A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Email round-up: Praise and Research Papers

Praise for Brave Writer

Julie-
First, my children and I just finished the Kidswrite Basic class with Jean Hall… Thank you so much for making these classes available. My children didn’t turn out marvelously witty or poignant works, but they did write something and without too much complaining and they learned that they CAN write. And that is with suffering from the flu for most of the class. I no longer fear teaching them writing… I just have to figure out what kind of assignments to give them.

Second, I’ve always thought canned writing programs were fluff and the assignments were drivel…but it wasn’t until I found your website and read The Writer’s Jungle that I realized others felt the same way. Most of the other homeschool moms I’ve talked with have looked at me as if I’d lost my mind but I know what works for my family. Since I discovered your website last summer, we have incorporated into our school routine Teatime Tuesdays (my 4-year old’s MOST favorite part of the week), Friday Freewrites, and this May we are taking your One Thing Workshop: Shakespeare… We (well, I) can’t wait. Thank you so much for inspiring me to make the most of the time I have with my children, learn to love writing, and only focus on one thing at a time!

Laura

Answer:

Thanks Laura for sharing with us. I’m so glad you have begun this journey one thing at a time.

–Julie

Question about research papers:

Hi Julie,

I really value & trust your opinion & wonder if you have a chance to answer a quick question for me. At what age would you recommend having a child do a research paper? My son will be 12 next school year. We do a copywork/dictation passage each week (courtesy of you next year) & also a creative writing assignment each week. At what age should I begin thinking about research papers?

Kim in Venice, FL

Answer:

Hi Kim.

I have lots of thoughts about research papers. First of all, it’s not possible for a 12-year-old to actually write one. He may be able to write a long report (which is usually what is meant by the term “research paper” when you read about them at the junior high level). A long report means that your child will study a subject using multiple sources and will then compile and paraphrase the information into his own words. He’ll organize the material by sub-head (subject heading). At the end, he’ll include some type of bibliography that itemizes his sources.

Just to be clear. That kind of writing is not a research paper. A research paper takes a specific point of view about a topic (a thesis-based paper) that is controversial (or at minimum, that provokes a counter-argument). These papers engage the academic community. What that means is that the papers are analyzing the academic work done by experts in the field. Students (particularly those who are in high school or who are college undergraduates) attempt to synthesize and analyze those arguments by taking a risky position, paraphrasing and understanding the arguments made by the experts, and then bringing something of their own insight and perspective to bear on those arguments (either agreeing or disagreeing or nuancing the positions). They use multiple sources (usually the rule of thumb is that you will have consulted the equivalent of one source per page based on the total length of the paper – so 15 sources for a 15 page paper).

For a 12-year-old, writing a long-ish report is fine. But don’t call it a research paper. I have a chapter in The Writer’s Jungle called “The Dreaded Elementary School Report” that gives blow-by-blow steps of how to put one together that doesn’t drain the soul-life from your child. Most reports are tediously long, encourage flat-footed writing and kill anything resembling peaceful writing relations between parent and child (or teacher). The main benefit of the “long-ish” report is that your child learns how to use the library’s computer catalog system, sorts information into categories and learns how to make a little bibliography at the end. All of these can be achieved without writing a report, but if you are set on writing one, then exploit the experience for these aims rather than thinking about it in terms of “quality writing instruction.” Make sure that you keep the writing portion of the process to a minimum.

For the record, two of my five kids have written elementary school reports. Our ratio of how we organized our time: many months of reading and research and about a week of writing. 🙂 None so far has written a research paper before college. Jon and I have worked with our high schoolers (three of them) on crafting solid, 4-6 page essays. They are all very good at these now. When the older two went off to college and had to write longer papers (what would technically be called a research or term paper), they were both able to do it! They just expanded the essay format, lengthened the depth of their analysis for each of their points and voila! Research papers.

So I think the “research paper” as an academic goal before college is overblown. What we really want isn’t the ability to string together enough words for 15 pages. We want to cultivate rhetorical thinking and the skills of analysis in writing. We want to expose our kids to multiple points of view about a topic and teach them how to critically think about those viewpoints and how to offer their own. Most junior high kids aren’t mentally mature enough to do that kind of thinking yet. But in high school, kids are. Tackle that skill then and research papers will take care of themselves in college.

Julie

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Email, General, Tips for Teen Writers | 1 Comment »

My writing rut cure

Writing Rut Cure

Sometimes my writing bores… yawn…. me to…. yawn… what was I saying again?

It’s a lot like my cooking. I’m so sick of the same six meals I make every week (pizza, spaghetti, lentils, stir fry, pasta salad and black beans with rice), I can hardly eat them any more. When I’m invited to someone else’s house for a meal, I nearly lick the plate I’m so happy to be eating other flavors, prepared by other hands, using ingredients I never buy.

My writing can be like that. I know my little schtick. I introduce the anecdote, I correlate what I want to teach with a personal experience, I add some dialog or surprising detail.

Then I read someone else’s writing; someone I haven’t read in awhile and am startled to see it all done in a fresh way. There’s another way to write, one that weaves images, or piles up individual words without context, or tells someone else’s story, or litters her opening with fragments. It’s like a “get out of jail free” card when I run across writing that challenges my complacent status quo.

My favorite way to break out of my writing ruts is to read poetry.

Poets get a lot done in small spaces. They don’t have the luxury of another two pages to fix an overstatement or vague description. They’ve got to nail the insight in a couple of words. Song lyrics have this similar advantage (when they’re good, which often they aren’t).

My favorite poem to read and reread is by Wislawa Szymborska. It is translated from Polish so there is no rhyme in the English. The freshness of the metaphor combined with the directness of the images creates the poetry. More than that, though, more than craft or technique, this poem reminds me that there is no such thing as purity in life or art. It’s a chilly, lonely place on the mountain top. Life, in all its messiness and beauty, creativity and sharing, is worth living and appreciating on its own terms.

So since my writing is boring me today, I share with you writing that never fails to move me.

Notes from a Nonexistent Himalayan Expedition

So these are the Himalayas.
Mountains racing to the moon.
The moment of their start recorded
on the startling, ripped canvas of the sky.
Holes punched in a desert of clouds.
Thrust into nothing.
Echo; a white mute.
Quiet.

Yeti, down there we’ve got Wednesday,
bread and alphabets.
Two times two is four.
Roses are red there,
and violets are blue.

Yeti, crime is not all
we’re up to down there.
Yeti, not every sentence there
means death.

We’ve inherited hope
the gift of forgetting.
You’ll see how we give
birth among the ruins.

Yeti, we’ve got Shakespeare there.
Yeti, we play solitaire
and violin. At nightfall,
we turn lights on, Yeti.

Up here it’s neither moon nor earth.
Tears freeze.
Oh Yeti, semi-moonman,
turn back, think again!

I called this to the Yeti
inside four walls of avalanche,
stomping my feet for warmth
on the everlasting
snow.

Posted in Poetry | 3 Comments »

Friday Freewrite: Possessions

What is your most indispensable possession and why?

Posted in Friday Freewrite, General | Comments Off on Friday Freewrite: Possessions

They never change. Ever.

Boundaries: Understanding what works for each child

When Noah was not yet two, I found him hanging by one hand from the outside railing of a two story stairwell over a concrete patio below. He had swung his way to the top with casual ease, while I, like a game hunter, slowly, carefully, inched toward him from our upstairs apartment, until thwack, my hands clapped onto his shirt collar and my super-maternal strength hauled his dangling body to the safe side of the rails.

I’ve found Noah in trees; on top of brick walls; on the roof; outside the window of his bedroom, three stories up; two streets over; in the middle of the street; in a neighbor’s apartment; on top of a cliff (while my back was turned) and down in a ditch. To stop his risky inquisitiveness, I had to haul my usually pregnant, bulging body at lightening speed without pee dripping down my legs to get below, beyond, next to or on top of Noah before he broke bones, was kidnapped or cracked open his skull.

When I was pregnant with Johannah and Noah had just turned two, I lived in missionary housing. We all shared a quad with play equipment and spent every morning and afternoon with other families gossiping and supervising children. Our favorite topic: the poor parenting techniques of the mothers not currently present.

Being endowed with a brain at birth, it didn’t take me long to figure out what happened when I wasn’t there. I asked my friend Kris: “So it occurred to me that if I have opinions about everyone else’s right to spank or not, their scheduled breast feedings and swings, versus slings and the perennial baby-on-the-boob tactic of my preference, there must be a few opinions about how I’m wrecking my child forever. Would you mind telling me what it is I need to do to be a better mother?”

Kris, being classy, offered to think and pray about it for 24 hours. When we reconvened, she shared the following idea with me: “Julie,” she said, “I’ve noticed that your body is Noah’s boundary. You run in every direction to stop him from doing what he shouldn’t do. Look at you! You’ve lost weight, you’re sick. He needs to learn to respect your words. And he needs to learn that now.”

Clunk.

The words dropped into place and I felt so thankful for that guidance. Her vision launched me on a path to create a relationship with Noah dependent on words, not my physical acts of obstruction.

So the next time I said, “Stop!” (meaning: get down, don’t go there, turn back or What the Hell Do You think You’re Doing?), I made sure that I followed it up with some kind of discipline. We started with the venerable Time Out. I told Noah he had to stay in the bathroom until I told him he could come back to the family. As I walked through the door to leave him alone with the toilet, he followed me. I repeated: “No, you have to stay here, until I say you can come out. Understand?” He understood. I walked out. He followed me.

Hmmm. If I sit on him in the bathroom, or if I hold the door shut, isn’t that using my body to get him to do what I say? Yet he isn’t doing what I say. What if I give in and follow the “spank on command” strategies I oppose? But then isn’t that yet another way my body is stopping him and not my words? So I kept talking and Noah kept walking. I talked louder and he just walked faster. There was absolutely no way I could make Noah stay in the bathroom with words.

In fact, the more I tried to make my words stick, the less effective I felt. Worse, we went from the interdependence of my body being Noah’s non-judgmental boundary to Noah’s increased shame as I piled words on top of him (hurtful, resentful, nagging, cajoling, guilt-laden words).

For the next fifteen years, Jon and I used every word in the book to influence Noah’s decisions about his life: his friends, his music, what he read, where he went, his education, how he drives, his values and any other life area we could nag into matching our vision of what it ought to look like.

We’ve had many great conversations. We’ve also had many shameful ones when our words fell flat or scorched his tender heart. The end result: despair, hurt, painful memories; words that required apologies, even years later.

And for all that: what hasn’t changed? Noah. He’s not guided by our words. We can take away a car, we can limit the funds we give him, we can choose not to co-sign apartments (if we want to), but our words don’t stop him. Instead, now we ask ourselves: “What do we need to do to feel right about our relationship with Noah?” We don’t ask ourselves, “What should we tell Noah to do so he’ll make good decisions?” (Though inevitably, as a stupid moth to a bright flame, we often still blunder forward with our Valuable Opinions until we remember again.)

Noah is guided by an inner impulse
that we can limit only as far as we have physical control,
just as it’s always been.

As Jon used to say: “Age and Maturity will be Noah’s best friends.” Noah, from the time he was born, has had an incalculable confidence in his ability to manage his life. Lucky for us, he grew up so he finally can!

It struck me the other day as I thought back to Kris’ well-intended advice. She was right about one thing – I was running myself ragged setting the boundaries with my body, my whole self thrown extravagantly into the abyss that is “limiting Noah.” But in the end, it’s the only thing that ever worked without causing emotional damage. It turns out, this is just who he is and has always been. I have a hunch, it’s who he’ll continue to be as well. And on this side of it, I’m in awe of who Noah is and the sheer genius of his brave embrace of life.

Posted in Family Notes, Parenting | 3 Comments »

Lemon Scone Tea

I’ve left California and returned to a glorious Ohio spring! As I uploaded my pictures from last week, I realized that I could share with you the results of the lemon scone tea.