises, Young Writers | Comments Off on Rewrite a Fairytale

Friday’s Freewrite in real life

Here is a photo of the boys doing the writing activity from last week, listing words of lengths up to 15 letters. One boy used Harry Potter and the other used my copy of Secret Life of Bees (which I still can’t get into!) . I know this isn’t a Tea Time picture, but when I signed up for the yahoogroup and saw your tea time post, it reminded me that I had this picture already taken.
Brave Mom Amy

My note: Please do send me your photos of any Brave Writer activity and we’ll post them to the blog. I love to see the processes in action. I saw on one mom’s blog (awhile back) a photo of the “Snip and Pin” revision process we use in Kidswrite Basic and that is also featured in the Preface of the 2nd edition of The Writer’s Jungle. I would love to post photos just like that one to share (so if you know what I’m talking about, get out your digital cameras and send them in).

Also, we would love to see cartoons, comic strips, lap books and any other narration task that you’d like to share with the world!

(I will post a much longer entry tomorrow night. We just moved our oldest off to college (boo-hoo) all weekend and I’m completely exhausted from inhaling dust and packing boxes and being nostalgic about how fast it goes and how much I’ve loved being home with him all these years.)

Julie

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Friday Freewrite, General, Writing Exercises | Comments Off on Friday’s Freewrite in real life