Reluctant Writers

Reluctant writers benefit from Brave Writer’s approach to writing because it engages them as people first, and writers second. Most kids who resist writing see writing as an activity “done to them” or “required of them.” They don’t realize that writing is the record of their real selves - of their thoughts, ideas, interests, clever insights and passions in writing so that these may be shared with others. They assume that the mechanics of writing are the essence of writing.

Brave Writer helps reluctant writers to recognize that the essence of writing is the enjoyment of sharing one’s self with readers. The mechanics are secondary in the Brave Writer program. We work on handwriting, punctuation, spelling and grammar using someone else’s writing as opposed to a child’s original writing. When your reluctant writer discovers that he or she can speak, express, write without attention to the mechanics of writing, a change of attitude emerges. Suddenly the child discovers that writing is like speaking: a mode of sharing what’s important with someone else.

The Writer’s Jungle

The best way to begin with Brave Writer if you have a reluctant writer is to start with The Writer’s Jungle. The primary objective of the Brave Writer philosophy is to support and nurture your role as the person who draws out and records the clever, unique person that your child is. Who better than you? The Writer’s Jungle helps you to form a holistic philosophy of writing and language arts. You’ll help your child to access that inner voice and develop it so that as your child’s mechanical skills grow, your child’s ideas, insights and imagination will find a home in writing.

Kidswrite Basic

Kidswrite Basic is our most popular Brave Writer online class. There’s a reason for that. Parents who have already tried oodles of writing curricula want hand-holding as they apply the principles that lead to a happy writer-writing coach relationship with their kids. Knowing what a paragraph is has little to do with coaxing words from a child’s insides. Kidswrite Basic gives you several supports for your reluctant writers:

  1. The class structure enables you to be your child’s ally while someone else takes the role of “teacher” (creating assignments and due dates).
  2. The class offers your kids a fresh audience of readers (both the instructor and other students).
  3. Your child gets to read writing by his or her peers. The class format makes it possible to be inspired by other student writers.
  4. As you work with your child, if things become challenging or painful, you can immediately stop what you’re doing and get feedback and help from the Brave Writer instructor who will diagnose what is happening with your child and will then offer you meaningful new tactics for helping to overcome the resistance or writer’s block.
  5. You will have feedback from the instructor about your child’s specific writing so that you can learn to see what she sees in it. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the online class for a parent of a reluctant writer is the sense that your child’s work is being appreciated and nurtured by someone else so that you can take a break and enjoy your child (rather than feeling so discouraged and alone in that process).

If you have any questions about your child, feel free to email Julie.