Free Summer Membership to the Weekly Writers Club 2011

Preparing for a move to a new country means that blogging doesn't get much of a look in at the moment. There's a lot going on but so little time to try and make a record of it. 

However, for those who might be interested - The Weekly Writers Club is offering free membership for its Summer course which is totally fun and has my kids clamouring to write. They'll get to meet kids online from all over the world in a safe environment, participate in writing stories with other kids, blogging and plenty of varied activities and challenges that will have them writing and having fun. It will run from June 15 (oh that's today!) until August 25th 2011. It is easy to join - just go to their website: http://www.weeklywriter.org/ and register.

Have fun!

Using copywork to teach grammar and spelling

I could have entitled this post "oh, so that's how you do Copywork!" - Maybe I'm just slow on the uptake and this is going to be old news to most; it was, however, a bit of a revelation to me when I discovered how copywork could be used as an effective means to teach not just spelling but also grammar, punctuation and the literary elements of writing. I also picked up some great tips on how to make it work for a struggling reader and writer.

When I started out homeschooling, many of Charlotte Mason’s ideas and methods appealed to me. I was intrigued by the idea that children could learn how to spell and write beautifully and turn out language worthy of the greats if they spent time diligently copying wonderful literary prose and verses. It made sense and so that's what I did. I assigned my kids copywork featuring wise proverbs, witty sayings, inspirational passages and beautiful passages of prose - all in the hope that that they would absorb everything they needed for elegant writing and thought.

However, I was faced with boredom and resistance and I noticed their spelling wasn’t really improving. Self-doubt flooded in and I began to look around for other language programmes to fill the gap. Maybe I need a spelling programme? So I dutifully did my research and bought All About Spelling for my struggling reader and I bought Spelling Wisdom (the Charlotte Mason approach to spelling) for my strong reader, who was a careless speller.

What I hadn't really understood is that the exercise of copywork was not really something to just hand over to your child and let her get on with - not if you wanted her to get the full benefit of it. I learnt this while doing a Brave Writer course - "Foundations In Writing". It was here where I learnt how to use Copywork and dictation to teach grammar informally, how to teach them to notice and learn spelling and how to set my kids up for success in writing and spelling.

One of the key ideas was intentionality -  intentional copywork (knowing the goal you want to achieve - is it neat handwriting, accurate copying, grasping new spelling concepts or learn how to punctuate dialogue etc) and  intentional editing (modelling and teaching your kids how to go back to the passage and edit their own mistakes). 

The idea of "pre-teaching" was new to me – so now even before they start writing, I teach the passage depending on what I want to achieve. The pre-teaching helps the kids to pick up on important spelling, punctuation, literary elements and grammar.

This is what one week typically looks like for us - first I have them read the passage aloud to me and we discuss its meaning to ensure comprehension. Then depending on my aim for the day, I might draw their attention to a literary element such as a metaphor or hyperbole or some interesting phrasing (informally introducing and familiarising the child with the literary terms and elements so essential for good writing). I might then point out punctuation like semi colons, speech marks, commas, colons and explain their usage. I usually highlight words that I anticipate they may have problems with, underlining them - explaining spelling rules and pointing out spelling families and maybe have them practice spelling the words on a whiteboard. I sometimes have them practice breaking down and segmenting long difficult words. All this prepares them for success even before they start writing and goes a long way to alleviate stress and frustration. 

I don’t do all of these things in one day, I may teach a few of these and then have them copy the passage, and then return to the passage the next day and point out more things. Depending on time, we might then practice dictation which is a great way to solidify new spelling words. For my struggling writer, I may take more time over teaching spelling and segmenting words and even leave the copywork and dictation until the following days.

On the next day, we might review the difficult words and discuss grammer - nouns, pronouns, verbs etc. It is also a great way to introduce and discuss new vocabulary in context – I might help them notice vocabulary choices and ask why the author uses one word instead of another, perhaps asing my child to come up with an alternative word.

In my Brave Writer class, I learnt that if my child is struggling with spelling I need to teach her spelling and word study rules and help her recognise it in action when writing – this is achieved much more effectively within the context of reading and writing and hence copywork is ideal. We were told to get them to “spell with your ears and check with your eyes”. I found this very helpful and have made an effort  to teach my daughter to learn to connect sounds to letters to help strengthen her phonological processing skills. This strategy of encouraging them to sound out the words as they write them is useful - as they can hear what they are writing and if they have a tendency to drop letters from their words and make careless mistakes, it helps them to catch them more quickly.

Before they copy the passage, I have usually already highlighted or underlined key words so they can take note of them when they write. With each child, it is helpful to encourage them to progress from copying letter by letter (arduous), to whole words and then getting them to keep whole phrases in their heads and eventually whole sentences. It is an exercise in teaching them to copy accurately and efficiently, increasing speed and reducing any sense of tedium. This is an important skill – increasing the attention and memory skills – forcing them to interact with the content and attend to what they write.

The next step for them, after they have copied the passage, is the process of intentional editing. Initially I modeled how they should check each word, phrase and sentence and circle mistakes caught and then as they learnt, I let them edit their own work. They have their own coloured pen and will check their work, mark out and correct any mistakes. This increases their awareness of spelling and punctuation and their sense of ownership over their work. I reward them with 25 cents if they find any mistakes and if it is mistake-free they get 50 cents. The only time they don’t get anything is if I find a mistake after they have proof-read their own writing. The financial incentive is probably not necessary but it is a fun little motivation for them at the moment.

I never used to get around to dictation but I’ve appreciated how it helps build accuracy and reinforces lessons learnt in spelling and punctuation and so I try to make it a point to do it each week.

It is very helpfully explained here on the Brave Writer website:

Dictation enables children to discover how to write from memory properly spelled words, and how to assemble them on the page using proper punctuation. Because they are transcribing someone else’s words (not their own), they have a model to compare to. They can evaluate whether or not they have successfully reproduced the original. Happily, the challenge of accuracy is the primary task in copywork and dictation. As a result, no one’s feelings get hurt when you point out mistakes, unlike when you correct your child’s spelling in his or her original work. The focus is entirely on accurate reproduction. And that’s the beauty right there! Mechanics can be taught using beautiful literature more effectively than the wooden practice sentences in a workbook or attempting to edit a child’s freewrite. Dictation works because children keep spellings and punctuation in meaningful writing contexts and thereby reinforce the intuitive level of mechanics, rather than mere memorization of rules.

I have taken onboard many ideas learnt from Brave Writer such as mixing things up by doing a french dictation whereby you type out the passage leaving blank spaces for key words and phrases. Another thing you might try is reverse dictation where you type out the passage with mistakes in punctuation, lower case letters where there should be capitals and make spelling errrors and have them edit the passage and highlight the mistakes. All great ways to reinforce lessons learnt in context.

These few ideas have really transformed my approach to copywork and I can see that it is working on many levels for both my kids. I still have a lot to learn but I'm certainly pleased with the new tools I've got to work with to help teach my kids.

Some great resources:

Brave Writer - Arrows and Boomerang are a monthly resource which features passages from one classic novel which can be used for copywork and dictation - it supplies you with notes on important punctuation or spelling to note, or literary elements to consider and gives you ideas about what to discuss with your child in terms of language, writing style, vocabulary and so on. You download a sample from their site. I have not yet subscribed to it but downloaded back issues based on books we are currently reading. The cost effective way to get these issues is to subscribe for a year. It is pricey (in my opinion) but I do keep coming back to them. I really should take out a year's subscription - but I do like being able to choose the issues based on books we are reading already.

Wildflowers and Marbles - Jen's beautiful blog has a lot of wonderful information on the Charlotte Mason approach to Language Arts and she put together in printable document - a collection of articles from a series of posts she wrote on her blog. It is called Considered Language Arts which is an awesome resource that covers copywork, dictation, narration, grammar and composition. Reading this will really equip you to implement a Charlotte Mason approach to Language Arts. It is so clear and thoughtful. It really is an excellent resource. Many thanks to Jen!

These two books are my two reference books when I am trying to explain spelling and grammar rules.

Weekly Writer Club: A Review

There are some problems that homeschool mums love and one of them is when your kids are so into a project or activity that you can't get them to do anything else. That’s what we have with our new favourite activity – the Weekly Writer Club. This is an fantastic language arts programme that puts the fun into writing and creating and it has my kids addicted.

So what is the Weekly Writer Club?

It is the brainchild of Judy Steidl who acts as the director of the Club and cheerleader to all the kids’ efforts. It is an online writing programme where kids can participate in the club's many projects, activities and forums aimed at grades 2-8. What makes it unique is that it is highly interactive and fuelled largely by interests of the children in the club.  At the same time, these customised writing opportunities are designed to help meet grade level expectations (US State Standards) .

What I love is how Judy supports and interacts with my kids, constantly encouraging them to build on their ideas and to initiate new forums or stories based on their own interests. The premise of this programme is about getting kids contributing and writing about the things they are interested in and she has created so many different avenues for them to express themselves. Not only that, it is a safe place for kids to interact with one another and also provides interesting opportunities for them to develop their leadership and technology skills.

The best way to explain what it offers is to give you a sampling of the myriad of activities that my girls are now participating in:

When they joined, they each had their own profile and blog which they could personalise by writing about their hobbies, interests, ambitions, favourite books etc and they got to customise it by adding their own pictures and images. They are also able to send and receive messages within this safe environment to Judy and the other kids in the club.

There is a Virtual Cafe where the kids can meet at “tables” (forums) and discuss anything from Lego, Food, Fantasy pets, People watching, Music, History, Science and anything else that takes their fancy. The girls have written about their favourite places to go for fun and added pictures, they’ve engaged in a discussion about their fantasy pets, discussed music they like and contemplated what they would do if they were given one wish.

There is a Virtual Library where there are book reviews and kids get a chance to review and discuss their favourite books. I know there are a few books on the girls' lists that they want to get a chance to put in there.  

Fantasy Island is a firm favourite. Here they can create adventures about how they came to be shipwrecked on the island and what they have to do to survive. There are numerous aspects about life on the island where they can imagine the kind of animals that might be found there and food that they can eat, the dangers they may be face (pirates, sharks, storms!). It is fun non-pressurised creative writing because the kids can write as much or as little as they want in order to contribute to the whole story.

A big part of the WWclub programme is where kids are encouraged to join the QuickStart Letter Writing programme. This is where they are given a series of steps to get started on writing and sending physical letters - first to Judy, then to friends and family and followed by suggestions to write to community leaders and career experts in the areas where the kids are interested in or passionate about. A variety of skills get practiced in the act of composing different types of letters and the reward of receiving an answer in the post is motivation enough for my girls. When they start on the course, they get business cards from Judy and if they write at least seven letters in the term and receive five replies, they get promoted to Club Ambassador. All these act as incentives to get them writing.

The Brain Bank is a place where kids are given opportunities to research and write about things that interest them. There are various courses like the Research course which teaches them various skills needed for effective information gathering and organisation, as well a lesson on how to create a Wiki document which acts as a repository for all kinds of interesting information, videos and images. They are encouraged to become Captains of a Wiki topic and take responsibility for developing it into a fun and interesting source of information. The topics range from Future Careers, Holidays, Entertainment, Journalism, Photography, Faith, Entertainment, Art, Cartoons, Weather – the list is exhaustive. The idea is to engage all the kids and get them contributing to these Wikis, using their research skills to create an interesting and informative document. It is a new initiative and my girls have both expressed interest in being Captains and I am looking forward to them doing the research course and practicing their new skills in subjects they are have chosen themselves.

There is a Travel Club where kids can write about their adventures, trips or favourite countries. They are encouraged to post interesting information on any country of their choosing, maybe do a little research and add links so that other kids can learn too.

There are plenty of Study Helps which help the children to find ways to improve their grammar, vocabulary, spelling, through challenges and games. They can even post about their homework and get help and encouragement with that in the forums.

Along the way, Judy will to introduce interesting little challenges or videos such as the “Create a Voki Character (personalised avatar) Competition”. These do a marvellous job in getting the kids interested and involved which inevitably spurs more discussions (hence writing) between them. I love these things because they are so fun and they get my reluctant writer practising her typing skills, checking her spelling and punctuation and just writing where she would normally avoid it.

To be honest, there is so much going on that it would probably be impossible to do every single thing. However, what it does do is provide countless alternatives for writing and plenty of diversity which would make it practically impossible not to find something in this club that would spark a child’s interest. Frankly, I’d love to be writing in some of these forums! (Sadly, no parents allowed in the club, it is just for kids – although there is a parent’s support forum).

Without a doubt , it is the creativity and participation of  Club Director Judy who keeps the club moving on. She is very active and absolutely lovely - sending encouraging emails to the kids, responding to their suggestions and always looking for ways to create new forums to include their interests and ideas.

My girls look forward to logging in every day and they are writing and improving their typing skills. They are getting lots of practice informally on how to use punctuation, spelling, checking over their work before they post and what makes a good sentence and tons of creative writing opportunities.

What I like as well, is the fact that there is a lot of grace - the children are given the freedom to tap into their creativity without worrying too much about spelling or punctuation. These budding writers will have an opportunity to take the work that they are personally proud of through the editing process later as they will be encouraged to submit their writing for publication in an ebook at the end of each semester. It fits right into the Brave Writer philosophy – freeing kids to express themselves without the shackles of worry about good grammar and perfect spelling which may make them hesitant to write and stunt creativity. 

Membership for the whole family for one semester costs US$99 (so the more kids you have the better!). At the moment, it costs US$198 for a whole year’s access for the family.

When I first enquired about the WWClub this was Judy’s reply to me which sums up what the club is about:

We take all the state standards for writing and create activities to match those requirements, but we do so in ways that keep the activities customized and a good match for each student.

We are seeing that their excitement propels them to write more and, as young writers, this is the beginning of true literary appreciation as we dig deep to see an author's toolbox and how we can adapt good writing techniques, proper punctuation, and paragraph organization simply by practicing our own writing and borrowing from our favorite authors' successful examples.

In addition, in the fall, we have opportunities for kids to group together to study a book, discuss magazines, publish eBook creative writing (per semester), learn Web 2.0 technology, and earn leadership awards based on the number of letters that they write and receive.

Sometime I may publish products as many vendors do. But, with the WWClub,  I want to create an opportunity for kids to experience true communicative arts, to see the relevancy in their writing, and to explore and deepen (and practice) their skills.  I want them to understand that their writing matters, because they have important things to say....just like other writers who have come before them.

Beyond all this, the WWClub is so flexible that you can opt in or opt out of any activity as your schedule requires and is so open that we can create new opportunities simply because it will best match the needs for one child.

At the end of the term, we want the kids to have a stack of letters that are worth preserving; we want them to be able to say that they have been "published" in an eBook, we want them to be able to understand key lessons about Internet Safety and Moodle, and we want them to be able to celebrate a list of achievements in mastering content objectives through
WWClub activities with new friends, forums, and blogs.

Why join the club? Well, if you are looking for something that gets kids writing on their own terms, energised and fighting their siblings to get onto the computer to write - this is a wonderful tool. It is full, fun and fabulous and I can unreservedly recommend it as a excellent way to supplement your language arts curriculum and get your kids animated and excited about writing.

Brave Writer Review

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.  ~William Wordsworth

I have an enthusiastic writer and a reluctant writer and I really want to encourage both of them in their individual learning journeys.

I chanced upon Brave Writer when I was in search of some inspiration to help me teach my kids how to write. What I found was not a curriculum but an approach to writing that started to help me formulate a clearer view of what I wanted for my kids.

This is what I hope for my kids:

1. I would like for them to love or at least, enjoy writing i.e. the process of putting their own creative ideas and thoughts down on paper and to have a desire to develop it and see it through into a finished piece they can be proud of.

2. I would aim for them to write well - not just grammatically accurate sentences but arguments that are logical, meaningful, well thought out and put together, as well as stories that are inspiring and beautiful, most importantly - wholly in their own voice.

Can a writing programme do that? Can I teach them that?

The Brave Writer approach is about teaching children to write as a writer would learn rather than learning the mechanics or formulae for good sentence structure or the three rules to writing a novel. It seems to me to be centred around helping kids to discover their voice, to enjoy the process of writing about the things they feel passionate or knowledgeable about.

Brave Writer is run by Julie Bogart, a homeschooler, writer and editor and she offers an online writing and language arts programme in the form of  "The Writers Jungle" and "Help for High School" Home Study courses, online classes, and a downloadable language arts programme that covers dictation, copywork and literary analysis. She also enables direct access to the herself and the other Brave Writer teachers through their forum and classes.

The centrepiece of the programme is "The Writers Jungle". It is a manual for parents. Julie offers to hold your hand on this writing journey through this book as well as through her forums. It provides a full explanation of her approach and then many examples, activities and exercises to try out on your kids. There are no lesson plans but it is structured in a way so that you and your kids go on a journey together - where parents learn to teach and encourage their kids to write without killing their passion.

On her website she writes "Once kids realize that paper is a safe place for thought exploration, they can learn how to craft their writing into satisfying finished products that use all kinds of writing devices. Writing becomes a safe playground instead of an intimidating foreign country. Brave Writer works through all the steps from thought-origination to published work of writing."

You can get a fuller description of The Writers Jungle and read the introduction and table of contents by clicking here.

I have signed up for numerous online classes and am considering more! They are not cheap but we've learnt so much and had lots of fun in these classes. I keep going back for more so it must be worth it. :-)

The kids and parents interact in a forum and the teacher will give exercises, assignments and feedback to each child's work. It is indispensable for the parent as we are being coached in the best way to help our budding writers.

The classes I've done to date:

Kidswrite basic- The Writers Jungle grew out of these classes (although the book contains much more). My eldest daughter and I did it together and we both enjoyed it very much. Our first assignment was to play a communication game which illustrated the importance of using the right words and images to convey what you see your mind and how to convey that to another person accurately. This was followed the Keen Observation exercise which forced us to take time to really observe an object of our choosing and take time to find words to describe it. We were encouraged to use all our senses - sight, smell, sounds, taste and touch. I really enjoyed this as it made us move beyond the basic descriptions of colour and shape and think about the object in unusual and creative ways. We then were given a  freewriting exercise which is designed to give children freedom to write without concern for spelling, punctuation or grammar. It is about writing without stopping for a specific period putting down whatever comes to mind based on a topic or suggestion. Armed with some of my daughter's freewriting we could then go through the process of drawing out the interesting things from the freewrite. We were modelled different techniques to use to help them expand and edit their work. Before long we came out with a finished piece of writing and I was given a model of how to coach my child to deliver a piece of writing that was theirs alone.

The other two classes we signed up for were the Grammar and Poetry class which we loved! My reluctant writer declared that she wanted to be a poet by the end of the poetry class. They got to try their hand at writing all styles of poetry from Haiku, Cinquains, Shape Poems and Free verse, as well as learn to analyse song lyrics, recognise various literary devices and generally meet with lots of different types of poetry. There was a lot of positive feedback from their teacher and they were able to showcase their poems on the forum and read the work of other kids too. 

Grammar was enjoyable too because our teacher deconstructed the whole idea and got us to play with words by getting us to collect all sorts of interesting words, and then we played with them, moved them around and got to see how they might work in different contexts, we built word sculptures, created our own words and phrases and started a dictionary of these words. We then went through an excercise of trying to categorise our collected words and began to understand how words can take on different functions in a sentence. Finally, we read and analysed "The Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll and then we were asked to write an original poem using our own nonsense words and using The Jabberwocky as a jumping off point. I think we all came out with a better sense of the value and function of a word when placed in different parts of a sentence. This was a grammar lesson unlike any other grammar lesson I had ever seen.

Brave Writer also provides a language arts programme that helps you to teach or at least to stay consistent with copywork, dictation and explain literary elements to your child. For example, Arrows is produced once a month and offers copywork and dictation based on a selected book. What I personally like about this is that Julie will also highlight literary elements in the passages and explain what makes the passage compelling or surprising. You can get a free sample here. I really like them but have to say I am reluctant to pay the monthly US$ 9.95 per month subscription fee. If you subscribe for a whole year - you pay a reduced rate of US$79. You can also purchase individual issues as well - check out the backlist here.

Finally, Julie talks about the Brave Writer lifestyle which is really about making writing, words and books a part of every day life - from watching and discussing movies together, reading aloud, copywork, making time one on one to talk to your kids and establishing  a regular tea time where you relax and read poetry and a good book together. I love tea-time. It was the first thing I implemented after discovering Brave Writer and it has become part of a precious family ritual.

How are my kids doing in writing? My eldest has had a very positive experience and she loves to write. My reluctant writer still does not enjoy the mechanics of writing or spelling but in the classes, I noticed she was much more willing to write because she was enjoying the creative process so much. I also know that there is a creative writer in there who just has to overcome her particular issues about the act of writing. 

Bravewriter is a wonderful programme and I certainly plan on signing up for more classes.