A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Brave Writer Mom, Kim, writes:

Hi Julie.

My two daughters didn’t attend a public school until they attended our local community college at age 18. During my years of homeschooling them, figuring out how to teach writing challenged me. I have no recollection of how I first heard of your program but they were in their very early elementary years when I purchased The Writer’s Jungle [now Growing Brave Writers], and it became the only writing program (maybe lifestyle is a better word?) I ever used.

This note is a thank you for your instruction, encouragement and hand-holding via that program and your blog. Over the years, we covered a lot of ground:

• poetry tea time,
• freewrites,
• copywork,
• revision on some pieces,
• nature journals,
• read-alouds…

They took one online Brave Writer class (the essay class) and really appreciated the format; I continued to provide feedback on their writing in the same way they got used to seeing it in that class. I learned to trust the process without knowing exactly where it all would lead.

It led to a bounty of fruit. During their high school years, they each had an article published in a magazine (one daughter bought a small herd of sheep with her earnings). When the girls attended college and took the required introductory writing courses, they both consistently scored in the top of their class.

My favorite comment came from my youngest daughter when someone asked her how I taught them writing. “Well, Mom gives us feedback on what we write by highlighting in different colors (maybe yellow for spelling issues, maybe green for punctuation, maybe purple where she’s commenting on awkward phrasing or more effective ways to organize the writing). So after doing that a bunch of times, you learn how to write better. Then, you go to college and see that other people need help with their writing, and you do the exact same thing for your fellow students!”

Thank you, Julie! I would do it all again given the opportunity!

Kim