Entries Tagged 'Encouragement' ↓

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. 

—William Wordsworth

I’ve been thinking about the importance of giving our kids a wider audience for their writing. After all, if they only write for an audience of one—whether parent or teacher—they tend to write for his or her benefit alone.

But if we want our students’ writing to improve, shouldn’t we also encourage them to find opportunities to share their stories, poems, and essays with someone other than Mom?

Benefits of a Wider Audience

Having an audience takes your child beyond the point of writing for a grade. So why not start thinking of ways to broaden his understanding of what an audience can be?

Help him experience how others can find joy in reading his work. He’ll be rewarded with increased joy and confidence, and I think you’ll begin to see his writing blossom as he takes more pride in his efforts.

Think Inside—and Outside—the Box

When Debbie and I taught WriteShop classes, we always ended the year with a parent tea. The students recited poetry, and we passed out class anthologies. As the children pored over the stories and poems in the spiral-bound booklets, it was clear how much they enjoyed seeing their works in print.

But an anthology is just one of many ways to publish. I want to challenge you to think outside the box, too! Here are some other suggestions for expanding your kids’ writing audience or showcasing their writing projects.

• Turning writing assignments into art projects or mini books to share with others
• Mailing or emailing final drafts to grandparents
• Newsletters or anthologies (think homeschool support group or co-op class)
• Writing contests
• Student readings for a parent night 
• Audio and video productions of student essays
• Your personal or family blog, such as Titanium Woman
• Your child’s own writing blog, like Justine’s Awesome Writing Assignments and Kaja Wrote

So help your children look for new ways to share their work with others. Once their writing pieces get published—whether in traditional or nontraditional ways—they’ll begin to grasp what it really means to be an author! 

Share a comment: What are some things you do to give your children’s writing a bigger audience?

Words matter:

write to

Learn what

you know.

—mary anne radmacher

© Mary Anne Radmacher. Used by permission.

maryanneradmacher.com 
maryanneradmacher.net

It’s 2010!

And now that your Christmas decorations have (we hope) come down, it’s time to shake off the winter blues and get your homeschool into gear again. Does that excite you, or does it make you want to dive under the covers?

The January Blahs 

Sometimes, it can be tough for homeschooling families to get back into gear in January. Mom feels burned out. The kids lack motivation. Foul weather doesn’t help much either and can often lead to cabin fever and a general sense of “blah.”
 
As a veteran homeschooler myself, I really want you to succeed—and not just to survive, but to thrive—which is why I love passing on great resources as they cross my path. My friend Terri Johnson of Knowledge Quest offers two fantastic homeschool classes—Homeschooling ABCs and Upper Level Homeschool—which are sure to jumpstart your homeschooling endeavors in the new year.

Signing up for either course means lots of free bonus gifts valued at up to $275, including a January-only BOGO (buy one, get one) so you and a friend can take the class together! Here’s a brief look at each class:

Class #1: Homeschooling ABCs

Homeschooling from A to Z. Whether you’re brand-new to homeschooling or have been at it for a dozen years, this excellent 26-week class will encourage you along the journey of teaching your children. If you feel overwhelmed, unmotivated, or discouraged, this class will provide focus, direction, and encouragement,.

This is absolutely a MUST TAKE class for all homeschoolers – new or seasoned! I cannot recommend it enough! I have been homeschooling for a decade, and last year lost all enthusiasm for homeschooling. I was prepared “to ship them all off to school!” Your class has helped me to refocus my goals, remember why I wanted to homeschool, and get out of the rut we were plodding through!  –LeeAnn, homeschooling mom

It’s only $10 a month for 6 months—an amazing value! To sign up or learn more about the course, check out Homeschooling ABCs.

Class #2: Upper Level Homeschool

Homeschooling Your High Schooler. Are you daunted by the idea of homeschooling through high school? Upper Level Homeschool is an online course specifically designed for homeschooling parents of middle- and high-school students. Don’t let self-doubt or lack of knowledge rob you and your teen of these very exciting years! All you need are a few basic “how-to’s” and your high schooler can be well on his way to academic success and a very bright future.

Writing is one of those areas that can intimidate the bravest of parents, so Terri invited me to contribute the course material for Tackling the Timed Essay. Drawing from the timed-essay lesson in WriteShop II and my workshop, “Teaching the Timed Essay,” I’ve put together a syllabus for you that’s jam-packed with tips for teaching timed writing, including preparing for the essay portion of the SAT college entrance exam.

And there’s so much more to this excellent 13-week course! To sign up for the class or learn more about it, check out Upper Level Homeschool. At just $15 per month for 3 months, it’s the best money you can spend to gain peace of mind about teaching your kids through high school.

Don’t forget that each of these great courses comes with fabulous bonus gifts such as forms, checklists, maps, lesson planners, and more! Check out each class to see the different bonus gifts offered.

Sigh. Once again, it’s “writing time” at your house.

During the past hour, your reluctant writer’s paper has become riddled with scribbles and smears. And e-v-e-r-y time he erases with frustrated vigor, a tiny hole appears in the middle of that gray smudge. As the hole grows larger, his mind freezes up and closes in. Then the laments begin:

• What do I write about?
• Where do I start?
• How long does it have to be?
• I’ll never think of something.
• “I HATE WRITING!”

There’s so much frustration behind those blinked-back tears. And you know what? It’s not just kids who experience it—YOU struggle too.

Why Is It So Hard to Teach Writing?

Teaching writing is one of the biggest hurdles homeschooling families face. First, parents can feel insecure, inadequate, and under-equipped. For many of you, teaching writing ranks right up there with a trip to the dentist. Although we know the importance of passing on this skill to our students, so many excuses stand in our way!

• How can I teach if I never really learned to write?
• I don’t write—I’m just a math-science person.
• What if I don’t know how to grade a paper?
• Writing comes easily to me—but I don’t have clue how to teach my kids.

Second, children are often paralyzed by writer’s block, fear, and perfectionism. Most students want to write a paper once and declare it done. They hope we’ll rave over it and accept it as a finished product. The smallest hint of suggestion from Mom sets off howls of protest: Why can’t I leave it this way? You never like anything I write!

Blank paper, reluctant child, and insecure parent—combine these three ingredients together and I pretty much guarantee that your hopes for teaching writing will fail.

Let’s face it. It’s easy to keep pushing writing to the back burner with intentions of getting to it “someday.” And for many, “someday” has come and gone, and now you have:

• a high schooler who can’t write;
• a panicked mom burdened by guilt;
• and the infernal blank page that taunts you both.

10 Stumbling Blocks to Writing 

We need to 1) recognize some of the most common stumbling blocks that stand in the way of your child’s success, and 2) determine how your writing program can help. Take heart! These stumbling blocks are neither so heavy that they can’t be moved, nor so tall that they can’t be scaled.

Here are the ten stumbling blocks we’ll be looking at:

1. Lack of confidence
2. Lack of skills and tools
3. Lack of motivation
4. Limited writing vocabulary
5. Perfectionism and self-criticism
6. Laziness
7. Procrastination
8. Worry about criticism from mom or dad
9. Wondering what’s the point
10. Learning difficulties that interfere with the writing process

Over the next few months, I’ll talk about each of these in greater detail and give you some ideas of how to help your student overcome them. Most of my suggestions will be aimed at older students (5th or 6th grade through high school). Still, parents of younger children will find tips and suggestions that you can apply now. By doing so, you can begin to ward off some of these problems early on, setting your children up for greater writing success in the future.

Come back next week as we take a look at the first of these ten stumbling blocks and talk about ways you can help your student overcome each one in order to become a stronger writer.

Please share your thoughts: What’s your child’s biggest stumbling block?

(Leaving a comment at any “Stumbling Blocks” article enters you into our January drawing for a $25 WriteShop gift certificate. Increase your chances of winning by commenting here and again at each of the 10 upcoming articles, beginning with Stumbling Block #1 – Lack of Confidence.)

2009 © Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

Do you have a little perfectionist at your house? I know this child! Even if he prints well, has great ideas, can spell decently for his age, and reads on his own, he balks when it comes to actually writing stories on paper.

The Root of Writer’s Block

Perfectionism is the number one root of writer’s block. It makes kids write shorter words and sentences so that they’re less likely to make mistakes. It incites them to wad up perfectly good ideas and throw them across the table. It drags out writing time so that it becomes painful for everyone in the room—student, parent, siblings—even the dog.

If your child (or young teen) struggles with writing stories by himself; using short, choppy sentences; or becoming upset by his mistakes, there are some things you can do to help.

Warding Off Perfectionism

1. Establish limits. It’s OK if his story is only six or seven sentences long. Writing or recopying a long story can be overwhelming.
2. Let him dictate his story to you rather than write the rough draft by himself. Later, you can read it back to him as he writes it from dictation.
3. Better yet, as he narrates his story to you, write it on lined paper, skipping every other line. (Alternately, type it on the computer using a large, clean font.) Then, let him copy his words rather than write as you dictate. As an additional aid, place a wide strip of construction paper beneath the line he’s copying from so he’s not distracted by other text. As he copies, he can slide the strip down line-by-line.
4. Find the positive. Before he begins copying, sit down together and talk about his story. Ask him to underline his favorite sentence, circle his three most descriptive words, and place an X over three great action verbs (or other favorite words). Ask him why he made these choices. He’ll be less likely to shorten his writing if he has already identified its positive features.
5. Praise his best word choices and most interesting sentence. He surely won’t want to shorten a sentence Mom has fussed over!
6. Set a time limit for copying his narration—roughly one minute per year (7 minutes for a 7-year-old). When the timer goes off, he can stop, even mid-sentence. Let him do this once or twice a day, picking it up again the next day if need be.
7. If spelling is an issue, you can create a word wall at eye level from a sheet of butcher paper or poster board. If a word is giving him trouble, write it on a rectangle of paper and tape it to the word wall. When he recopies his story, it may be easier for him to look at the larger words on the word wall than to copy from your smaller printing on the paper. (When the wall gets full, remove the words he knows to make room for new ones.)

Whle these tips may not solve all your perfectionist’s dilemmas, they’ll go a long way toward smoothing away some of the roughness from the path.

Copyright © 2009 by Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

. . . . .

Looking for a more structured program to help you teach a reluctant writer? WriteShop Primary is perfect for your K-3 grader, and WriteShop I lessons can help your reluctant teen learn important writing skills. Visit our website at writeshop.com to learn more!

Photo: © 2009 by Kim Kautzer

One year for Mother’s Day, my son Ben wrote me a long, sappy letter dripping with affection and appreciation. I’m sure he figured that if he was sentimental enough, I wouldn’t notice that he didn’t get me a gift.

Know what? He was right!

Sometimes, the best present isn’t wrapped up in a box. It’s the genuine expression of love and appreciation that you tuck into an envelope in the form of a special note or letter.

Not sure who or how? My friend Susan sent me a great link with some ideas. This week, sit down as a family with a box of special stationery, stickers, colored pens, and rubber stamps and write some notes to a few extra-special people in your lives.

Here’s a chance to make writing truly practical. Get started here!

Correct and grade wisely. An arbitrary grade based on feelings (”This feels like a B-”) won’t help your student become a better writer.

Tip 4: Offer helpful and consistent feedback.

1. Use objective checklists to help you pinpoint specific areas to improve.
2. Value your child’s efforts. If you stick her paper in a pile and never respond to it, she won’t bother doing her best because she assumes you don’t care.
3. Your kids want to please you, so praise the things they do well! An approving tone and encouraging words can go a long way toward soothing the sting of a critical comment.

Though we’re not all strong or confident writers, we can’t let that keep us from investing in our children’s writing. Remember: Writing doesn’t teach itself. Our kids need us. Really! And today, more than ever, there are tools at our fingertips to help each of us teach successfully.

(All of the WriteShop products offer tips and checklists to help you edit and grade your students’ work more objectively.)

Also see Writing Tip 1: Set Boundaries, Writing Tip 2: Process vs. Product, Writing Tip 3: Write Often

One week ago today in faraway Nottingham, England, my 23-year-old son turned in a 63-page dissertation. In so doing, he capped off a year of grad school and became a candidate for a master’s degree in philosophical theology.

Why do I share this? Because…

• Your eighth grader can’t spell her way out of a paper bag.
• Your sixth grader keeps wadding up his paper in frustration and hurling it across the room.
• Your kitchen table has become a battleground.
• This very morning, you asked yourself why you even bother homeschooling.
• Most days you just can’t believe your child will actually grow up, mature into a productive adult, and find his place in the world.

Because a dozen years ago, I was in your shoes.

At times, it’s hard to believe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Try as we might, they just don’t seem to get it. We plan out our year, buy curriculum, write lesson plans. We review spelling words again and again. And again. We go over grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. In our weary minds, we think that we might as well whack our heads against a wall for all the good it’s doing.

Stepping Stones

I invite you to take a trip with me as I drift back to September of 1996 when Ben was an 11-year-old sixth grader. Beginning at that point, I’d like to share excerpts from his writing, with each year representing a stepping stone along his journey.

What was the secret to success? Lots and lots of practice, self-editing, parent input, revising, rewriting, and polishing during our homeschooling years, followed by five years of countless essays and papers for college and grad school. No magic wand produced this kind of fruit, but diligence and perseverance in the face of struggle did.

Ben will be the first to tell you he’s still not immune to the frustrations that accompany writing. From time to time he crumples papers, loses focus, procrastinates, and suffers from bouts of writer’s block—we all do! But as you watch his writing mature and improve year by year in content, structure, style, vocabulary, and mechanics, I pray you gather hope and courage to carry on.

Junior High

6th grade: Usualy my room is prity clean, some times I fourget to clean up my messes. My room wold be neater if I put away my toys.

7th grade: I am confident beacouse our leader, Goliath, the campion fighter from Gath, he is over 9 feet tall a fighting man since his youth. He is going to chalange the Israelites again. All right! They are finly sendin some one to fight him. (rough draft)

8th grade: Whipped around the corner with amazing velosity, our car rushes through the icy water. Looking over my dad’s sholder, I can see the tunel entrance up ahead. Surprised and frightened, I suddenly feel the bobsled drop from under me as it swerves dangerously into a secret tunel.

High School

9th grade: Waiting in anticipation, my team prepared to enter the secret “catacombs”. Our mission: to find the clues, rescue hostages, and avoid getting caught. Finally the doors opened and our adventure began. One by one we disappeared into the darkness.

10th grade: Each county in each state determines how its citizens will vote. Some systems are not as good as others and allow many errors. For example, the punch card ballot is terribly flawed because a voter has to make sure to punch the holes cleanly. One mistake will result in the disqualification of the entire ballot.

11th grade: Simply, he loved God, and he desperately loved the people that he ministered to. His joy was not found in material possessions, for he had none except a few books. Instead, it was the Bishop’s passion to see a good Catholic find God. (character analysis)

12th grade: Many people believe that all goodness is subjective and relative. This idea is a very subtle tactic because it allows the critic to “play God.” The critic has the power to decide what is good and what is bad, what men ought to like and ought to despise. In the end, he creates his own standards by which to judge not only inanimate objects, but also morality. This is what society has adopted; this is where society has gone astray.

Ben became more inclined toward academics toward the end of high school. Though not all students will continute on to university, that path suited his bent. So once our homeschooling years were behind us, college challenged his writing to new levels. 

College

Freshman: While Clayton’s claims are well articulated and organized, his proposed solution is short-sighted and insufficient. Furthermore, he does not effectively support his primary claims or demonstrate how students will be able to suddenly rise about the relative postmodern ideology that they use to justify cheating. 

Sophomore: During the age of Roman domination, the Caesars ruled most of the populated world with absolute power. Considered living gods, these men each sought to make their place in history. However, all their collective triumphs and achievements would soon be dwarfed through the life and death of a single man. The solitary life of a Jewish rabbi, raised in a backwater town on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, marked the single most significant point in human history: the point when the God of the universe became a part of his own creation in order to redeem it from its own corruption and despair.

Junior: In the realm of political philosophy, questions arise that seek to identify, evaluate, critique, and improve social, civil, and political governance. For what reason do we form commonwealths and civil structures? Why are such unions justified? Indeed, how do those who maintain power within such civil societies legitimize their use of political authority over any other person?

Senior: Wedged between the forces of privatized spiritualism on one hand and secular social activism on the other, the Christian Church finds itself in a time of transition and tension. In a world dominated by geopolitical nation-states, rapidly expanding capitalistic market places, and the global presence of multinational corporations, God has awakened the Church to a new sense of urgency to respond faithfully to its calling to be in the world, but not of it, and to live out its vocation by embodying the presence of Jesus Christ to all the peoples.

Grad School 

Master’s Thesis: Accordingly, the works of mercy are fundamentally relocated outside the bounds of the Christian economy of salvation. As we have seen, for Aquinas the works of mercy are embodiments of virtue that constitute the liturgical life of the body of Christ. Grounded in the infused grace gifted to the church through the Holy Spirit, the works of mercy are irreplaceable performances of the church’s concrete worship of God.

What a picture of encouragement! When I follow Ben’s progress from year to year, I confess that even I’m amazed. It’s a good reminder that what you see today is not necessarily where your son or daughter will be in five or ten years; so much happens in our kids as they grow up! Remember too that not every child is destined to become a scholar, but improve he can (and will)—with practice, tools, and time. 

WriteShop I and II laid the groundwork for us, and can help you establish a strong foundation for your student too. Visit www.writeshop.com and poke around. About WriteShop and Parent Testimonials may be good places to begin.

When I was little, I loved Benjamin Elkin’s story of The Big Jump, in which a young boy finds a stray dog he hopes to keep.

The boy and the pup become fast friends, but unfortunately, in this land only kings are allowed to own dogs. The king, who can spring from the ground to the top of his castle in one leap, promises the boy he may keep the pup if he too can jump to the top of the castle.

Well, the motivated lad goes home to practice but, try as he might, he can only scale two boxes. And then . . . an idea strikes!

Returning to the palace, he finally does succeed in jumping to the top. How on earth does he accomplish this? Well, the king has never told him he must do it in a single bound! So the clever boy takes it one…step…at…a…time!

Delighted by the boy’s “out of the box” approach, the king awards him the coveted dog.

Writing is a lot like this. Our kids want to make The Big Jump, leaping from blank paper to final draft in one stride. But when they realize that their target is more reachable by taking smaller steps, they begin to believe they can do it. And in the end, they achieve a worthy goal: a polished composition they’re proud to share with others.

. . . . . 

Do you struggle with teaching, editing, and grading your teen’s writing? Are you looking for ways to integrate the steps of the writing process into your lesson plans? Perhaps WriteShop is the answer. Visit www.writeshop.com and poke around. About WriteShop and Parent Testimonials may be good places to begin.