The Brave Process of Teaching Writing through Literature
Trust the process. I promise you! It works.
What I’ve noticed over the years of home educating five kids myself as well as the thousands of students we’ve now taught through Brave Writer is that the best education for the mechanics of writing is reading real writing.
Some parents complain, however, that their kids read a ton and aren’t making the connection between what they read and what they write. It worries them! And of course it does! These are your kids.
That's why it's important to feature language arts elements in the context of great writing! Your kids naturally come to adopt the mechanics of writing in English through the soothing, repetitive practices of:
reading,
pondering,
and copywork.
The Power of Methodology
The power of this methodology came clear to me when my then 14-year-old son, Liam, who struggled a lot with writing (has dysgraphia and was delayed in writing), suddenly blossomed. Copying passages from Redwall (his previous obsession) bore fruit! As he started writing his own reviews of novels he read, the flair to his natural writing voice, his “knack” for punctuation, and his spelling were startlingly accurate. Sure he had some run-on sentences and occasional fragments. We would address those later. But the heart of his writing was pure flair and personality, mixed with terrific spelling and a reasonable grasp of basic punctuation.
I talked about grammar and the mechanics of writing in the context of the books we read together. I continued to trust the process of:
reading aloud,
reading to self,
talking about the novels and stories,
then copying passages from them.
We hadn't even graduated to dictation yet! Still, the results were impressive.
Liam developed his own reasons to write and read. For instance, when he struggled mightily with handwriting, we pivoted to drawing—drawing maps, labeling parts of the map, creating the compass rose and map key.
When he wanted to learn more about bird watching, we read a book for adults together. He learned that when you keep a birding book, the birds only count if they are in your own handwriting. His motivation to persevere grew.
When we focus on the human being doing the writing and reading, rather than on the school standards, we are much more likely to get buy in from our kids. This is why our literature programs are decidedly oriented to the pleasure and interest of your children! This is how learning becomes real to them. When they learn this way, they retain what they learn.
I would love you to join us!
Need more support?
If you need more help learning about how to use literature to teach the mechanics of writing, join me for my free webinars during the month of June. Bring your questions!
And then I hope you’ll hop into our low cost training program for the fall (only 20 bucks during June). We’ll walk along side you, training and supporting you and your kids from August to December!
Also, all our literature programs are on sale until June 30, too! Learn more. If you have questions, please ask in comments and I’ll help you out.