Brave Writer mom Misty sent this to us. Not only is it a super piece of writing by student Maya, it’s also an awesome example of gently helping your child revise her work! (Misty’s comments to her daughter Maya are in italics.)
Freewrite by Maya
I marvled as I rubbed my fingers back and forth on the hat feeling every bump and every ridge in the well-made sombrero.
This intro caught my attention! Can you add more description of the hat here in this sentence? Maybe the color? Add a simile or adjective?
I got it in Mexico when I was a little girl.
My baby… Can you add more description? Adjectives?
I remeber exactly were I was, it was at a vendor in front of a restaurant, I rember the smell of the mouth watering smell of Authentic Mexican food and seeing the hat and exclaiming. “Daddy look at that hat!”
I like the personal experience you brought to the story. The smell of mouth watering Authentic Mexican food is a great addition. Can you describe what caught your eye? Was it the shimmery silver cording or the shiny sequins?
I emeditately ran to it in happiness and excitement of being in a new place. I snatched it and violently put in on my tangled curls.
I love the adjectives and verbs in this second sentence! Is there another word for “put” that would match the descriptive word “violently”? What was it about the hat that made you happy and excited to be in a new place?
I rember rubbing the sides of it as I did then. And that smell still settled in the hat today.
Couple of questions with these two sentences: Do you remember how it felt to rub the hat then when you rub it now? What smell settled in the hat today? The smell of Mexican food? Just need to clarify your thoughts.
And of course when I listened to the hat (yup I listened to a hat) the same merrachi band that came to our table played in my head, And I rember putting on the hat and strumming my little guitar that caught my eye before the hat I stood up and played with them
This is a great memory about what sounds you heard in your mind during the sound portion of the keen observation exercise. This is a long run-on sentence, but that’s ok! It was a freewrite, we’ll clean it up later.
Can you clear up the events that took place? Like, did you buy the hat and then go to the Authentic Mexican Restaurant for lunch? Did you buy a little guitar or was it borrowed? How did it feel to play with a Mariachi band?
And here’s the finished product!
Sombrero Keen Observation
by Maya
I marveled as I rubbed my fingers back and forth, feeling every bump, ridge and fiber in the well-made pink and platinum sombrero. I got it in Mexico, about six years ago, when I was a little girl. I remember exactly where I was when it caught my eye. We were in front of an authentic Mexican restaurant with the smell of mouth-watering food filling the air. My eye wandered to the hat vendor and I exclaimed, “Daddy, look at that hat!” As I ran to it, happiness and excitement flowed from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I snatched it and violently planted it on my tangled curls. I remember reaching up and rubbing the sides of the sombrero those six years ago, as I do now. The smell of the Mexican food still settles in the hat or maybe just in the crevices of my mind. And of course when I listened to the hat (yep, I listened to a hat) the same Mariachi band that visited our table at the restaurant, played in my head. I remember standing on my chair, putting on my little sombrero and strumming my little guitar that my dad had bought me earlier in the day. At that exact moment, I felt Mexican.
Image by Brave Writer mom Misty
