A Brave Writer's Life in Brief - Page 345 of 753 - Thoughts from my home to yours A Brave Writer's Life in Brief
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A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Thoughts from my home to yours

Happy Birthday, Rick Riordan!

The Sea of Monsters Boomerang Sale
In celebration of Rick Riordan’s birthday (June 5, 1964), we’re making a special offer! The Boomerang for his novel, The Sea of Monsters, is:

HALF PRICE until June 8, 2016 at midnight EDT! ($5.95)
OFFER HAS EXPIRED

A native of San Antonio, Texas, Rick Riordan taught in various schools for fifteen years before he began writing full time. His book, The Sea of Monsters, is a fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology and is the second volume in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. The story follows Percy and his friends as they rescue the satyr, Grover, from the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Rick Riordan’s advice to young writers:

“It’s helpful if a young writer can find a mentor who believes in his or her talent. So don’t be afraid to ask for help! Find a teacher you respect. Correspond with authors. See if you can join a creative writing group in your community … Read everything you can get your hands on. You will learn the craft of writing by immersing yourself in the voices, styles, and structures of writers who have gone before you. Don’t be afraid that you’ll start sounding like a particular writer you admire. That just means you need to read MORE, not less.” –Rick Riordan

So, celebrate Rick Riordan’s birthday and take advantage of this special offer!

Also, if you’d like to buy a copy of the novel, it’s available through Amazon: The Sea of Monsters (affiliate link).

The Boomerang is a monthly digital downloadable product that features copywork and dictation passages from a specific read aloud novel. It is geared toward 7th to 10th graders (ages 12—advanced, 13-15) and is the indispensable tool for Brave Writer parents who want to teach language arts in a natural, literature-bathed context.

Posted in BW products | Comments Off on Happy Birthday, Rick Riordan!


Friday Freewrite: New Puppy

Friday Freewrite: New Puppy

First, write a letter to your new puppy. Next, write a reply from the puppy.

New to freewriting? Check out our online guide.

Posted in Friday Freewrite | Comments Off on Friday Freewrite: New Puppy


YouTube Thursday: 55 and 61 Things

Things I Did and Did NOT Do in My Homschool

These scopes have been two of our most popular!

55 Things I Did NOT Do as a Homeschooler

61 Things I Did Right in My Homeschool

Subscribe to Brave Writer on YouTube!

Posted in Periscopes, Video of Julie | Comments Off on YouTube Thursday: 55 and 61 Things


2016-17 Arrows and Boomerangs Titles!

2016-17 Arrows and Boomerangs
Presenting the 2016-2017 book lists for our literature program!

(3rd-10th grades)

Full Year On Sale in June
Arrow: $69.00 (regularly $79.00)
Boomerang: $89.00 (regularly $99.00)

The Arrow (3rd-6th) and The Boomerang (7th-10th) are our language arts tools (digital magazines) that teach grammar, spelling, punctuation, and literary elements using living literature (a la Charlotte Mason). We pick books for you to read that represent a diversity of perspectives and writing genres to expand the horizons of your young charges. From those books, we select four passages for copywork and dictation, paired with easy to understand notes written in a conversational and engaging style.

The practices of copywork and dictation powerfully teach the mechanics of writing to your kids, without the emotional toll of critiquing your children’s original writing! They allow for the brain to encode proper usage, spelling, and syntax by marrying transcription skills to sentences loaded with meaning.

Try it this year, and see the difference!

2016-17 Arrows

August: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
September: The One and Only Ivan (Katherine Applegate)
October: Homer Price (Robert McCloskey)
November: Carry on Mr. Bowditch (Jean Lee Latham)
December: The Birchbark House (Louise Erdrich)
January: The Green Ember (S. D. Smith)
February: Bud, Not Buddy (Christopher Paul Curtis)
March: Out of My Mind (Sharon M. Draper)
April: A Long Walk to Water (Linda Sue Park)
May: The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)

2016-17 Boomerangs

August: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Ransom Riggs)
September: Julie of the Wolves (Jean Craighead George)
October: The Prince and the Pauper (Mark Twain)
November: Moon Over Manifest (Clare Vanderpool)
December: American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang)
January: Mountains Beyond Mountains (Tracy Kidder)
February: The Crossover (Kwame Alexander)
March: Divergent (Veronica Roth)
April: The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
May: Echo (Pam Munoz Ryan)

Each issue publishes on the 1st of the month and will be available for download from a private folder on our Brave Writer Website. (Books, teacup, and frog not included.)

To purchase the books (all in one place for ease of ordering), use our Amazon Store (affiliate links)!

Want to know more? Watch the scope below to learn how the Arrow and Boomerang programs work and a little about each of the book selections!

One last caveat: We are offering Arrow and Boomerang book clubs for ALL 20 titles next year. If you decide you want your kids to be in our book discussion clubs, know that the issues of the Arrow and Boomerang are included for the price of the club.

We’re excited to read with your family during the coming year!

Posted in Arrow, Boomerang, BW products | Comments Off on 2016-17 Arrows and Boomerangs Titles!


Help with Dictation

Fitting Dictation Into Your Homeschool

A Brave Writer mom asks about her 11 year old daughter who has a low tolerance for schoolwork and struggles with spelling:

I want to start dictation with her but am not sure where and how to fit it in.

Hi! I think it is a good idea to use a passage she knows well for dictation. Initially she may even need you to offer to verbally spell words she is unsure of as you dictate. This is still great experience for her as she will have to listen and write what you say (another way to encode the spellings). Exaggerate your pauses for commas and make a strong finish sound when you get to periods. Help her in all the ways you can. If she needs some words written in advance on a notecard to copy when she hears you say them, then do that too!

You might try our practice of French-style dictation. This is where you choose which words will be written. You type the entire passage, then you omit some of the words and replace them with blank lines. Print the whole thing. Read the passage aloud and she reads along with you until she gets to a blank space. When she hears the word that goes there, she will write it. This is a wonderful, gradual practice for kids who are just struggling to write and spell. You can isolate words she knows well the first time you do it so she has success. Then gradually include a word or two she doesn’t know well and prep her before the dictation by orally spelling them together.

For freewriting: spelling doesn’t matter AT ALL. It doesn’t matter if she misspells every word. You can help her if she calls out to you in the middle of a freewrite by spelling it back to her, but remind her that all spellings can be cleaned up later. That’s not the goal of freewriting. If there are words she can’t even attempt in freewriting, then write them for her on a white board or note pad before she begins so she can copy them exactly.

Always use Spell Check on the computer (it teaches kids a lot) and offer her the opportunity to correct her own work against the original so that she is the one making the connection between where she missed the spelling and what it should be.

Keep ALL these sessions short. She will tire easily (it’s an enormous amount of work for her). Give her shoulder rubs and light candles. Eat treats after she finishes. Use pretty paper and flowing pens—let her write in colors other than blue or black.

Make this a nourishing experience, not just school work. Remind her of how smart she is and how you know that she is capable of growing in this arena. Keep her first dictation in a file and compare it to one six months and then a year from now so she can see her progress.

Good luck!


Want to learn more?
Check out our Copywork and Dictation webinar!

Brave Writer’s literature-based language arts guides
include copywork passages and much more.

Brave Writer's Arrow and Boomerang

Posted in Email, Homeschool Advice | Comments Off on Help with Dictation


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