About the Authors

Kim and Jim Kautzer enjoy their empty nest in Alta Loma, California, where they began homeschooling in 1989. All three of their children are homeschool graduates. Their son, recently graduated from college, is pursuing his Master’s Degree in England. Both daughters are married, and have blessed the Kautzers with five amazing grandchildren.

Debbie and Eric Oldar began homeschooling in 1986 when their daughter, a graduate of Biola University, was in kindergarten. The Oldars, who live in Ontario, California, graduated their son from homeschooling in 2003. They are now the proud parents of an American soldier.

In college, Kim majored in communication and Debbie received her master's degree in education. In their early years of homeschooling, Kim and Debbie met with other families for weekly KONOS co-ops. Eventually, they began teaming together to teach special classes for homeschooled teens. Since 1995, they have taught yearly classes including world history, California history, U.S. history, American government, and world geography and cultures. In 1997, to meet their sons' need for a concentrated writing course, they gathered lesson materials from several popular programs and set out to teach writing to a group of homeschooled junior highers. However, they both discovered that although college had taught them theory, it did not prepare them in a practical way to teach children to write. When none of these writing curriculums produced desired results, Kim and Debbie began writing their own lessons week by week. The results became WriteShop, a program that incorporated all the skills they wanted their sons to learn in preparation for more advanced high school composition. Since that first class, over 150 students have taken WriteShop from Kim and Debbie. In addition, Kim and Debbie teach workshops to equip, motivate, and encourage parents to teach writing at home. For more information about a parent workshop, contact Debbie at debbie@writeshop.com.