Mr. T is just beginning to type his writing on his own.

Warning: some of what follows may sound like heresy to traditional educators.

Recently a reader of this blog sent an email asking for advice. She’s a homeschooling mom, and she wrote after spending time with other homeschooling friends, and hearing how they teach writing to their kids. Basically, these parents have their kids work daily at their writing. Younger kids draft a sentence each day and then combine them into a paragraph at the end of the week. An older child writes a paragraph each day, and then combines them into a traditional “five-paragraph essay.”

My reader writes:

“I wonder if this approach is going to encourage a love of writing and an ability to establish an authentic writing voice of one’s own.”

She then went on to describe some of the writing that her kids do, based on their interests. I won’t describe the details, to protect my reader’s privacy, but she writes,

“Their writing experiences are few and far between, but in my opinion, so rich, so full of voice and purpose…”

Here’s what she wonders:

“Can these kinds of few and far between writing activities be “enough” if they are rich enough and gradually become more frequent?  How can a family keep a sense of play and joy and authenticity in writing while making it a habit, too?  And how can a parent know when it’s time to push a little more and when it’s time to wait?  And am I being overly cavalier and irresponsible to think that teaching my kids paragraphing skills can wait a while?”

There are so many good questions here, enough to fill a chapter in a book. Rather than try to address this reader’s wonderings in an elegant, cohesive way–which would have me tapping at my computer here for days–let me offer instead some random thoughts.

• The notion of learning through routine practice is mostly a school notion. Practicing small pieces of a larger skill day after day is a way of ensuring that a large group of children will eventually learn that same skill. The assumption is that the child will learn the multiplication table, or the rules of grammar, or the parts of the body if he or she works at them repeatedly. The teacher can’t be aware of learning that happens outside of the classroom, in daily life, so all learning gets focused into a lesson format. Many of us who grew up going to school have unwittingly become convinced that a person needs this sort of routine practice in order to learn something.
• Adult-driven, routine practice-type learning rarely takes the child’s interest and motivation into account. In fact, in most cases, the child isn’t terribly engaged in this sort of practice. He or she does it simply because it is required.
• On the other hand, when a child’s interest and motivation are there, that child can often pick up concepts and skills rather quickly. Repeated practice isn’t necessary. Your daughter figures out how to multiply mentally because she wants to win at Yahtzee; your son understands how different ancient civilizations affected one another because he enjoys reading The Cartoon History of the Universe.
• This is not to say that repeated practice doesn’t have a role in learning. Repeated practice when taken on by choice can be the deepest sort of learning. When, for example, a child does that skateboard trick over and over to get it down; when she draws manga characters in the margin of every paper in her path; when she keeps strumming her guitar because she wants to be able to play Hey Jude through the finish. The child learns in these situations because he or she is motivated and the engagement is constant. In this case, practice leads to deep learning, yet it doesn’t feel like practice to the child. The child is simply doing what he or she is compelled to do.

So, how do these ideas apply to writing?

If you’re concerned about helping your kids develop writing skills for their futures, I have a few quotes for you.

Me, squinting and looking sheepish.

I did not write much in 2011.

That realization sort of stuns me. I didn’t recognize it until the year began to dwindle and I glanced back. I spent a lot of time last year working behind the scenes of my writing, without actually writing. I futzed under the hood, you could say, without actually driving the car.

And how, you might ask, did I do that for a year?

I spent the first three or four months of the year researching why writing matters. This was, ostensibly, a means of starting a book chapter called (what else) “Why Writing Matters.” I can’t, I figure, expect parents to read a book about helping their kids with writing unless they’re convinced that the endeavor will be worth their while. So I simply set out to do a little research, and found myself falling into a rabbit hole of studies, reports, articles and books on how writing is becoming more important than ever in the modern world. And concurrently found other studies, reports, articles and books bemoaning the fact that writing is being more neglected than ever in most classrooms. It’s a fascinating, horrifying story, and I couldn’t move on from it; I just kept reading, gathering notes and pulling out my hair. I managed to collect it all into an article query, and wrote an introduction to the article, but haven’t yet had a magazine take me up on writing the actual piece. It’s an important story, and one I’d still like to tell.

I spent another few months preparing workshops which I presented at a homeschool conference and elsewhere. I’ve given workshops before, but these were two completely new ones, and it surprised me how much time they took to put together. Good news: those months of research wriggled their way into both workshops. Suddenly I had more evidence, more grit for parents, to work them up about writing. Giving the workshops was exciting–there’s nothing like sharing ideas with others and getting immediate, tangible responses. (And hugs, even.) The give-and-take with participants gave me all the more insight about kids, parents and writing for my book project.

Still, it wasn’t writing.

I spent another two months redesigning my blog. This was perhaps the most frivolous, not-related-to-writing distraction of all. I just wanted my blog to look more like the vision I had in my mind; I had no idea how much I had to learn about code and such to make that happen. It was a fulfilling little dalliance, though, and it had to be good for the synapses in my forty-six-year-old brain. Now I’m redesigning my homeschool support group’s website, so the experience wasn’t all shallow self-indulgence.

Looking back on how I spent 2o11, and how much I wrote, I realize that I worked on just three projects: that article query, my e-book for parents on facilitating writer’s workshops (still unfinished) and this blog. That’s it.

Sigh.

I also realized something else. There are two things getting in the way of my writing.

1. my book project
2. this blog

I know, I know! How can writing a book get in the way of writing? But a book project is nothing if not big. I knew that writing a book would take years. It’s been almost three years since I got the original audacious idea of writing it. In that time I’ve done a lot of thinking, outlining and note-taking. I’ve even done a lot of writing. But I can see now that I am years and years away from anything resembling a completed book. I just don’t have the time to make it happen faster. I’m still a homeschooling parent, which implies a certain level of busy.

I’m also a monogamous-project person. Ask any of the moms in my homeschooling group, who see me knitting at the park week after week. I work dutifully at one project and finish it before I even swatch for another one. It’s a little ridiculous. I knitted a single sweater coat for nine months until the thing reached my ankles. I’m not sure what this tendency says about me. That I value finished projects over process? That I can’t multi-task? That I’m tunnel-visioned? True. True. True. But it’s also true that if I want something I will work for it. Stubbornly. Single-mindedly. Mulishly.

I thought I wanted to write a book. I do want to write a book. But what I realize, now, is that I want even more to help other parents with their kids’ writing. And if I put all my time into writing a book that won’t make it into another parent’s hands for years and years, then I’m not going to be helping anyone for a mighty long time.

Then there’s the fact that my project single-mindedness hasn’t allowed me any other writing for almost three years. So many times an essay idea has whispered in my ear, and I’ve ignored it, knowing that I’d never get a book finished if I got sidetracked with other whims. But, oh, how I’ve missed writing essays and articles! I’ve missed breathing on them and shining them up until I could see my reflection in them. I’ve missed sharing them with my writer friends, and re-writing them, and re-writing them again, and finding potential markets for them, and sending them off, with held breath and crossed fingers. I’ve missed that enchanted period before the rejection arrives, when the unlikely is possible.

I haven’t written a new essay in almost three years. I stopped writing essays just about the time I started getting them published.

Suddenly I’m feeling a little sad about that.

I’m not giving up on my book project. I’ve just decided to let it become the afghan that I knit at on the side, for years, without worrying about when it will get finished.

In the meanwhile, I’m allowing myself to dally. I’ll keep working at my e-book on facilitating workshops. I’m excited about the e-book model: the shorter format, the self-publishing angle. I’ll try out this first idea, and if it goes well, I very well may release other portions of the book in my brain as e-books. I love the idea of potentially helping other parents sooner, rather than later.

And I’m going to get back to writing essays and articles. I’ve pulled a few simmering-too-long ideas right up to the front burners. Feels good.

But back to that other writing obstacle: this blog.

I’ve kept up this blog as doggedly as everything else I do. A post a week, most weeks. For a long time I kicked myself for not writing more. I was convinced that I needed to post more often to build up my audience. And how I wanted to build my audience! I kept waiting for the month that my blog would take off, and attract masses. But, no. There have been no take-offs or other statistical pyrotechnics. My blog audience has grown slowly and steadily over the months and years. What else did plodding, deliberate me expect? I have a relatively small yet loyal readership. Every month there are a few more of you. I am finally beginning to take satisfaction in the fineness of that gift.

But a post a week here has been too much for me. As this current post is making all too evident, I don’t write short. Wish I could, but I can’t. So even posting every eight to ten days meant that blogging took up a good chunk of my writing time.

No, I’m not giving up the farm. I’m just putting my eggs in the basket that says that most of my readers will keep showing up, even if I only post every two weeks or so. That’s what feed readers and email subscriptions are for, after all.

I’m also hoping to focus my posts here on writing with kids, and passion-driven learning because those are the topics that matter most to me. I’ve finally figured out that I’m not Soule Mama, you know? I may drop in some atwitter posts now and again–heavy on photos, light on text–because I don’t want to things to get too impersonal. But I have a better sense of what my mission is, and what I want to share here.

So. All of this has been a bloated, navel-gazing introduction to my new year’s resolution: In 2012 I will write.

Wish me luck.

I went away for a writing retreat with friends this weekend.

For years we’ve gathered at the coast, but this time we found ourselves on the backroads of Northern California. Instead of looking out over beaches, we had buttes. And a most changing landscape–for a landscape that at first seemed unchanging.

We were astonished by snow.

We drank strong coffee and wrote words on the backs of tickets. Then we made poetry. (An activity that’s as fun to do with kids as it is with adults, inspired by Susan Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy.)

We watched a heron and a hawk face off from a distance of ten feet, and stare each other down for hours.

We ate well. These pumpkin steel-cut oats were delicious (and will be making a comeback in my kitchen on Thanksgiving morning) and Heidi Swanson’s surprising salad with kale, coconut and farro, from this cookbook, was worth pulling from the fridge, meal after meal.

We stayed warm with a wood stove.

We wrote postcards to each other, from fictional and somewhat emotionally-unstable characters.

We walked alongside fallow rice fields. Then we went back to the cabin and blasted I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got while making barley risotto.

And we wrote. Which is what we’d set out to do.

Getting away like this, once a year or so, matters more to me than I probably realize. It’s about being with friends and being without responsibilities, yes, but it’s also about feeding my artistic self, and keeping it going for the rest of the year, when the time allowed for it comes in fits and starts rather than days.

It’s important for parents to feed themselves this way, especially homeschooling parents.

If you can’t get away for a weekend, maybe you can do it for a few hours. For about fifteen years now, since Lulu was a baby, I’ve gone out to work on my writing in a cafe once a week. Usually Wednesdays. My evenings out have evolved into first eating at a somewhat dive-y Indian spot, where all I have to do is walk in and smile and they write down my order of chana masala and roti. I eat my dinner over an inspiring read (lately Adam Gopnik’s new The Table Comes First.) And then I walk a few doors down to a cafe and work at my writing.

Wednesdays have become a highlight of my week. No matter how busy life gets, I know I’ll have a few hours to indulge my writerly side, and it fuels me. Like that kindling in the wine barrel, in that photo up there.

Chris also takes a night out, generally to rehearse with his band. I’ve known him since (before!) he was a teenager blasting his ears out in a garage band, and I’m only too happy to help keep that part of him alive. (Seeing him play live always makes me feel like a teenager again, even without the thrift store spike heels and leggings.)

Our weekly evenings out have been, I think, one of the smartest things we’ve done as parents. Sometimes it’s hard: the one left at home does all the dinner-prep and parenting duties for the evening, even more of a task when the kids were younger. And I find myself saying no to other weeknight social opportunities because I don’t want to give up my writing night. Still, it’s worth every trouble. Chris and I are helping each other remain creative people, in the midst of a very full life.

What seems secondary, but must be just as important: we’re showing our kids that our creative selves matter. That a week isn’t a week if you don’t find time for writing or music-playing in between dragging out the garbage and doing the laundry. That indulging your creativity is just something you do, like brushing your teeth and exercising.

How do you feed your creative side, in the midst of a busy life?

(P.S. If you’re here via last weekend’s link at Simple Homeschool, welcome! Please consider jumping in and joining the conversation in the comments. That’s where the action is!)

So I have a new home page. Maybe you’ve seen it? You can check it out here, or by clicking about me in the menu above my header.

The home page is at patriciazaballos.com, where the blog used to live. The blog now gets moved next door to patriciazaballos.com/blog. I’ve been assured that the change shouldn’t effect my blog feed, meaning that if you subscribe via email or RSS feed, you should receive updates as usual. Hope so. Please let me know if it’s not working out for you. Resubscribing may be necessary.

Apparently I’ve become something of a code geek. Not that I know much, but I’ve definitely learned to speak a little PHP and CSS in the two months I’ve spent redesigning the blog, and setting up that home page. I thought that the home page would be fairly easy to put together, but it took even longer than the blog redesign, simply because I had to really tweak the blog template to make the page look as I wanted it to. Do you have any idea how complicated it was to set up those buttons linking to Twitter, Facebook and Flickr? I could tell you a whole story populated with image sprites and sprite generators and Firebug menu item numbers. But one sentence is boring enough–suffice to say that those cute little buttons took about three hours of my life.

Perhaps I’m a slow learner. Nevertheless, the whole endeavor brings us to the topic of do-it-yourself learning.

My home page isn’t just DIY in design; it’s DIY in content. Which has me thinking.

The page is, I suppose, an attempt at professionalizing what I’m doing these days. I used to be a credentialed professional, but my teaching credential is long lapsed and honestly, my teacher training has very little effect on my current life as a homeschooling parent. Less and less as time goes on.

Instead, I’ve been working towards my own goals, outside of institutions and without credentials to prove my accomplishments. Is it audacious of me to assert myself as a writer when I’ve only had a few pieces published? Does the fact that I was paid for some of those pieces make me a professional? If I’d spent two years earning an MFA in Creative Writing, would that earn me more respect than the twenty years I’ve spent studying writing on my own? Does it make a difference that I write in some fashion most days, that I think and read and look at the world through the lens of a writer?

I’ve also begun listing my speaking engagements on that page. I’ve been paid for some of those engagements, but not all. Does that make me a professional speaker? I’m likely hired, in part, due to my  yellowing teaching credential, although what I speak about has little to do with my experiences as a credentialed teacher. Instead, I speak about what I’ve learned from my kids in our lives as homeschoolers, and my own research, and my own experiences as a writer. A quasi-professional writer.

It’s a home page mostly based on my own DIY learning, and that feels a little cheeky of me. But at the same time, what kind of a homeschooler would I be if I didn’t value DIY learning? Do I think my kids are lesser learners because they spent most of their childhoods learning outside institutions? Absolutely not! I think they’re learners in the truest sense of the word. Their DIY learning has had a profound effect on who they are as people, and it certainly hasn’t hindered them when they’ve chosen more traditional, institutional learning for themselves.

I believe in DIY learning for my kids, and I believe in it for myself. I can’t really confer on myself a credential or a degree, I suppose, but I can make myself a home page! I can announce to the world what I’ve been doing and where I’m headed.

And that’s what my little home page is all about.

Oh, what  a crazy time it is. Mr. T turns ten today, and Lulu turns sixteen on Halloween. Multiple cakes and celebrations are involved. Also, I’m trying to fabricate a Thor costume primarily from duct tape. But that’s the sticky stuff of another post.

I haven’t managed a post here in a few weeks. But after writing my last one, on making reading and writing enjoyable on a daily basis, I undertook a little experiment. For a few days I tried to note whenever I saw Mr. T involved in an act of reading or writing. There is no way I caught every occurrence; who knows how often the kid picks up an atlas when he ought to be putting on his pajamas, or labels a map before running out to the backyard?

THREE DAYS OF READING AND WRITING: AN INCOMPREHENSIVE LIST

Reading

Lots of independent random reading. A Cartoon History of the Universe, Volume 3. Assorted comics and graphic novels. The Story of the World, Volume 4. (T found this one on a shelf in our office and picked it up when he saw that it covered WWI and WWII, two eras in which he’s interested but we haven’t explored together. Cracks me up that he chose to immerse himself in what some would consider a textbook.) House Mouse, Senate Mouse by Peter J. Barnes.  Scholastic Almanac 2011 and National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011. Interesting thing about T: he doesn’t tend to read many novels, although he loves comics and graphic novels. For a short while I worried about that, until I realized that for every novel he doesn’t read, he probably reads a dozen nonfiction books. He especially loves atlases and almanacs, and all manner of science and history books. At the library, I check out armloads of books that might intrigue him and leave them lying around the house. I strew them, as Sandra Dodd would say. I’d wager that a giant chunk of T’s knowledge has been gleaned from strewn books that he’s picked up and read.)

Family bedtime read-aloud: Wildwood by Colin Meloy. (Because Mr. T’s parents are Decemberists fans and we lived in Portland for a time.)

Daytime read-aloud: Adopted by Indians by Thomas Jefferson Mayfield. This is a bit of an aside, but I have to share: Mr. T and I are exploring California history this year, and going on monthly trips to historic sites with a few other families. We’re reading this book along with our study of local native people. So interesting! It’s the true story of a Texan boy who came to the Gold Rush with his family, and was taken in by a local tribe. Apparently Mayfield never told his story until just before he died, and a teacher-friend transcribed it for him. It’s fascinating to hear about San Francisco before it was even called San Francisco, and to hear what the Central Valley looked like when it was practically untouched.

Bedroom audiobook: The Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien. This is the book of the month for T’s book group. T would never have the patience to read it at this point, so I checked out the audio version for him. Sixteen disks! Actually, T often “reads” his book club books via the audio version. Is this cheating? I don’t think so. Can T engage in a discussion on the book at his meeting? Yep. Seems like that’s the point.

Car audiobook: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. T almost always chooses the audiobook we listen to in the car; I really wanted to hear this one so insisted on picking for a change. What a fantastic first-person narrative! Reminds me a lot of the young female narrator in the recent film version of True Grit. Calpurnia uses lots of wonderful, old-fashioned words that should never have become lost to us. Big surprise: T likes it, especially the admiration for Darwin and the natural world that Calpurnia and her grandfather share.

An information packet about Fort Ross, a local historic site and the location of an upcoming living history overnight that T and I will be attending. T’s taking a class with other kids who will be attending the trip. Reading the packet was an assignment for the class, yet T kept dragging his feet about getting it read. Instead of nagging him, I read the packet aloud. Suddenly he found the content fascinating and it prompted all sorts of discussion. And I reminded myself that reading aloud is sometimes what it takes.

Reading about Lego Ninjago online. To some parents, I suppose, this could seem like frivolous commercialism. The thing is, T isn’t reading because he’s lusting after the toys. (Although he wouldn’t mind a few of the small sets for his birthday.) No, what interests him is the Ninjago world and all its inhabitants and their interactions. (How do I know? I asked.) It may be online reading, commercially produced, but still, T is reading and absorbing and considering the information. Pretty much the same as he does when he reads an interesting book.

Practice questions for upcoming Geography Bee. My young geography freak is considering entering a local bee, so he and I took turns reading and answering questions from last year’s bee. And yes, he puts me to shame.

Discussion while reading The Elements by Theodore Gray. T loves this book, and picks it up regularly. This time, as he was reading, he piped up: “You know why I like this Elements book? It has really good writing. It’s complicated, but they simplify it so much that you can understand it. It feels like the writer is talking to you, like when he says, (reading aloud): If you find this section too technical, feel free to skim it–there isn’t going to be a quiz at the end.” A casual conversation about writing style in a scientific book, begun by a kid? Love it. (Another aside: Recently I asked a friend’s 13-year-old if there were any nonfiction books with writing she admired, and she also named The Elements. Good stuff.)

Writing

a variety of Google searches:

1. Many searches for images of Thor, as Halloween costume research. One led us to the very fun site of comic book artist Chris Giarrusso. Fantastic place to visit for comic-loving kids.
2. A search for the word used when meeting with a king, which neither of us could recall. (“Audience”).
3. A search for a map of “the ancient world”. T looked this one up independently, and it led him to a geography quiz site, which led to a good 45 minutes of reading and answering questions online. (See, that’s just one example of reading that I missed documenting above.)

Are Google searches writing? Most definitely, I would argue. In order to search successfully, you need to refine your goals and tinker with your terms. The ability to find information is crucial for kids in this digital world.

Continued work on his nonfiction piece on Lego Universe for our Writer’s Workshop. T is just beginning to type some of his writing on his own, and is very motivated to do it. Exciting.

The Workshop itself. Practically two hours of discussion about writing! Also a writing exercise: Think of something you like to do, and make a list of how to do a great job at it. T’s subject? Playing Lego Universe, of course. (Third aside: yes, yes, I’m still working on that e-book about how to facilitate writer’s workshops! Will get it up here in the next few months!)

A questionnaire for developing his Fort Ross character, required for the Fort Ross class. Not writing he wanted to do, and he did a minimal job.  I had to encourage him to move beyond one and two-word responses. (What do you look like? Handsome!) Still, I didn’t push too hard; I think that would have only made him dislike the activity altogether. This goes to show the difference between assigned projects and self-chosen ones, like the Lego Universe writing mentioned above. I’d hate to think of how T’s writing might (or might not) be developing if he were in school and not given many opportunities to write on topics of choice.

Many lists of invented characters and maps of invented worlds. I find these scattered around our house like dust bunnies.

Writing and responding to friends in the text box while playing Lego Universe.

A thank you postcard to his grandparents.

* * *

Funny thing is, these were three very busy days, three days in which T and I had minimal time working together. Still, I’m amazed at how much reading and writing actually took place. I also notice that most of the examples here fall outside the scope of traditional reading and writing instruction. Reading comic books and Lego websites? It’s reading! Googling Thor and messaging while gaming? Writing! There were times in which I helped T out, scaffolding the learning for him: reading aloud when he didn’t want to read something, finding audiobooks when reading was challenging, not pushing too hard on a class assignment. Also, there were many small acts of reading and writing: casual conversations, Google searches. Sometimes I think we parents don’t notice these small moments, but a reading and writing education can be built on them.

Consider noting the reading and writing going on in your days. It can be surprising! I’d love to hear a few random examples of how reading and writing creeps into your lives. Your examples will help readers better understand the point of my last post: You can help your kids love reading and writing every single day.

What would a teacher say about that writing posture? That pencil grip?

The other day I read these words in a comment from Amy:

“…So many of your suggestions for working with little (pre) writers and readers have wisely echoed in my brain right as I am about to pull the panic trigger and rap him over the knuckles with phonics. So instead we listen to Magic Treehouse audiobooks and I help him make comic books full of monsters and robots and I remember that I Am Not Alone and Someday He Will Read (and write, too).”

Smart woman, that Amy. Rap him over the knuckles with phonics. Ha! I always appreciate her play with words.

Writing a response to Amy, I thought about a post I wrote over a year ago, and the absolutely terrific feedback I received in the comments. In the post I asked parents to share their hopes for their kids and writing, and so many readers wrote back, generously holding their hearts open for me. Their words are definitely worth a read.

Over and over again, parents mentioned some variation on the hope that their kids would enjoy writing, that they’d find value in it, and be motivated to do it.

This is what I wrote to Amy:

“When it comes to reading and writing (and maybe everything!), I think my best advice for parents is this: what is your ultimate hope for your child? If your ultimate hope is to raise a child who loves reading, then how can you help him or her love reading today? By reading to him? By not pushing her to read aloud? Whatever it takes to instill a love of reading today will help a child love reading tomorrow. And a child who loves reading will want to learn to read. It’s foolproof! It just may not happen on our timetable.”

When it comes to activities like reading and writing, we parents sometimes get panicky. Especially if we’re homeschooling, and feel that we’re taking on the entire responsibility of making sure our kids learn these skills. (Skills? That’s a pretty icky, school-ish way to describe reading and writing. Even after years of trying to escape school-bound thinking, it still creeps in on me.) We worry that they’ll never learn to read if we don’t help them sound out words when they’re five; we hand-wring that they’ll never write if they don’t know how to compose a sentence by six. We get bogged down in the little steps: the sounding-out, the “word-attack” skills (sheesh!), the pencil grip, the grammar rules…

Our focus gets locked on these little steps, and what our child ought to be doing, and suddenly learning to read and write becomes a chore. We lose sight of the bigger picture.

If we want our kids to love reading and writing in the future, we have to help them love reading and writing today.

“If we want our kids to love reading and writing in the future, we have to help them love reading and writing today.”

So how do you get them to love reading and writing today?

This is where a little outside-the-box thinking comes in, and a little paying attention to your child. In the time you save not pushing phonics programs and grammar worksheets, you can be thinking about your singular, amazing child, and how to make reading and writing exciting in that child’s life. Today.

Loving reading today may not involve your child reading on his or her own at all. Loving reading today may mean listening to Magic Treehouse audiobooks, as Amy mentions. Loving reading today may mean scooping up easy readers from the library on your child’s favorite topics (who knew there were so many ballet and puppy-inspired books for young readers?), leaving them lying around, and then not nagging your child when she doesn’t pick them up. Loving reading today may mean coming home from the grocery store and sitting in the car in the garage, listening to just a little more of  The Great Brain audiobook with your kids, because the story is too good to turn off simply because you’ve arrived home.

Loving writing today may mean noticing that your son is writing online messages to the friends with whom he plays Lego Universe, and letting that be writing enough. It might mean encouraging letter and email-writing to friends, as my Indian blog-friend Rashmie does, or letting your son dictate a chart of Lego Ninjago characters like Carrie did with her son, and shared in the comments of my last post. Loving writing today might simply be the casual chat you and your son have about the crafty chapter titles Rick Riordan uses in the Percy Jackson series. It might involve no actual writing at all.

All of these small acts allow a child, un-pressured, to learn to respect and enjoy reading and writing. If they keep having meaningful, enjoyable experiences like these, they will, eventually, want to read and write themselves.

Here’s another way to put it. I always tell nervous parents of young kids something like this this: Your child will eventually find something that he’s dying to read. It might be a Magic card, or it might be a book about horses. And I promise, I really promise, your child will not want you taking dictation from her when she’s a teenager on Facebook. She’ll learn to write.

They will learn to read and write because they want to. This doesn’t mean that they’ll learn to read or write when you want them to. And that, of course, is the fly in the ointment.

You could try to push your timetable on your kids. (Your timetable is likely to be public education’s timetable. Ask yourself why that timetable must be the standard.) The trouble with inflicting one’s timetable on another is that it completely undermines the learning. In addition to learning whatever you’re trying to push, the child is also likely to learn that he or she dislikes reading and writing. Not good. Reading and writing are complicated pursuits! It would be wise to have your child’s internal motivation fueling the endeavor. Internal motivation is a mighty force, and one you want on your side for the ride. (Check out Alfie Kohn’s thoughts on how teachers can kill internal motivation when it comes to reading.)

This all makes sense in theory, right? Yet, it took me about ten years and three kids to really grasp the notion. I know I’ve written about this before (can’t find where) but I really pushed the school timetable on my oldest when it came to writing. I couldn’t shake what I’d done as a teacher, just a few years before. I expected him to do all of his own writing by the time he was six or seven, and I encouraged (read: required) him to write in different formats: nonfiction, persuasive, journalistic. I even expected him to recopy drafts when he was seven for no real reason other than that I expected it. Oh, I thought I was giving him a lot of freedom, letting him choose his own topics within my categories, letting him write silly stuff if he wanted to. Wasn’t enough. One day when he was seven, he swept a stack of papers off of the kitchen table in a rage, screamed, “I hate writing!” and stomped out of the room.

I was lucky with him. Writing and reading actually came fairly easily for H, and starting up a writer’s workshop for homeschoolers a few months later was all it took to make writing worthwhile to him, and to make him embrace it.

By the time it came to Lulu, I decided I’d do anything to keep her from hating writing. So I started taking dictation from her. (There’s a whole series of posts on the topic, if you’re new here.) Thing is, I always felt a little guilty about it, like she really ought to be writing herself. Still, it worked, and Lulu has always fancied herself a writer.

Mr. T is six years younger than his sister, and almost ten years younger than his brother. I started taking dictation from him when he was three or four, and began to recognize that not only were we having a fine time together, but T was learning an awful lot about writing, without writing a word himself. There are many posts on this, both in the dictation project series, and the writing with kids series. The bottom line is this: I never felt guilty that T wasn’t learning to write according to the public school timetable. Instead, I could recognize that I was raising a kid who loved having me put his words on the page, and who loved to talk about writing–both his own and the work of professional writers.

Guess what? At almost-ten, he often chooses to write on his own. But more often he chooses to have me write for him. What matters more to me is that regardless of who’s transcribing the letters, the kid values writing. He thinks it’s worthwhile and enjoyable. And that’s all he really needs to keep going.

There’s something about that first kid: it’s hard to keep your focus on today; there’s so much concern about where they’re headed, and whether you’re doing what you need to do to get them there. But once you’ve been through it before, it’s easier to trust in the process, and to enjoy what’s happening now. If you aren’t in the privileged place of having helped a child become a reader or a writer, I hope you can draw some faith from my story, and from the stories of other experienced parents, who never fail to kindly show up in the comments.

It will work out. In the meanwhile, have some fun with reading and writing today. Don’t know what I mean by fun? Let your kid help you figure that out!

Mr. T conducts research for a Lego-themed writing project. (Really!)

* * *

“90% of teens enjoy the writing they do outside of school, a figure that is consistent between boys and girls as well as older and younger teens.”

Writing, Technology and Teens, Pew Internet & American Life Project

Ninety percent. That’s a pretty impressive percentage. And when the Pew folks talk about “outside of school” writing they’re referring to traditional fare, such as journaling, letter-writing and poetry. That 90% doesn’t even include all the other writing mentioned in my last post: the texting, the profile and status updates on Facebook, the tweets. If you look at the mind-boggling statistics that littered that post, teens clearly enjoy that sort of writing too. (There’s some interesting conversation in the comments section of the post as well. Go read!)

As I pointed out there, these days teens value the written word. That’s big. It means that when it comes to teens and writing, parents–homeschooling and otherwise–and teachers have a hook.

We just have to pay attention to the writing formats that kids value, and start from there. What do text messages, blogs, Facebook walls and tweets have in common? They’re all writing aimed at an audience, and inviting response. Imbedded in the writing is the notion that someone will respond, and that, I’d argue, is what makes those formats compelling to teens (and to many adult writers as well.)

Traditional school writing, such as the rickety, follow-the-formula research paper, doesn’t have that motivating audience. Who’s the audience when it comes to school writing? Usually, a single teacher. For the purpose of a grade.

“Teens tend to enjoy the writing they do for personal reasons more than the writing they do for school. Half (49%) of teens enjoy the writing they do for themselves ‘a great deal,’ compared with just 17% who enjoy the writing they do for school with a similar intensity. In total, nearly one third of teens say they enjoy their school writing ‘not much’ (22%) or ‘not at all’ (10%).”

Writing, Technology and Teens, Pew Internet & American Life Project

So, how can you make kids’ “academic” writing as engaging as the writing they do on their own? You start with the formats kids are already using.

I’ve been reading The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks. In this book, Hicks offers chapter after chapter of possibilities for using digital media with kids’ writing. He shows how to set kids up with RSS feeds to follow topics of personal interest, how to help them use social bookmarking to keep track of information they want to remember, how to start them writing blogs, wikis and cooperatively-written texts. It’s a book written for classroom teachers, but I imagine it could be useful as well to a homeschooling parent, or a parent who wants to help a child find more writing options than he or she is being offered in school.

Need a more concrete example? Here’s a wiki written by Hicks, intended to be used by groups of kids when exploring a new nonfiction topic. As you can see, kids are linked to tools to help them create websites, infographics, instructional videos, timelines, maps and a bibliography using social bookmarking services.

A homeschooling family might use this wiki differently. They might start with a child’s existing interest, and then parent and child could explore some of these links together in search of a format that the child finds compelling. Mr. T and I did this last week. He’s been curious about the various species in the cat family and thought it might be fun to make some sort of chart on the topic. We looked at the infographic links and found a service for him to use. I helped him get started on the chart; eventually he was able to complete it on his own. We’re talking about the possibility of him starting a (password-protected) blog, so he can share future graphs and other projects with friends and family.

Infographics, in particular, are a hot means of sharing information these days, and provide a whole new format for visually-driven kids. What’s an infographic? Check out this one which I found last week via twitter, on videogames and education. Or look at this very thorough, informative post on Creating Infographics with Students at Langwitches. (Lots of other inspiration on using digital media in education there too.)

In my workshops for homeschooling parents, I encourage them (repeatedly!) to start with their children’s interests, and to consider the writing opportunities suggested by those interests. For instance, when H was a young teen and interested in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance series, he applied for and received a volunteer position writing for Shurtagal.com, the fansite for the series. H helped write an early wiki of terms and characters from the book. This was something he did almost entirely independent of me. Was it valuable writing instruction? Absolutely.

Likewise, starting at age eleven, Lulu held a volunteer position writing for the New Moon Magazine website, New Moon Girls. Her position involved not only writing content, but also “attending” online planning meetings conducted entirely via written chat. This was something that Lulu was highly motivated to do; it was also incredibly helpful in her development as a writer.

My role in both of these instances was simply to recognize that my kids were intrigued by these forums, and to encourage them to try to get involved. I helped both with their applications; they took over from there.

Does your child write in an online format? What? Where? Please leave a comment! Let’s chat about all the possibilities out there for kids.

Digital writing has so much potential–for kids to write independently, for kids to work in small groups. There’s just too much to cover in one post. Consider this a teaser. I hope to do some big bellyflops into specific digital topics here in the future.

Sadly, meanwhile, many schools still teach writing via formulaic, five-paragraph-essay-style assignments that are boring to write and even more boring to read. Which seems a shame in an era when kids are naturally engaged in other formats of writing. And in an era in which the ability to write is becoming more important than ever. One more quote:

“…two-thirds of principals in a recent survey said they believe their school is preparing students to be competitive in the global workforce. But most tech-savvy students didn’t share that view.”

Maya Prahbu, “’Digital Disconnect’ Divides Kids, Educators”, eSchool News

If these tech-savvy students didn’t learn their tech skills in school, where did they learn them? Most likely, they taught themselves. Likewise, many students will teach themselves how to write well, through the digital forums in which they participate. But wouldn’t it be nice if those same kids could take their enthusiasm for writing, and apply it to their coursework? If more teachers were like Troy Hicks, using kids’ interests and media that’s relevant to them as guiding principals of instruction?

Homeschoolers and other parents, you don’t have to wait for schools to come around. You can nurture this sort of writing education right now. Pay attention to your kids’ interests and open your mind to the writing possibilities. And then try to encourage. Ever so gently.

More to come.

“Today, students are doing an immense amount of writing—they’re blogging; they’re text messaging; they’re e-mailing; they’re updating their status messages, profile information, and live feeds on social networking and other sites; and others are “tweeting”… Perhaps most interesting in the midst of all this writing students are doing is that they don’t often call it ‘writing’. Writing, students note, is something they do in school. What they do with computers outside of school is something else.”

Because Digital Writing Matters, National Writing Project

It’s absolutely mind-boggling to consider how much kids write these days, especially pre-teens and teens. And yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all the complaints about how texting is harming literacy, but anyone who thinks that way is missing the bigger picture. Kids these days are writing more on a daily basis than we, their parents, ever did. So much more.

They just don’t think of what they’re doing as “real” writing. And I think that many parents consider it even less real–or at least less worthwhile.

In 2008, the Pew Internet & American Life project put out a report called Writing, Technology and Teens which was based on interviews with 700 teens, and is chockablock with interesting stats on this topic.

Check out the most common forms of non-school writing reported by teens, followed by the percentage that have done the activity in the previous year:

Write notes or letters to other people (64%); write in a journal (34%); do short writing, from a paragraph to one page (31%); do creative writing, such as plays, poetry, fiction or short stories (25%); write music or lyrics (25%); create audio, video, PowerPoint or multimedia presentations (16%); write essays (8%); write computer programs (6%).

(Really? Eight percent of these kids wrote essays for fun in the last year? Oh I know, eight percent is practically statistically insignificant, but the fact that any kid might write an essay for kicks is enough to heat up my little essayist heart.)

What I find particularly interesting about this “non-school writing” list is that it’s topped by notes and letters to other people, yet the report writers chose not to include texting, emailing, social networking and IMing in the category of non-school writing. Those activities are examined in a separate section. Guess the Pew Internet & American Life folks don’t think of them as real writing either.

That, to me, is missing the point. All of those activities are writing, and I have to wonder why people feel a need to separate them. Because they’re more casual? Because correctness can be less important in their composition? Because kids enjoy this kind of writing, so it can’t possibly be worthwhile?

The basic fact is that teenagers today are communicating with each other in written words on a daily basis. According to a Nielsen report, 83% of teens text message, with the average number of teen texts going up 566% over two years, from an average of 435 texts per teen per month in 2007 to 2,899 texts per month in 2009! Another 2009 report by Pew Research states that 86% of teens “comment on a friend’s page or wall” while using social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Many people seem to assume that this sort of casual, social communication writing must be undermining kids’ school writing. Let’s try to tease that out by looking at the most recent NAEP Writing Assessment results. NAEP is the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation’s Report Card. While I’m certainly no proponent of standardized testing as a way of measuring knowledge (or shaping schools for that matter), we may as well glance over the results, since a slew of kids had to endure the test.

The last writing results available were from 2007. (The test was administered again this spring, but those results won’t be available until next year. This year marked the first time the test was given via computer, which should make the results that much more interesting.) Some analysis of the 2007 test results from the National Center for Education Statistics:

“Some of the more notable findings of the 2007 assessment included the following: The improvement at grade 12 in writing, which we have not seen in some of the other subjects recently; the improvement among male students at both grades 8 and 12…”

“According to our 2007 results, the gap between male and female 12th-grade students is getting smaller. Twelfth-grade boys are improving their scores at a faster rate than 12th-grade girls.”

So. There’s an improvement in writing, which we have not seen in some of the other subjects recently. Just writing, eh? And the gap between twelfth-grade boys and girls is suddenly getting smaller. Huh.

Let’s talk about those twelfth-grade boys. Boys tend to disengage with literacy in high school. If you need proof and explanation of that claim, start with Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men by Michael W. Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm. Yet something has changed in those boys’ lives that’s made their scores come closer to the scores of teenage girls. Think it’s some new writing program that the schools are administering? Doubt it.

Consider the fact that the previous NAEP writing test had been administered in 2002. What could have possibly changed between 2002 and 2007?

Think about it. Let’s check in with those folks at Pew Research and their teen report “Tech Usage Over Time”. While Facebook didn’t even exist in 2002, by 2006, 84% of teens were posting comments to friends’ pages or walls. 41% of teens were sending daily messages to friends on Facebook or MySpace. And while teen texting was uncommon in 2002, by 2006, 27% of teens said they texted friends daily. Thirty percent sent daily instant messages to friends.

Then there’s gaming, which we’d better pay attention to if we’re talking teen boys. While video game play was already popular in 2002, daily use has increased over time, especially amongst boys. It hit a high in 2005, with teen boys spending an average of more than 40 minutes a day playing video games, compared with a female average of just seven minutes a day that same year. (There was a slight dip over the next few years, but the playing time seems to be back up again.) Parents may not realize how often video game players actually communicate with one another via writing, but write they do. (Edited to add: Not to mention all the posting to gaming forums that many players do, writing for advice as well as community.)

Written communication in the personal lives of teens was virtually transformed between 2002 and 2007. While I have no proof, I’d bet my sweet little 11-inch Macbook Air that this is why the writing scores went up in that 2007 test. Teens are writing more in their personal lives than they ever have before, and their resultant comfort with writing is creeping into their school/assessment writing. What they’re writing matters less than the fact that they are writing. Consider the 10,000 hour rule, made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers. You become good at anything by putting in the hours; 10,000 of them are likely to make you an expert. Kids are writing because they’ve found writing formats that matter to them–and therefore they’re getting better at it.

But why the closing of the gap between boys and girls in particular? As I mentioned above, boys traditionally have less engagement with literacy than girls by the time they reach their teens. Since girls’ outside-of-school writing has increased as well, you’d expect their scores to go up, which they did. But I’m guessing that many teen boys have, for the first time, found writing venues that interest them. So their scores have increased even more.

All that stuff that teens do with their phones and computers, described in the introductory quote, is real writing. The sad part is that only the most progressive educators recognize it. Schools (and homeschoolers for that matter) have an instant hook when it comes to literacy and teens. There are forms of writing that they like to do. We just have to figure out how to relate that writing to their more “academic” writing.

It’s all writing and it’s all real. More on that in my next post.

I’ve been a little distracted lately.

By Mexican palms and Mayan ruins.

By coconuts.

And cenotes.

The slightly loco part of all of this is that we flew to Mexico the same day that I gave my second homeschooling conference workshop. Which meant that the week before was a mash-up of preparing PowerPoint slides and buying sunscreen and Pepto Bismol.

I’d barely finished shutting down the projector after that workshop, when I found myself racing home to pack a bigger suitcase.

Which was exciting, but a little sad too. I’d put so much time into planning those workshops; it seemed a shame not to stop and ponder how they went.

So I’m pondering now. Basking actually. It’s such a buzz to be able to share ideas that I’ve been percolating and poking at for months with real people. (People who are stuck in a room with me for an hour and fifteen minutes and who can’t leave without looking rude, I should mention.) It’s a thrill to get people worked up about writing and their kids and their kids’ quirky interests.

I love it when a workshop participant nods along to something I’ve said. When another approaches me after a workshop to share her own family’s writing story. When a whole group moans and marvels after doing this exercise to see what it’s like to be a beginning writer.

(If any of you workshop attendees have stopped by, I hope you’ll leave a comment and say hello!)

So in the post-vacation glow (read: ocean of emails that demand my response), I’m thinking about how to keep a little of that workshop excitement going. Happily, I’ll be offering the workshops to some other homeschooling groups in the next few months. But I’m also trying to figure out how to share more of what I’m working on here, so I don’t feel stuck alone in my brain quite so often.

Today I’m going to make myself a pitcher of agua de jamaica, and think about some changes I’d like to make on this blog. (Inspired in part by a long conversation with my dear friend Emily, who designs websites for writers.)

I’m also going to finish unpacking my suitcase, winnow down my Mexico photos, and try to get the ants out of my beehive.

I’ll try not to get too distracted.

Phew, that last birthday post really did feel like a party.

I’ve never had so many of you show up in the comments at once (which only shows how willingly you indulge my pleading.) There were folks I’d never met before, and others I haven’t heard from in a while. There were the regulars too, but it was something to see them here all at once, as if they’d carpooled over together.

And I got to flit around and chat with each of you. It was like wandering around in my maxi-dress and flip-flops with a cocktail, and having it last all week.

I had such a whopping good time that I’ve decided that as long as I’m blogging, I’m going to have a virtual birthday party every year. An annual excuse to call my readers down from their fly-on-the-wall spots. Come out, come out where ever you are!

Next year there will be party favors.

Selfishly, I’ve left the post up for well over a week, so the stragglers could find us. But also because I’ve been busy preparing my conference workshops. Really, I must get back to them, so in lieu of a more extended blog post, I thought I’d leave you with a series of quotes to ponder. Let’s turn this party into a salon. Or a coffee talk.

These are some quotes I’ll be using to kick off one of my workshops. I’m not going to comment on them today, but read along and see if you can guess where I’ll be heading.

“You don’t learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that matters to you.” Ralph Fletcher, What a Writer Needs

“Motivation is crucial to writing—students will write far more willingly if they write about subjects that interest them and that they have an aptitude for.” William Zinnser, Writing to Learn

“When kids groan at writing time, it’s usually a sign that they don’t have enough opportunities to choose what they want to write about. They don’t see writing time as their time to explore. It is lesson-driven, teacher-driven and assignment-driven. Escaping this paradigm is the first order of business.” Barry Lane, But How Do You Teach Writing?

“But if we’re serious about helping students to fall in love with literature, to get a kick out of making words fall together in just the right order, then we have to be attentive to what makes these things more, and less likely, to happen. It may take us a while, but ultimately our classroom should turn the default setting on its head so that the motto becomes: Let the students decide except where there’s a good reason why we have to decide for them.” Alfie Kohn, Feel-Bad Education

“Students now need…more informal writing, they need more exploration, and they need to do things that really matter to them—or to explicitly see how what they are doing in school can and does matter out in the world.” Jeffrey Wilhelm, Teaching the Neglected “R”

“Because I had not, at the time, experienced the power of writing in my own life, I did not understand that there is a world of difference between ‘motivating writing’ and helping people become deeply and personally involved in their own writing…We cannot teach writing well unless we trust that there are real, human reasons to write.” Lucy Calkins, The Art of Teaching Writing

“The good writers I see in college have often developed their skill in self-sponsored writing projects like journals or epic, book-length adventure stories they wrote on their own.” Thomas Newkirk, Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones

To take a phrase from Coffee Talk with Linda Richman, said in my best Mike-Myers-as-Linda, New Yawk accent, with a double-handed flourish: Talk amongst yourselves.