Archive for the ‘Young Writers’ Category

Pat Schneider on honoring geniuses

My goodness. How can I not share this today?

“Genius often emerges where there is intimate support for it. Shakespeare worked in the intimate supportive community of a strong theater that wanted his next play. Dickinson worked within the intimate community of a family that loved her and protected her time and privacy. Neither of them were seen by their contemporaries as being greatly gifted. It seems truly important that there be a community of support around the artist that protects the making of art” (Pat Schneider *Writing Alone and With Others* xxi).

This quote struck me this morning as I work on the Partnership Writing product. What I know about homeschooling families is that they are uniquely intimate. That’s not to say there isn’t intimacy in families with kids in public or private schools. Rather, home education creates a context where genius can thrive. Why? Because there are no other people on the planet who are as predisposed to recognize the particular genius of children as the parents of those same little people.

Every time I speak, I’m inundated with mothers who share with me the brilliance of their kids—the breadth of imagination, the depth of vocabulary, the surprising accumulation of facts that the parent never saw the child amassing. Over and over again, parents marvel at who lives inside the skin of their children.

It’s from that appreciation, that “what a miracle is my child” posture that writing growth can occur! We are not fighting for success in grammar and punctuation. Our mission is not the proper execution of essays. We are not charged with critiquing and down-dressing our children for what appears to be lethargy or ineptitude.

Our chief mission at home with our children is to discover and articulate their particular brilliances, and then to fiercely protect the space into which they cast their risky thoughts so that they may take the tentative steps toward refining that genius, knowing they are emotionally supported and respected.

You get to do that work! Not a school. Not a theater company. But like Emily Dickinson’s family, you may provide for your children the emotionally safe, enthusiastically prepared environment that allows for risk-taking, failure, exaggeration, and blossoming—all in one.

Geniuses. That’s who you’re raising. Make sure you remember that today.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, On Being a Mother, Young Writers | Comments Off on Pat Schneider on honoring geniuses

Zippy tips for kids

2 zippy tips to get those rascals of yours on board

I promised that before the school year started, I’d give you a couple of pointers for how to get those kids of yours to buy into their homeschool experience. Here they are, in the nick of time!


1. Psst: They can’t read your mind. Let them in on your plans!

You know what I hate? I hate being super-duper excited about an idea I have that is sure to change the world, or at least tomorrow morning, only to have a kid—my kid!—roll her eyes at me and scowl.

I hate putting in endless hours reading, discussing, pondering, imagining, and preparing for this most-holy-and-awesome project only to meet sarcastic rejoinders, bored stares, and dawdling.

I hate being convinced by my posse of homeschool mom friends that the curricula I used last year blows and this new one is perfect, only to discover that I hate the first five paragraphs of explanation and now feel obligated to use it because of all the money I spent. I hate that my kids can tell I’m not excited and they make it worse by complaining…. OUTLOUD SO I CAN HEAR THEM.

Homeschooling is hard enough.

It’s intolerable when your kids DON’T WANT TO DO WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO.

To help your little rascals get into that same head space you’re in, you want to use a skill you’re famous for teaching your children: narration. Narrate aloud in a kind of Shakespearean soliloquy the process you are going through/went through that led you to this particular moment in time.

For instance, you might wake up one morning and move through the kitchen-family room talking aloud like this (while clearing shoes from the floor and empty dirty cups from horizontal surfaces):

You know, yesterday during nap time, I paged through our Incan chapter in the history text. Did you know they made these interesting patterns on clay pottery? I thought to myself, ‘I would love to paint pottery like that.’ Then I wondered how difficult it would be to get some clay to make the pots first. Easy! We have that Michael’s coupon.

Then I imagined what it must have been like for the archaeologists to have found those broken pots in the ground so many hundreds of years after they’d been made. You know?

So I got to thinking. What if I made a pot, painted it with cool Incan designs, smashed it with a hammer, and buried it in the backyard between layers of cardboard to show what century it came from? Then you guys could dig up the broken pots!

Or, even better, I wondered if you’d want to paint, smash, and bury the pots for me to dig up? Or we could do it for each other. Do you think you’d like to do something like that? Look at these pictures!

You model your process by narrating it to the kids. You invite them to move with you through the thoughts and ideas you generated so they have time to “catch up” to you and imagine it with you.

Sure, most kids would love to paint designs, hammer pots, and dig holes in the ground. But sometimes even your best ideas feel overwhelming to kids when they get dumped on their heads while they’re still wiping sleep from their eyes.

What do you do if the idea you have is
less immediately exciting?

When you want to move into a new set of workbooks, or you have decided to change how you teach math, or perhaps you have a child who will need to work harder than usual to learn to handwrite, you want to narrate your thinking process there too. But add brownies and some cuddle time.

(While on the couch, snuggled close together)

Sweetie, you know how we’re not enjoying ________ (math, writing, cursive, reading) right now? I have some friends who have shared some new ideas with me about how we might make it a little easier. It might take some effort to catch on and I know it will feel really weird at first to change what we’ve been doing, but how does this sound to you?

Here’s what it’s like. Here’s how it works. Here’s what you would be doing. How does that sound? (Listen.)

(Ask and mean it) Can we try it together for a week and then discuss how it feels? What time of day do you want to try it? Does it help if you have a plate of cookies by your side? Or iPod headphones in your ears? Or alone on your bed in your room, away from the chaos of the family?

Tell me how it really is for you and I will help you along the way. Here’s the philosophy behind this new way (state it in simple terms—more active, more concentration, more repetition, less tedium, more creativity, more predictability, slower, faster…). Then we’ll evaluate. Can you do it with me for a week (month, semester)?

This is how you narrate to your child what it is you might want to try, might want to do. You involve them, getting feedback. You’re still the parent. You can expect the child to cooperate or to try it, but you want to do so with a gentle, open mind. Allow for tweaks and feedback (even negative responses need to be heard).

If all else fails, you can try the new program yourself first. Sit at the table and start painting, or do copywork, or try the new math game. Talk about it as you do it. Let your kids watch you. Be upbeat and engaged. See who joins you. Laugh – that almost always pulls kids into what you are up to.

2. Psst: You can’t read their minds either! Ask them what they want.

On the flip side, your kids have been pondering, thinking, and imagining their lives too. Some of them spend time envisioning the next level they’ll beat on a video game. Others wish they could sew costumes or paint with watercolors. You might have a child who wants to be in a play or who wants to play an instrument. Maybe your daughter wants to become the next soccer star of her local team and your son hopes he can take a cake decorating class. A teen might want to spend hours a day watching the top 100 films listed by Criterion in order.

How will you know they have these dreams if you don’t ask? Where will those hours of the day come from if they’re already filled with your agenda or your wishes?

Even more, what if your kids have some thoughts about how to learn the hard subject area that they struggle with? It’s surprising the amount of insight some children have about their struggles if you know how to ask them the right kinds of questions. You might ask things like:

I know times tables feel hard to do. Does anything help? Do you prefer to hold things in your hand or draw on a chalk board? Does it help to talk to me as you work on them? What’s the hard part for you? Is it the book? Too busy and colorful? Too plain and tedious? Do the Cuisinaire rods hurt or help?

Don’t punch the questions at your child like a nail gun. Take them slowly, show curiosity. Sometimes a child will say one thing that unlocks the whole thing: 

I don’t get the point of the rods.

Suddenly you can see that your child is going through the motions without true understanding! More modeling and support, conversation and suggestions can follow. So pay attention and use your maturity and compassion to help you hear where the frustration comes from.

Usually lectures about the value of a specific subject area for their eventual adulthood doesn’t work with kids. What works is breaking down each task to its smallest part and relating it to their immediate world.

If there is no immediate connection, perhaps the work should fall to you to discover one before requiring a child to work that hard on the subject. After all, these are children. They don’t have the same level of fortitude to “do what they should” as you do as an adult. So take time (since you are the grown-up) to find the connection, to uncover the meaning, and to share it with love and support before requiring follow through and effort.

When your child shares what I like to call a B-HAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), you want to support the dream. For instance, our middle son, Jacob, wanted to go to NASA’S space camp. We didn’t earn enough at the time to afford it. So Jacob’s dad suggested that Jacob start a cookie business in our neighborhood to raise the money. And Jake did—he raised over $1000 between the ages of 10-12 to pay his entire way (including airfare).

We bought the ingredients, we taught him how to knock on doors to get customers, we supported him when he spoke to managers at grocery stores to see if he could sell cookies out front, we helped him open a bank account. We didn’t shut him down or make science experiments more important. We made time for him to achieve his goal with support and creativity. This choice took time away from other studies or activities. But it’s what he wanted to do.

Even to this day, Jacob (20) loves astronomy despite the fact that he isn’t planning to work in the space industry. He has this marker in childhood, though, of having set his mind to a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and fulfilling it. That attitude has continued right into his adulthood.

If you take the time to narrate what you imagine in your family and you take the time to listen to your children narrate what they imagine would make them happy, you will discover lots of things you could be doing together right now that would expand the joy and power of your homeschool immediately.

Isn’t that what you want?

I’d love to hear how it goes and what you find out from your kids. We can discuss in comments below.

Registration for fall classes opens on Monday, August 6, at noon eastern.

Remember: fall is our busiest time so if you are wanting a class, be sure to sign up early!

The new season of the Arrow and Boomerang are happening right now too! Not too late to sign up.

Rooting for you,


 

 

 

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice, On Being a Mother, Young Writers | 4 Comments »

Thinking Differently about Writing

The Paradigm Shift

Sometimes moms have a hard time wrapping their brains around Brave Writer. They ask questions like:

  • What grade levels is it for?
  • Do I need any other writing program if I use Brave Writer materials?
  • What do I do once I’ve worked through Growing Brave Writers? Do I go on to some other program or can I keep going with Brave Writer?
  • What’s the difference between the Arrow and Partnership Writing?

So with all the new visitors and emails flying into my in-box, I thought I’d take a moment to give you another way to think about Brave Writer.

Brave Writer requires a paradigm shift
in how you think about writing.

Like any paradigm shift, it feels “wrong” at first, even though you also feel drawn to it. Brave Writer is not about programmatic writing. It’s not organized by grade level. It’s organized by developmental stages of growth.

The reason you may feel flustered by Brave Writer is that it requires you to consider each individual child’s needs and then match the right products to him or her.

That’s a bigger challenge initially than clicking on “1st grade” and buying the 1st Grade Package. But the upside is this: we offer TONS of support (email, phone calls, and the membership community, Brave Learner Home) to ensure that you buy the right products for your particular family. Once you enter the world of Brave Writer, we take care of you and your kids. You have access to me (Julie Bogart) and my staff.

We teach YOU how to be a homeschooling parent and writing coach simultaneously without damaging your relationship with your child, as well as provide tools with processes and exercises to help you establish a writing process that is tailored to your unique child.

It’s not: “Write a descriptive paragraph, using a topic sentence, an ‘ly’ word for the second sentence, and a clincher for the last sentence.”

It is: “Delightful child of mine: you have so much to say. Let’s see how we can get that captured on paper in any way we can so that you and I can play with your ideas and thoughts, so we can expand them, enjoy them, and share them with others. Let’s discover all the cool, interesting thoughts inside you. I’m on your team and I have some tricks up my sleeve for how we can make writing comfortable, interesting, less taxing, more satisfying, and even enjoyable. You deserve that. Have a brownie.”

See how different that is? It helps you to execute ANY writing you do with your child, in any other curriculum you are already using. It’s the manual that tells you how to teach writing, not what to teach.

Can you feel the difference?

Brave Writer

Brave Writer products facilitate writing growth
through a specific set of ideas about writing.

Those ideas are:

  • When growing a writer, you want to match the level of support you offer to the developmental skills of your child. Help helps!
  • It’s essential to separate the mechanics of writing from the original writing voice in the early stage of development.
  • We use someone else’s writing to teach mechanics.
  • We capture the child’s original writing voice on paper, on screen for that child until the mechanics take hold.
  • The writing process is more important than writing formats, particularly in the early years.
  • Writing growth happens through a series of papers, not in every single paper.
  • Writing with freedom, support, and modeling creates space for kids to access/delve into their own language that reveals their natural insight, vocabulary, and passion.
  • Parents make the best coaches and allies to their children.
  • Any native speaker who reads and writes can be his or her child’s writing coach.
  • Creating emotional safety for writing risks is the single most important skill a parent must master to grow a writer.
  • A language rich environment is more important/effective than spelling, grammar, vocabulary, literature, and writing workbooks.
  • Poetry Teatime is the gateway drug to all things Brave Writer.

A wonderful side-effect is that it will make you a better homeschooling parent, period. The paradigm shift away from “school,” to “home” is profound. You’ll find that you are suddenly much more able to be there for your kids, valuing their quirky individuality, no matter how skilled or unskilled they are in academics. You’ll discover that you love hanging out with these little people and you’ll be startled by how their mind life delights and fascinates you (rather than worrying that they are behind).

In other words, Brave Writer’s paradigm shift speaks to the whole of how you home educate but uses writing as the primary lens through which you re-envision what it means to celebrate, nurture, love, and lead your fabulous little people.

The Brave Writer Philosophy

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice, Language Arts, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | Comments Off on Thinking Differently about Writing

The Difference Between Brave Writer and Other Programs

The difference between Brave Writer and other programs

I got an email from Hayley, who lives in Australia. She brought up so many good points, I wanted to share my answers to her questions here for others who have similar concerns. We had been in dialog over the last few days so this is my final email to her.

Hi Hayley. Comments within.

Thanks for this Julie.  Will Brave Writer teach him the mechanics of writing, will he understand the formula.  Does Brave Writer teach predicates, topics, starts, middle, ends to a piece of writing?  What I mean by this is, there seems to be a strong emphasis (in all writing programs I have looked at) on learning the procedure of writing a successful piece of work.  Will Brave Writer teach this or teach me to teach it? 

Brave Writer will teach those things, eventually. Brave Writer is about a paradigm shift in how you understand the writing process. Those other programs are following the same tired ideas about writing instruction that have produced decades of flat, lacking-in-confidence, mediocre writers. I know because I talk to adults all the time and the vast majority feel nervous about writing, don’t think they’re good at it, and typically make comments like “I don’t know how to write” despite all the years of having formats pounded into them.

Professional writing instructions starts with a person – not a format. That’s why we are Brave Writer; not Brave Writing. The focus of our instruction begins with the idea that people have interesting thoughts and that these deserve written expression to be shared with an interested audience. We work with helping kids access language from within, helping them to feel safe enough to take writing risks. We (you the parent, and our instructors) support them at each stage of development with corresponding help/assistance.

Over time, formats can be introduced and kids with a strong sense of writing voice will learn them easily.

We do teach mechanics of writing through copywork and dictation and have tools to do that so that while the child is learning how to create original writing without a lot of structural pressure, he/she is also learning how to transcribe accurately and also internalizing quality writing with literary style.

These skills then flow into the child’s own writing as the two come together around ages 13-15.

Like I mentioned, I have looked at the website many times and I don’t fully understand how the ‘lifestyle’ works.  I would also want my son to be able to transition out of Brave Writer and into another program for example without having to start from the lowest level again, if we felt the need to.  I am having difficulty trying to articulate what I want at the moment (have a flu).  Am I making any sense?

Yes, you make perfect sense. You should not need to transition to another program. Brave Writer has been able to meet the writing and language arts needs of thousands of families. On the other hand, if you are interested in using another program or joining a co-op, your child will begin at the level he or she is at when that day comes. But it won’t be about whether he or she can write a business letter or a haiku. It will be about command of language—how well can this child access the language within and give it life on a page?

I love that Brave Writer will capture my son’s imagination and ideas, but I would also like to know I am training him from this early age to write with a correct ‘procedure’.  

But that’s not effective. Think back to speech. Did you worry at ages 4-5 that he wasn’t speaking according to formats in oral language? Perfect grammar? Able to give an oral presentation or speech or deliver a business lecture? When a child learns to speak, we support and encourage all spoken words, even the ones that aren’t quite right. We intuitively know that we don’t expect perfect etiquette at 2-3 or before fluency kicks in. We don’t teach a child how to “answer the phone” before that child is capable of talking and interacting naturally in person.

Likewise, if you begin with formats and “procedure,” you stunt the child’s ability to use his or her natural vocabulary, insight, gathered facts, quirky personality, and all that is available to the child to convey. Instead, the child dumbs down his or her vocabulary to suit the puzzle of the writing assignment and loses touch with what he or she wants to say. Perhaps, in some cases, the natural structure of the ideas is also over-written by the canned ideas of the particular curricula as well.

Like you say most other programs concentrate heavily on the formulaic component, however for me, I would like to concentrate on getting him to put words on paper and feeling confident to do so, but at the same time be gently teaching him the correct formula.

There is no one correct formula. There are lots of ways writing can be shaped but it’s harder to learn these if they are taught ahead of fluency in written self-expression.

I hear many good reviews about Brave Writer, but I also hear about parents purchasing the text, reading it, liking it, but then not really knowing how to put it into practice.  From what I understand, an issue is that it is too ‘unstructured’? 

The difficulty with Brave Writer is that it is not a schedule, but a process. That process can be applied to any writing a child does. I do give ideas in the appendix for what kinds of writing a child might do at each level. Honestly, you can google how to write a descriptive paragraph, if you are looking for specific guidance on structure. What is missing is the process. How do you coax out the rich insight and vocabulary of your child to get a quality descriptive paragraph, not just a formulaic response to a wooden question?

It takes time and trust (courage) to put into practice, and I offer to help throughout. Anyone who emails me gets a response (like this one!). So there’s no reason to get stuck, if you’re worried about that.

Sorry if I am rambling and this email is all over the place.  Thanks for listening.

You’re welcome. The last thing you might like knowing is that our next set of products do give specific writing projects to go with the developmental levels. These would be done at the pace of one per month and are meant to be a way to use the writing process with an intended goal at the end. The reason I resisted writing them for nearly 13 years is that I worry that moms will not make the paradigm shift first—really grasping how important it is for kids to have full access to their original writing voices first.

Hope that helps! Feel free to share it with others who may have similar questions where ever it is you post.

Please do share this information in your homeschooling communities. A paradigm shift takes time. Realizing that writing is not so different from learning to speak, from weaning a child from breastfeeding to food to table manners, from early dependency on you, the parent, to independent living as a young adult is the beginning. Then Brave Writer helps you get there with support to silence the ghost of public school past that sits on your left shoulder.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Email, Homeschool Advice, Young Writers | 2 Comments »

Follow up to yesterday’s post

Hi everyone.

I heard from two of our instructors yesterday with excellent feedback related to our post and discussion about writing between parents and children. Here’s what Rita has to say:

Julie,

I think one reason parents freak about spelling is they don’t follow the entire Writer’s Jungle process. They never take a child-selected writing piece once a month and work through the editing process you outline. That is where kids learn about all the picky stuff and they see that they can have a finished piece that people look at and praise.

Without the whole process over the course of months, parents give up on trusting the freewrite and kids don’t understand that a freewrite is about getting ideas on paper for a selected “big finish.” That big finish is where it all comes together and kids have an opportunity to care about how it looks or how it’s spelled–and to show it to someone with pride! The whole process encourages everyone to embrace and trust the freewrite. Parents whose kids are afraid to write are more afraid of that once a month editing process. Then everyone spirals downward again when the freewrite loses its steam. I hear this over and over again in Dynamic Revision (one of Rita’s classes that she teaches for Brave Writer).

Also, introducing kids to electronic dictionaries–now on phones and easier than ever with Siri–can really help the kid who is picky about spelling. They are more willing to just underline words that they don’t know how to spell, while they freewrite, once they can see how easy it is to go back after and electronically “fix” their perceived errors–before anyone else sees it! Their need to be perfect is easily met, so they are able to trust waiting.

Lastly, be aware of this: kids who can’t deal with the misspelled word may have no strategies for spelling. Kids who rely on how words look and don’t attend to phonemes and the default graphemes have no clue how to “just write how you think it’s spelled.” They may have to be taught how to write what they hear. Again, the electronic/on-line dictionaries help here: write what you hear, then check it by inputting those letter choices into the search. Spell-checkers reward those efforts in a way the old tomes never could.

Just some thoughts.

I would add: The Wand (created by Rita) gives parents the tools to teach spelling strategies to your kids. For older kids, The Arrow and The Boomerang give your kids practice with spelling through copywork and dictation. Use someone else’s writing to work on mechanics.

For kids struggling with handwriting, one of our instructors, Susanne Barrett, recommends Dragon Speech-to-Text Software:

Hi Julie,

Keith bought me the Dragon speech-to-text software; he found it at Costco for half price ($40). It’s wonderful; I can speak into the headset, and my words magically appear on the screen; I can even punctuate, capitalize, italicize or bold, even open files all by voice commands. The advantage for me is that it saves my swollen hands from painful typing.

However, I was thinking that because it’s dictation-based, it might be an option to mention for some of our families, either with kids in the partnership stage of writing or for students with dysgraphia or dyslexia.

It took about half an hour to set it up and train it to my voice. And we’re off and running! I’ve had problems with dictating in e-mails (I’m typing this), but I wrote half my new fan fiction chapter in Word with it Saturday within an hour of opening the box, and I can dictate responses to students within Brave Writer after setting the cursor at the right place. Yay!! My hands have really been bothering me lately, so this software is helping immensely.

Just wanted to let you know….

And there you have it! Our instructors have great ideas to keep you and your families writing. You may want to sign up for a class this spring. Just sayin’! 🙂

 

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Dictation and copywork, Homeschool Advice, Language Arts, Learning Disabilities, The Writer's Jungle, Young Writers | Comments Off on Follow up to yesterday’s post