A Brave Writer’s Life in Brief

Hi everyone!

We’ve got the new slate of winter quarter classes ready to post. They won’t be on the site until we launch the Brand New Brave Writer Website later this week. (I’m so excited to share it with you all, finally!!)

In the meantime, here’s the information you’ll need to start planning. Registration will be:

Monday, December 8, 2008
12:00 p.m. EST

Here’s the slate of classes:

Literary Analysis
January 12 - February 20 (Wuthering Heights)

SAT/ACT Essay
February 2 - February 27

One Thing Workshop: Grammar
January 5 - January 30

One Thing Workshop: Freewriting
February 16 - March 13

Passion for Fiction
January 12 - February 6

Just So Stories
February 23 - March 20

Kidswrite Intermediate
January 5 - February 13
February 16 - March 27

Kidswrite Basic
January 5 - February 13
February 2 to March 13

Hand-Holders (A follow-up to KWB for moms wanting more support; NEW~)
January 5 - January 30

Sometimes I think it helps to hear a practical, personal description of how a homeschooling mother embraces and applies the Brave Writer philosophy to her homeschool. I loved this email from Donna (sent a little while back) and thought I’d share it today.

Hi Julie,

Radical Unschoolers would look at what we do and say we’re totally UN-radical. Yet, we live a pretty unschooling lifestyle in MANY ways. We DO use curriculum (Sonlight), so others might say we’re “inside the box”, however, those who use curriculum would probably call us “eclectic” ~ or something. We use it in our own way. We simply do not fit a mold and I need a new word to describe our style!

Our process is much easier to describe. It is simply this: let go of ALL expectations. Now, the kids might have some for themselves, which is great because that is how they will become all they were meant to become: by being WHO THEY ARE and setting goals for themselves. I have no expectations except for this: that no matter what, they are not to use failure or mistakes as an opportunity to beat themselves up or tear themselves down. Instead, they are to be used simply as an experience to learn by - a stepping stone. They are never “behind” ~ they are where they are at. That is where we start and go from.

This was scary to do - especially for my husband and even for the kids. I’ve been unschooled all my life. Oh, I went to school, but my education took place outside of that building on most days, on my own time and in stolen moments while I HAD to be inside that building. The kids and husband were never comfortable with “radical” unschooling, and I simply could not and would not abide school-at-home, so we needed to find a “happy medium”. That is how we eventually formed our “method.” It was pretty easy for me to let go of expectations, but I still like to hug a bit of fear to me now and then: am I doing enough? Will they be ready to take on the adult world? Will they pass their SATs? What if they simply don’t get algebra (I never did - and yet here I am! Alive and well without full knowledge of algebraic formulas! A fully-formed human being, though some might argue that!).

My husband has let go of his expectations V E R Y S L O W L Y…and he still holds some pretty tight. He has had to completely revamp the way he views education - he played the education game very well as a student. But his eyes are slowly being opened to what a true education is (8 years after we began)! This has sometimes been a painful process for him, as he has seen how his own fears and expectations have affected the kids and even his relationship with them. He is working hard to change and we are loving him through it!

I have learned to be where the kids are - not try to drag them to where I am. I learned to get interested in THEIR world - the video games they love, the music they listen to, TV shows, movies and even inside jokes (which sometimes push the line a bit and make me feel that boys can be really, really gross!). I’ve learned to listen ~ JUST LISTEN ~ when they are speaking. That means to STOP what I am doing and give them 100% of me. I notice that they do the same when I am speaking…pretty cool!! I’ve learned to monitor my reactions to things they say or tell me. Teenagers are funny creatures - if they catch the slightest whiff of judgment, they clam right up!

I’ve learned to see them, myself and my husband and our family as a whole as unique. Comparing us to others: our kids’ progress (or lack of); what our education looks like compared to others; what our family life looks like; how we dress; how we worship; how we keep our home (or not)…this is like quick sand. It is a slow, suffocating way to kill joy and stop learning. We are who we are - and that is a beautiful thing!

I’ve had The Writer’s Jungle for over a year now. I have longed to use it, but the time was never quite right. I’ve carried this book around with me, reading and re-reading parts of it, trying to visualize a Brave Writer Lifestyle. I think in a lot of ways I had to become brave. I know how to write pretty well, but I have no clue how to explain it to my children. It is intuitive. So, rather than take a chance of making them hate writing, I’ve never bothered to teach it. I love writing and I so want them to love it, too! Words are magical and powerful - I want them to experience the JOY of that!

These kids are so FULL of stories, ideas, events to be shared with others, commentary that I knew that when the time was right, it would all happen - just as they learned to read and do cursive and play video games and beat them. Step by (sometimes slow) step they have each wandered down the personal path of their own educations and I have been privileged to be a part of it.

By giving them freedom to be who they are, right where they are, they have learned much of what I was so afraid that they would not learn. I truly believe with all my heart that writing will be no different. And just as they have learned most other things in joy, step by step, so, too, will they learn to express themselves through the written word in their own voices, if only I will be brave enough to let it happen!

Yesterday we were looking at objects through jewelers loups and my youngest (13) said to no one in particular, “I can’t wait until Friday Freewrite! I have alot to say about what the inside of this shell reminds me of.” Unable to contain myself, I said, “Oh, you could write it now.” And he replied without even looking up, “I’ll just wait until Friday.” Ok…

Later on, my other son (16) and I were out running some errands and he told me that he had written a 2 page poem the night before. He said it wasn’t anything great, but it “was a start”. You bet!

So, I am looking forward to Friday Freewrite to see what these guys have to share with the rest of the world (even if the rest of the world never gets to read it)! It seems that they are, too. And not an assigned topic in sight! Woo Hoo!

So, in the same way we meander through our education, I’ve meandered to the end of this email. Just wanted to share this with you!

God Bless,

Donna in the ‘Burg

Keep reading to your kids.

Keep talking to them.

Keep exposing them to great language (in plays, movies, television, speeches, comedy routines).

There’s a strange thing that happens when you put your children in the context of well-crafted words. They slowly absorb the syntax and cadence of language, the nuanced meanings of words, turns of phrase they can directly download into their own conversations and writing. But this process is slow and the development is mostly imperceptible when your kids are small, or even middling! It may even appear to you that they read all the time, but their writing is still stilted, contrived and impoverished.

The truth is that your kids are growing as writers, but they are internalizing the “sound” of good writing. They aren’t necessarily analyzing and consciously emulating it. When we focus too much, too soon on teaching them to write with sophistication, structure and flair, we rob them of this important gestation process. They attempt to reach out for words, sentence structures and ideas that they have not yet fully grasped. That leads to stunted insight and vapid analysis. Their energy is sidetracked as they try to think of ways to say things, rather than giving their attention to what they want to say.

Conversely, if you let the formats and structure go for a little while, and instead draw out the insight and imaginative correlations your kids make between the new ideas and their already cached ones, they will begin to search their internal storage unit for language that expresses those ideas. They will focus on the thrill of making connections rather than hunting through cliches and “faux” academic vocabulary.

It is as they forge ties between what they think about and the creative expression of their favorite writers that they develop this mysterious quality called “writer’s voice.” The clarity of insight will find a home in language and style that has become the most comfortable and compelling writing to your child. This meet-up of insight and written expression with flair often begins to show up in about 9th grade. Some natural writers will find themselves already importing the syntax of their favorite writers into their own work at younger ages. Alternatively, a child who has not enjoyed writing or reads less may not make this kind of connection until late high school.

But it will happen.

Kids who read, who spend time actively engaged in language-based environments (and that does include watching well-written movies and television series), do, over time, become able to naturally draw on that reservoir of words and phrases as they do their own writing.

So keep pouring good words into your child’s life. It will pay off. Trust the process.

Because I turn 47 today, I thought we could have a freewriting time about birthday memories.

I read this quote this morning in Roger Cohen’s op-ed piece in the New York Times. With the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, someone emailed the following to Mr. Cohen:

Rosa Parks sat in 1955. Martin Luther King walked in 1963. Barack Obama ran in 2008. That our children might fly.

Talk to your kids about the uses of these words, what they imply and mean about each era and how they demonstrate a trajectory in American history. Nice little history lesson in four lines, and a powerful use of language.

Dear Julie,

I thought you’d like to see us enjoying poetry tea. It is one of our favourite parts of the week, and just after this picture we all chose poems and the boys read theirs aloud.

After tea, my seven year old wrote a whole book of poems - seven in all. He illustrated it and stapled the pages together and it is lovely. However, I do worry about his spelling. I’ve not tackled it as I don’t want to temper his enthusiasm but I wondered if you thought it would improve on its own or if I should intervene, and if so, how? He reads a fair bit, but not a huge amount, and has been reading fluently about a year. Here’s an example:

Spider
Spider, Spider,
kaching fly’s
lisning for
busis and bis
sudnle see a fle
cum to me cum to me
kach it run o lords,
ti it up with lots of cots.

(Spider, spider,
Catching flies,
listening for,
buzzes and byes,
Suddenly, see a flea,
Come to me, come to me,
catch it, run, Oh Lord!
Tie is up with lots of cords.)

I’m so impressed with the rythym and the imagery and the lovely picture he drew. How do I help him spell better?

Thanks,
love Gaynor
http://navigatingbythestars.blogspot.com/