Faltering

Ownership
Year-Long Language Arts Plan
and 12 Writing Projects
Stage 3
Faltering Ownership

Copyright © 2015 Julie (Bogart) Sweeney Brave Writer LLC

Photography © Julie (Bogart) Sweeney and Tammy Wahl

All rights reserved Julie (Bogart) Sweeney

To report errors, contact [email protected]

Design & Typesetting by Timothy Victor

ISBN 13: 978-0-9905133-7-7

ISBN 10: 0-9905133-7-8

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Faltering Ownership

Contents

Introduction 8
Faltering Ownership Principles 11
The Year-Long Program 18

PART ONE
LANGUAGE ARTS 22
BRAVE WRITER LIFESTYLE 30
Poetry Teatimes 30
Weekly Movies 32
Nature Study 33
Art Appreciation 34
Music Appreciation 35
Theatre 36
Shakespeare 37
Visual Journals 38

PART TWO
ORAL LANGUAGE 42

4
 Contents

PART THREE
WRITING PROJECTS 44
SEMESTER ONE
Month 1 Wild Words 46
Month 2 Dust Jacket Book Review 62
Month 3 Big Juicy Conversations 69
Mini Report: Natural Disasters 72
Month 4 Diary: Historical Person 82
Month 5 End-of-the-year Family Letter 89

SEMESTER TWO
Month 6 Headlines (Viewpoint) 98
Party School Report 103
Month 7 Oral Report 107
Party School Report 114
Month 8 The Pitch (Advertisement) 118
Party School Report 127
Month 9 Deep Dive into Literary Elements 129
Party School Report 140
Month 10 Drafting and Completing the Report 141

Bonus Projects
Bonus Project 1 The Art of Fiction 143
Bonus Project 2 Poetry Play 149

COMPLETION REWARDS 160

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Faltering Ownership

haul groceries from the car and the baby from

Introduction his car seat. These are exasperating faltering
walker moments, but they are nonetheless part
There’s a moment in every baby’s life where and parcel of the skill called walking. Eventually,
she goes from wobbler to toddler. During the walking will win and the traumatic resistance to
“wobbling” stage, she clings to tabletops, your walking will be behind all of you.
pant legs, dangling adult hands, and the back of
The faltering ownership stage of growth in
the stroller to keep her balance. The strides come
writing is similar to this journey. Your child, who
in bursts where she “lets go” and toddles across
now has a taste for his or her own writing voice,
the room into your loving arms. During those
will some days attack a writing prompt with
excursions, joy, optimism, and cheers greet her
alacrity! The project that follows is a joy to all and
brave efforts. Sometimes, when you aren’t looking,
is completed with ease. Then, the following week
however, she’ll let go and toddle on her own, only
when you suggest another similar, wonderful
to lose her balance and Bam! Baby goes tush over
idea for writing, the toddling writer will collapse
teakettle!
in a heap on the floor declaring he can’t think
of anything to write, and that writing is too hard
There’s a moment in every baby’s and hurts his hand. It’s mystifying! How can this
life where she goes from wobbler to paradox exist within a single child? Why does he
toddler. write beautifully with creativity and imagination
one day, and then hate writing with all his fiery
resistance a week later?
Eventually, though, she tries again. Her desire Faltering Ownership, my friends.
to walk is much greater than her fear of falling.
This is your toddling, wobbling writer who
Through repeated wobbly, uncertain, glorious
still needs to be carried on occasion, but who
stumbles, the walker is born! She goes from
also will continue to take greater and greater
toppling to toddling, and eventually to skipping,
writing risks—even the kind that scare you at
running, cartwheeling, bikeriding, and sometimes,
times (when writing is used to vent anger about
snowboard flying and high-dive diving! During the
homeschool, or to eviscerate Aunt Hilda’s hairy
transition from crawling baby to walking child, we
chin, or to teach his friends how to make a
offer a hand, kindness, and support. We still carry
homemade hand grenade). He will find writing to
our 12- to18-month-old children on our hips or
be more and more under his control as he has
in our backpacks, especially when we’re late or
opportunity to write. But he won’t always want
they’re tired. We use strollers for young walkers
to write, and sometimes he will still delegate the
because they aren’t fast enough, nor able to walk
hardest parts of the writing tasks to you.
long distances. We trust over time this child will
grow longer, stronger legs, and gain the ability to That’s a-okay! Just as you learned in the
walk everywhere without any help whatsoever. Partnership Writing phase of writing development,
it’s perfectly acceptable to help. As we like to say
These are faltering walkers. Sometimes they
in Brave Writer: “Help helps!” You can be confident
walk! Sometimes they’re incredibly proud of their
that if you provide the right amount of support
ability to walk, so much so you become frustrated
to your faltering writer, he or she will eventually
that they won’t let you carry them when you’re in
make the full journey and become an independent,
a hurry. They might take the scenic path, which
competent, responsible writer.
leads them to the curb, to the edge of a cliff, or
the middle of the street. Sometimes they climb The parent’s role in the faltering ownership
the outside of the stairwell in the courtyard at the stage evolves to companion. You provide two
apartment building and scare you senseless! essential ingredients in this wobbly stage: faith and
freedom. Your children need to know that when
Other times, they collapse into a limp collection
their energies fail, when their enthusiasm wanes,
of muscles and bones, tears erupting from the
and their efforts don’t match their imagined output,
corners of their eyes, unwilling to put together a
they are still within shouting distance of success.
short string of steps to the front door, while you
8
 Introduction

Your confidence (faith) that your fledgling writers

will become competent and confident increases
your children’s willingness to take writing risks.
You provide two essential ingredients
Not only do you want to believe in your child,
in this wobbly stage: faith and
you also want to free your child to test-drive the
writing process. Pretend that your child is 15 years freedom.
old, behind the wheel of your car, and you are
riding shotgun. There are moments when a shout, This is not the time to drop all that rich interest-
or a metaphorical foot jammed into the dashboard led writing. On the contrary, your children will
may be the reaction you have when your faltering continue to write using their best vocabulary and
writer crashes into a wall (quits, does a poor job, most immediate experiences as their primary
uses her weakest vocabulary, phones it in, writes source material for writing.
how much she hates writing), but on the whole,
you will provide a calm, confident, supportive
environment for writing practice. Yes, you’ll give
tips and tricks that helped you to become the
writer you are today, but mostly you are along for
the ride, creating a safety zone for practice so that
eventually your writer can drive away without you.
As your child grows into a sturdy writer,
your task will be to supply new tools for writing.
Whereas your younger writers drew heavily on
personal experiences, stories, and lists for their
writing projects, faltering writers will be introduced
to the joys of research. Yes, joys! There’s real
pleasure in delving deeply into a topic of interest
or area of study, once the writer has adopted a line
of inquiry.
The faltering ownership stage of growth is
characterized by writing that is used as a tool for
learning, in addition to being a tool for recording
one’s own experiences. In other words, once
children realize that their precious, forming
thoughts can be housed in a written format and
enjoyed again, they are ready to use writing for its
so-called “educational and academic” purposes,
as well.

Dreamstime

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Faltering Ownership

FALTERING OWNERSHIP

The Year-Long Jot it Down

5– to

Program 8-year-olds

PART ONE
LANGUAGE ARTS Partnership
Writing
Language Arts, in Brave Writer, refers to the 9– to
mechanics of writing, as well as the enjoyment 10-year-olds
of literature. In the Faltering Ownership stage of
growth, students are ready to take responsibility
for ensuring the accuracy of their polished writing
products according to the skills they’ve mastered.
Their mechanics are not yet fluent, the way an Faltering
adult writer’s are. However, faltering ownership Ownership
11– to
writers are able to return to their own papers to
12-year-olds
examine them for the handful of punctuation,
spelling, and grammar skills they’ve acquired.
They can make their own corrections to their work
before a parent comes in behind to mop-up the
remaining errors. Transition to
Copywork and dictation can be specifically Ownership
13– to
targeted to the areas of difficulty so that students 14-year-olds
expand their skill set. This age group benefits
the most from dictation work. If dictation is done
weekly, students will show great progress in their
natural aptitude to incorporate their evolving
mechanics into their original writing, even when
freewriting. Brave Writer teaches four different
The Great
styles of copywork/dictation and that detail can be
Conversation
15– to
found in the Guidelines for The Arrow, and in The 18-year-olds
Writer’s Jungle (Chapter 1: The Big Language Arts
River).

Language Arts
l spelling l dictation Fluency
Competent Adults,
l handwriting l word origins College Students, Academics,
Professional Writers
l punctuation l vocabulary
l grammar development
l literary elements l paragraphing
copywork typing

The Natural Stages

of growth in Writing
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 The Year-Long Program

Original writing, on the other hand, is the language The writing projects in this program facilitate
we use to characterize the original thought life of growth in original writing. Your children, in this
your child that the child wants to preserve in writing. stage of development, will be able to transcribe
their own thoughts with greater and greater ease
over the course of the year, as their mechanics
pick up speed and accuracy.
Original Writing
In the language arts component, you’ll find a
l narration ideas l revision routine of graduated practices to use with your
l insight techniques child over the course of a ten-month (school year)
l experience genre l research methods period. You may start any time (doesn’t have
l sentence to be September in the northern hemisphere or
l format February in the southern). Just know that these
complexity
l writing voice practices operate best when the difficulty gradually
l writing style increases over time. Don’t rush. Feel free to stay
l freewriting
l word play at a level that is comfortable for your child longer
than the plan indicates. This routine should be
seen as a model, not as a straightjacket.
The Arrow
The Arrow is a literature guide that is designed Brave Writer Lifestyle
for children who are already reading (3rd-6th
grades, approximately). The Arrow will provide Lastly, the Brave Writer Lifestyle fuels the
you with four passages for copywork and/or language arts portion of this program as well.
dictation from a selected book: one novel per The Faltering Ownership program will give you
issue. Each digital magazine contains grammar developmental-stage-appropriate suggestions
notes, ideas for teaching spelling and punctuation, for how to incorporate practices that lead to a
and explanations of literary devices found in the language-rich environment in the areas of film,
passages. The Arrow also includes a featured television, nature, art, poetry, theater, word play,
literary element each month. These are the and more.
techniques of craft that make quality writing good
to read. Each of the issues includes a writing
exercise that allows the child to play with the
literary element firsthand.
If you want to read books of your own choosing
and select your own copywork and dictation
passages, feel free to do so! Alternatively,
you might wish to blend Arrows with your own
selections. Finally, be sure to give your children
opportunities to select their own passages to copy
from the books they read on days when you aren’t
using the ones provided in The Arrow.

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Faltering Ownership

BRAVE WRITER LIFESTYLE

The Brave Writer Lifestyle is about creating a
language-rich environment in your home. Jot It
Down! and Partnership Writing detailed practices
for younger children in many of these areas. The
website also offers pages with listed resources
and suggestions for implementation.

POETRY TEATIMES
Poetry teatimes in the younger years are all about
enjoying poetry and sipping tea (no analysis
required). That practice can continue as is! Probe poetry a bit this year; make it
However, this age group also benefits from a little
targeted poetry exploration to raise the stakes and
light, natural, and casual.
change up the dynamic a bit.

Pick a poet Pick a universal theme

Have all the poems read at the poetry teatime Courage, hope, love, courtship, family, father-
be from the same poet. Print out or read a bit son, mother-daughter, illness, death, birth,
about the poet (background, when he or she friendship, oppression, crime, loss, nature,
lived, his or her influences in writing). Have weather, God, forgiveness, judgment, the
each child select one poem by this poet to read. universe.
Enjoy the poems, and see if any similarities or
differences stand out when you read several of Pick a type of poetry
one poet’s writings in a row! Sonnets, quatrains, haiku, ballads, song lyrics,
villanelles, concrete poems, limericks, free
Pick a historical period verse, and more. Have everyone bring one
Find poems that are written in one particular era example of the chosen type, or conversely, have
of history (sonnets from the 16th century, poems each child choose a different type of poem to
by women in the 18th century, poems written share.
during WW1).
Pick a favorite poem of the week
Pick a historical theme Tell everyone that this week’s poetry teatime
Collect a variety of poems by various authors, will feature a favorite poem of the week by each
even from different time periods, about a participant. Give them a week or several days to
particular historical theme: war, civil rights, find a poem to share. Each participant is to keep
slavery, women’s suffrage, technological the poem secret until the teatime when it will be
advancement, monarchy, religious conflicts, revealed, shared, and enjoyed.
weapon development, abolition, peace.

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 BRAVE WRITER LIFESTYLE

Tips for exploring poetry with this age group

Secret Strings Wild Words

Michael Rosen (British children’s poet) talks about Poems are a great source of new, vivid vocabulary.
“Secret Strings” in poetry. These strings are the In the Writing Projects section of this manual, the
invisible threads that connect the words in poems. first project is “Wild Words.” In it, your kids will
Rhyme is the most obvious secret string, but learn to keep a collection of great words! Remind
there are others as well— such as onomatopoeia, them to excavate the current poems for any words
rhythm, alliteration, same meaning in different they can “steal” for their own use. Talk about why
words, color terms, repeated images and so on. the word leapt off the page and what makes it a
Ask your kids to see if they see any secret strings “cool” word to collect—feels good in the mouth,
in the poems. has lots of hollow vowel sounds, makes me laugh,
is important-sounding, is unfamiliar, pleases the
Boomerang Effect ear, rhymes with my favorite word... and so on.
Poems are meant to touch us personally, even if
they relate a topic or story that is unfamiliar. When
reading a poem, ask what its “boomerang effect” Reading poetry may naturally lead to writing it.
is—how does the poem rebound from the page to The bonus project, Poetry Play on page 147,
your own life? Can you relate to the mood, story, gives you a variety of forms to try with your
circumstance, or experience? How or how not? children. You might do them in a month or try
them during a teatime!
Friend or Foe?
Meet the author through the poem. Would you
have liked him or her, do you think? What can you
learn about the poet through the poem— no need
to “get it right.” Guess what kind of person would
write that poem. Feel free to be silly with it, too.

Tammy Wahl

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Faltering Ownership

Month 1 Wild Words

WEEK DAY LANGUAGE ARTS BRAVE WRITER LIFESTYLE ORAL/WRITING PROJECTS
MONDAY Copywork Arrow Collect Words

TUESDAY Poetry Teatime Collect Words

WEDNESDAY Dictation Create a word pool

WEEK ONE

THURSDAY Arrow Literary Element Put a poem in your pocket

FRIDAY Freewrite Play with word tickets

NOTES

NEXT MONTH PREP Begin reading chapter book

EVERY DAY LANGUAGE ARTS BRAVE WRITER LIFESTYLE ORAL/WRITING PROJECTS
MONDAY Copywork Arrow Create word tickets

TUESDAY Poetry Teatime Add words; review at 3:00pm

WEDNESDAY Gather objects for sculptures

WEEK TWO

THURSDAY Copywrite own choice Tape tickets to household items

FRIDAY Dictation Nature Freewrite answers to questions

NOTES

NEXT MONTH PREP

EVERY DAY LANGUAGE ARTS BRAVE WRITER LIFESTYLE ORAL/WRITING PROJECTS
MONDAY Copywork Arrow Select three pictures

TUESDAY Poetry Teatime Picture examination

WEEK THREE

WEDNESDAY Dictation Movie Create a scrounged poem

THURSDAY Create a scrounged poem

FRIDAY Arrow Writing Activity

NOTES

NEXT MONTH PREP

EVERY DAY LANGUAGE ARTS BRAVE WRITER LIFESTYLE ORAL/WRITING PROJECTS
MONDAY Copywork Arrow

TUESDAY Poetry Teatime

WEEK FOUR

WEDNESDAY Reverse Dictation

THURSDAY Copywrite own choice Expansion project

FRIDAY Nature Expansion project

NOTES

NEXT MONTH PREP Check out art books Finish chapter book

Next Month Preview: Dust Jacket Book Review

Kids pick books to read this month.
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 Wild Words

PROJECT 1

Wild Words
DESCRIPTION
Begin this year’s writing adventure in the jungle of
words. They’re everywhere, waiting to be plucked Tools
from pages and screens, and explored. Spend
a month on an extravagant, curious, playful hunt  A little notebook (spiral or moleskin) to fit
through language as it presents itself. Every age can in a pocket or purse
participate, including you, the homeschooling parent!  A pen or pencil
 A roll of raffle tickets (one side should be
OBJECTIVE blank) or a stack of note cards cut into
fourths
The essence of writing is words. Writer’s block  Post-it Notes
comes from a lack of access—the words go into  Scotch tape
hiding and no scrunching of brows coaxes them
 Scissors
forth. This month’s playful approach to language
helps young writers to make friends with the world of  Magazines
words. They will learn how to find words when they  Art books or prints
need them, and what to do once they’ve got them.

PROCESS
Each week will build on the previous week’s
work, so be sure to follow the weekly activities in
order. During the first week, your kids will collect
words. All words, any words. They’ll sort the
words according to their whims, arranging them in
clusters. By week two, they will assign their words
to items in the home—creating new connections
and relationships between items and labels. In
the third and fourth weeks, all of these delightful
words will be used to create poems based on art
or photography.

PROJECT
The end result of these activities will be a working
lexicon of fresh, vital terms your children can
read, use, and adapt for any writing they do going
forward. The strategies used to find language can
be used again and again when they hit the wall
of writer’s block for any other writing they do this
year. The capstone activity is the creation of a
poem drawn from the scrounged language.

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Faltering Ownership

WEEK 1
Monday–Wednesday
Collecting Words
Collecting Words
Writers collect words. They rehearse them in the
shower, notice them when they read, and test Notice a color
them on friends. Unfamiliar words are foisted on fuschia
friends in an attempt to discover the meanings
through use. Sometimes a meaning will present Identify a brand
itself through the sound the word makes, the way Nike
it impacts a listener, and even prior associations
with words similar to it. Follow a letter around your house
window
Words are everywhere: television, songs,
billboards, your computer screen, bumper stickers, Windex
books, magazines, poems, supermarket flyers, wick of a candle
and business brochures. wicket
wicker
This Week’s Task white walls
Worcester sauce
Read the following to your children. worried brow
Notice words in all their abundance and
creative display. Pick words from foreign languages
Carry a mini notebook with you all week and mon petit chou
jot down words as you discover (hear, read, see) sayonara
them. Use a note-taking app on a smart phone or ciao
tablet, if you prefer.
tortilla
 You might find words in a book you’re oy vey
reading: unscrupulous, punch, navigate.
 You might find them on billboards: Got milk? Discover opposites
twisted—straight
 You might notice them in songs: numb,
raise the roof, bleeding, fractals fiery—wet
sharp—smooth
Jot them all down. Keep going. arranged—chaotic

48
 Month 1 Wild Words

Create a word
figgergibit
pasturipple
closerest

Consult field guides for birds and plants

ruddy turnhouse
tufted titmouse
Carolina wren
downy woodpecker
hemlock
river birch
knock-out roses

Remind your kids that all words count

all
of
inside
the
very
because
or
but
if
which
may

Note
Take words from conversations, poems,
magazines, television shows, and clothing
catalogs.

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Faltering Ownership

Create a Wordpool Share words with your siblings, steal words

from your parents—roll them around on your
As you collect words, group them in clusters that tongue, write them in big curly cursive or stiff
relate to each other in some way. Liberate the straight-backed manuscript. Type them, text them,
words from the list in your notebook. Copy your tweet them.
words to “word tickets” (the blank backs of the Put a word ticket in your pocket and look at it
raffle ticket roll). Put a single word on the blank later in the day. Put a bowl of word tickets on the
side of each ticket (alternatively, create your own table and randomly sort through them, reading
tickets by snipping note cards into quarters). them to yourself or whoever is handy. Leave some
The following suggestions will help you to tickets next to your bed to read before you sleep.
“pool” words together—to begin the process of Tuck a ticket inside a surprise place for someone
creating connections between words and ideas. else to find (underwear drawer, the dashboard of
the family car, inside the medicine cabinet where
Put them in piles, or swirls on a table, in
the toothpaste lives...).
bunches. Think about reasons they might go
together: same first letter, same number of Add your own ideas. How else might you play
syllables, all relate to water, this bunch reminds with language this week?
me of my brother, action words, color words, Let the word collecting begin!
nature words... Any grouping is valid.

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 Month 1 Wild Words

Thursday–Friday Add unusual names (places or people)

Melanie Josephine
Persephone Pear Apple Way
Create a Wordpool Constantinople Orchard Lane
Grab a random group (a fistful) Cucamonga Boisseranc
yes keys Fitzwilliam Wilma Circle
no carnation Harry Swany
fickle sky Joe
upside regret
down touch
cake pounce Consult magnetic poetry (like the
smile tangerine Shakespeare Set)
perchance dreams
wallet
wench manipulate
befits drunkard
Add more words by building from words you’ve
already collected. methinks grace
delirious melancholy
Give them a color wanton
sky blue smile pink regrets
Collect words all week. When you get stuck,
Give your words a sense
think of verbs and nouns. These are your power
fickle sight tangerine touch
words!
Add sound words
fizz, pop cockadoodledo
Verbs and nouns
fiddle, crunch
scrunch bench
Find words in a cookbook or car manual craft casket
grate fuel pump needle cell phone
zest lever perpetuate noodle
parboil accelerate frighten tantrum
lubricate vase

Of interest
“Word tickets” and the “word pool”
come from poet Susan Woodridge in
her enormously popular book,
Poem Crazy.

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Faltering Ownership

SECOND SEMESTER

Party School Report Writing

MONTH 2 Report elements
Because this party is meant to prepare students
Research and Party to write a report as well, a few additional elements
Planning are worth including.

The research you and your kids did in month 1. Create brief biographical sketches for your
one will be of special use to you now. Use party guests of famous Indians (like Gandhi).
your creativity (and your kids’) to help you pair Each guest will get to read about a famous
information from the topic with interesting party person in history from that part of the world.
activities, foods, and decorations. 2. Put “fun facts” or trivia about India on poster
board. Use one-liners or elaborate with a few
more items: population; religions; famous
Good parties have several foods; words or practices that are from India
components that most people don’t know about; movies
filmed in India. At the end of the party, take
l Friends
the posters down and hold a quiz. See who
l Invitations read and retained what was posted. Reward
l Food with a prize.
l Activities
l Decorations
Process
l Costumes (optional)
l Music Month 2 is about pairing the research with
creative party ideas. Try some of them out to
be sure they work. Let your creativity lead you!
Parties based on report research will
add a few components
l Posters of fun facts
l Brief biographical descriptions of relevant
important persons
l A map (if relevant)

114
 Party School Report Writing

SAMPLE TOPIC Food

A menu of authentic Indian foods is a given for a
India party.
Create small recipe books for the guests.
Friends Several note cards tied together in a bunch works.
as well as typing the recipes into a Word doc,
Make a list of possible guests. Homeschooling
printing them and photocopying the pages. Staple
families make willing and eager participants.
them together and distribute.
Extended family loves being included in home
education parties as well. If you invite a large
crowd, ask them to contribute to the party in MENU
a meaningful way (food, dress up clothes,
decorations or equipment for games). All ages
can participate (including the non-homeschooling To drink
parent). However it’s also fine to hold the party
midday with the student’s personal friends (no Chai
(Indian tea)
siblings or other parents). Talk with your kids about
which situation would suit them the best.

Invitations To eat

Handmade invitations are wonderful but not Curry

necessary. Keep the topic in mind to style them Chutney
accordingly.
Rice
India is reported to host more than 780
languages! Hindi and English are the two official Chapati
(similar to tortillas or pita bread)
languages. Hindi is written with the Devanāgarī script.
On the invitations, write: “You’re invited” in both
English and Hindi. Use Google translator to help you.
Create invitations that contain artwork (perhaps Activities
henna designs or images of gods or goddesses).
Both authentic Indian games and activities
designed to teach party guests about India are
welcome.

Music
Play Indian music over speakers. Alternatively,
a DVD of an Indian concert could play in the
background.

An example of an invitation for the India party

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Faltering Ownership

PROJECT 9

Deep Dive into Literary Elements

DESCRIPTION
TOOLS
This batch of projects depends on the skillful use
of literary elements. The next four weeks will give  Paper
your kids a thrill ride in language—taking wild  Wild Words from the first month
words and assembling them into clever phrases  Pens and pencils (all varieties)
that maximize the Queen Literary Element of them
 Dictionary, thesaurus, rhyming
all: Surprise!
dictionary, magazines
 Scissors
OBJECTIVE  Glue stick
 Envelopes
Facility with literary elements (also called “literary
devices”) creates energy in writing. Flat-footed,  Note cards
trudging prose pops to life with a peppering of  Markers
powerful language choices (alliteration overload
of ‘p’s notwithstanding). Your kids will discover
that they can create reader interest in their writing PROJECTS
when they manipulate language to suit their
aims. Literary elements function like a magic A collection of literary element masterpieces will
potion—transforming ordinary content into the result. Your children will showcase these elements
extraordinary. by hanging the results from a laundry line with
curtain clips, or posting them to a bulletin board.
When you continue with more writing in the next
PROCESS months, unclip the models of these elements and
use them to remind your students of ways they can
Each week will focus on one or two elements. The
spruce up any piece of writing.
purpose of the activities is to explore them, not
to lock them down. Creativity, absurdity, overuse
is encouraged! It’s not possible to overdo it.
Excessive application of the principles is expected!
Enjoy the processes. For reluctant writers, feel
free to do many of these exercises orally, or work
as a group!

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 Deep Dive into Literary Elements

WEEK 2 Monday-Tuesday
Process
Analogy
This week, explore the world of analogies and then
The ability to draw comparisons between personal write your own.
experience and remote experience creates
powerful writing. The hunt
Analogies are aimed at making the unfamiliar, Hunt for examples of analogies in the
familiar; or taking the too-familiar and making it reading you and your children do together, in
new again. advertisements, and in conversations. You might
notice an analogy in the read-aloud, or find one
online on a blog, or discover an analogy in a
Unfamiliar to Familiar television ad.
Analogy is the tool that helps readers connect
If writing about “snowballs” for someone who
and relate to the content of the writing.
has grown up in Hawaii (never having seen or
encountered snow), the writer might approximate Analogies are longer than a single metaphor
the look and feel of a snowball by comparing (direct comparison) or simile (comparison using
it to Hawaiian shaved ice (a snowcone!). This “like” or “as”), though they do make use of one or
comparison maximizes the Hawaiian’s familiar both frequently.
experience of shaved ice by relating it to the Use a whiteboard to keep a running list. It
unknown experience of snowballs. It then creates might look like this:
an “aha!” experience in the reader.
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know
what you’re going to get until you take a bite.
Familiar to Fresh
PC computers are like robots. Apple computers are
Sports writers rely heavily on the power of analogy like friends.
to make their copy pop. They write about games
that most readers have seen, and about sports The river rafting low-end package is the “brown
paper bag” experience—requiring you to bring your
that most readers already know how to play. own equipment.
How can sports writers make the familiar more
interesting? They compare the too-familiar to a The high-end package is more like a catered dining
fresh point of reference which helps to reinvigorate experience—the staff supplies all you need and it is
the well known. of high quality.

 For instance: If writing about an intensely

contested baseball game that went into long
Analogies are embedded in all kinds of
extra innings, ending in a grand slam, the
writing. Paying attention is what is demanding.
writer might compare the length and scale
As a parent, you may be the one to find the
of the game to sitting through the extended
analogies that you then share with your kids.
edition of the Lord of the Rings DVD trilogy.
That’s okay! The hunt is of the scavenger
 Another example: A writer might compare variety—digging through language in search of
the hunt for a golf ball hit well out of play to comparisons that make the familiar fresh or the
the game “hide and seek” as the spectators unfamiliar, more familiar.
scatter to look for the errant ball.

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Faltering Ownership

Unfamiliar Familiar
l Using chopsticks l Eating at fast food chains
l Pressure-cooking a stew l Driving long distances in traffic
l Playing lacrosse l Any well-known holiday
l The Sanskrit alphabet l Playing your favorite (well-known) sport
l Aunt Susan’s weird laugh l Not making the team
l Camping in the snow l Summer heat
l Going through chemo therapy l Winter cold
l Surfing l Flying in an airplane
l Speaking more than one language fluently l Having a cold or the flu
l Robotics l Being a sibling
l Raising goats l Handwriting
l Writing gaming software l Brushing your teeth
l Riding the “Tube” (London subway) l Any novel or film that “everyone” has read
l Feeding a sourdough bread culture or watched
l Growing organic vegetables l Taking selfies with a cell phone
l Surviving a natural disaster (flood, tornado, l Playing video games
hurricane, earthquake) l Using social media
l Your family reunions l Going on a picnic

As mentioned before, a rich source of excellent

comparisons can be found in sports writing. Go
to ESPN.com or the major sports blogs like The
Bleacher Report, and read the editorials by sports
writers. Identify as many comparisons as you can
and ask yourself why they work (or don’t!).

Wednesday
Topics
Today’s task is to identify two types of topics: The
unfamiliar (those experiences or items that you
know well but are less well known to others), and
the overly familiar (stuff that everybody knows so
well, they hardly think about it).
Together with your kids, brainstorm items to
go in each list. To get you started, I’ve provided
examples of unfamiliar and familiar experiences.

134
 New to Brave Writer?

What’s Next?

Now that you’ve completed Faltering Ownership, you’re ready to grow

as a writing coach and ally in your child’s life!
The best tool to transform your writing life is The Writer’s Jungle. The
Writer’s Jungle is the centerpiece to the Brave Writer lifestyle. In it, homeschooling
parents find the insight, support and tools that help them become the most effective
writing coaches their children will ever have.
The missing ingredient in writing curricula isn’t how to structure a paragraph
(information that can be readily found on the Internet). You don’t need more facts
about topic sentences or how to use libraries. Grammar and spelling are not the key
components in writing, either, much to the chagrin of some English teachers.

• Are you tired of the blank page blank stare syndrome (hand a child a blank page;
get back a blank stare)?
• Are you worried that you aren’t a good enough writer to teach writing?
• Is your child bright, curious, and verbal but seems to lose her words when she is
asked to write?
• Do you wonder how to expand the ideas in the sentences your child writes without
damaging your relationship?
• Has writing become a place where tears flow and fears surface?
• Is your child a prolific writer and you aren’t sure how to direct him to the next
level?
• Have you tried “just about everything” and feel ready to give up on writing?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then The Writer’s

Jungle is for you!
Purchase it here.
If you aren’t quite ready to make the big investment, get your
feet wet with an issue of The Arrow (3rd – 6th grades) or The
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naturally and painlessly!
Enjoy your journey to Brave Writing!