Author Archives: Amy Jane

Teaching Writing to Children

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So I’ve had two moms in the last month ask me (as a homeschooling mom and a writer), how is it I teach my children to write.

I’ll get back to you on that in 15 years or so.  When I actually know how it is they learned.

In the meantime, I’ll share the philosophy and materials I work from.

Now, I am fairly fluent in writing.  But I never liked to write as a kid. (I hope that encourages anyone who is in despair over her child’s abhorrence.) My understanding of teaching writing was first influenced by Donald Davis’s book, Writing as a Second Language. 

I never finished it, but the title and what I did read set my mind in a direction it had never been before: to see writing as a completely different animal than speaking or reading. Which I believe it is.

This sense of something different was solidified and put into a usable/applicable for when I read the introduction to Susan Bauer’s Writing With Ease.  In that book she points out that when we teach writing we are expecting the student to learn, not one but, four separate skills.

  1. Generating ideas. Content that will be conveyed.
  2. Translating those ideas into words
  3. Holding those words in mind while they are transferred to print
  4. The physical act of writing them down.

When you have a child resistant to “writing,” a good first step is looking for where in this chain the process is breaking down.

The first book (Writing as a Second Language) encourages “rehearsing” stories in one’s “first” language (speech) before ever taking them to the paper.  In Classical learning this is referred to as narration.  In its simplest (and most accessible) form, narration is simply answering questions in complete sentences.

The words children create in response to questions (for example, about something they just heard read aloud) may not seem particularly original, but certainly at the beginning originality is not the teacher’s goal.  You are working specifically on the second part of the process: creating words that make sense.

This is why the “complete sentences” part is important.  The child is learning sentence structure by example.

Where did God place the man he created?

In the garden.

Can you say that in a complete sentence?  You can use the same words I did.

God placed the man he created in the garden.

In fact, by getting in the habit of using the words he hears to re-frame the answer, the student is practicing #3 along with #2.

With my girls I use the workbooks Bauer developed to accompany the text I read at first.

The workbooks are not essential, but they replace the planning that I would otherwise have to do myself, and so I find them *absolutely* worth the $20-30 they set me back. (Not forgetting that I can use them for each of my kids if I continue in this method.  Copyright permission clears each book for an entire (single) family’s use.)

The other resource I’ve found useful is the English worktext put out by the same publisher we buy our math curriculum from– BJU Press.  Natasha isn’t using it this year, but did last year, and I was impressed with how systematically it worked through the basics in her 2nd-grade text.

She wrote her first personal essay last year, following the step-by-step instructions as guided by the curriculum.  She couldn’t hardly get through a sentence without a giggly-happy squeal of “I’m writing!” Because it’s a big deal to her to be like Mama.

And there’s the motivating bit about enjoying writing, or words, or Story, yourself.

Kids learn what’s “normal” through observation.  If they regularly see you writing (or reading, or singing or dancing) and enjoying it, finding value in it, that will increase its value in their eyes.

My children may not see it (writing) as important as I do, but between reading and writing, I have what I want most for my kids at this stage in their learning: they are not afraid of language.

Yes, Natasha learned to read without really trying, but, as we guessed in that blog post, the “different minds working differently” means we weren’t surprised when our other two were (are) different in their learning to read.

The wonderful thing is that the younger two– for whom reading is a harder slog– are enough in love with Story that they are not driven away from all print by their hard road.  I’ve known kids (it made me sad) who had no interest in stories because they were too much of a reminder of their struggle.

Elisha and Melody are both so wired for story they’ve got steps #1 & #2 just *nailed.*  Even #3 isn’t that far away.  So, as a rule, I encourage storytelling, and have them practice their letters, either with tracers or copywork.  They get to advance (grow in strength) in all the steps, even if they aren’t doing them all self directed yet.

We have plenty of time.  And especially with their prolific storytelling and spontaneous narration, I expect a time will come when they’ll want to record their visions to hang on to.

At least, that’s what happened to me.

You know what’s delicious?

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Going through a list of personal interests/roles/priorities (this resource was what prompted the inventory) and firming which ones are just for me.

All mine.

Only and completely for my own enjoyment of life, and nothing to do with what anybody else thinks.

This is a big deal because it means if I’m happy, the task is successfully completed.

For the first time I realized that for me this is guitar and piano.

Previously when I’d try and go through the process of making a schedule (Always beginning with a list of everything I’d like to fit into my life) I’d include the “good” stuff I knew a disciplined me would do everyday with intent. That meant music practice (along with bible-reading, prayer and cooking), and even writing it down would leave a sour taste in my mouth. The reminder of something else I must not want enough ’cause I can’t make it happen.

If I’m really going to go out of my way to do a creative something every. day. I want it to be writing!

What Amy (different Amy, not me) suggests instead is a step back, to first define the roles you have, and draw tasks from those roles.  It is, I suppose, a way of looking at priorities, but in a specific way.

For me, God, Jay, kids, house, is *way* too generic a list.

By saying the activities/jobs that are tagged under each role, I am able to break things into smaller chunks– but not so small that “musician” could make the list.  She limits you to seven roles (blanks on the worksheet, anyway) so *everything* isn’t included.

And I was able (because of her very specific insistence) to include self in those roles.  Once I saw music as an activity I did to become my best self, not a goal of it’s own, I felt instantly freer.  For the first time I saw that every time I dink around (and get a little better, and show my kids music is play and a delight), I’ve done enough.  With very. few. exceptions I have no need to perfect any one song for outside consumption.

Another bonus was seeing my list of “jobs” (what I want to do to become the best I can be) in my wife role, were basically covered by fulfilling a couple of the remaining roles on my list: home-managing and teaching the children.  These are the big things (I asked!) that make my husband feel loved and that he has a peaceful home/happy family.

So I’m recommending Amy’s (short!) book on time management.  Short reason: it’s about knowing where you want to go, and making small steps toward that every day.  It’s moving beyond wishing to living.

And that is delicious.

Defender

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I’m a defender. It’s what I do– often without thinking about it.

I see someone on the defensive doing poorly, I jump in on their side.  Especially if it’s an argument I know and think I could do better than them.

I think I lost a friend this way last year.  He hasn’t spoken to me the same way since I took the other side of his literal-6-days creation debate.  It is in my nature to try and homogenize, to find the perfect faerie* argument to make everything “technically” mesh.

For the record: I think the “specific Hebrew word for a 24-hour day” argument is weak.  The argument that brings me to a literal creationist stance (which, for the record, I hold) is my belief from scripture that death did not exist before the Fall.  Therefore, billions of deaths over millions of years– in order to get to a human creature, sentient and capable both of communion with God and division from him– is not possible.

I have a high degree of empathy– the ability to get into other people’s heads or emotions and imagine how certain things affect them.  As a result I can take far too much responsibility for their comfort.  For their feelings.

And I recently figured out that to be healthy as me I have to quit thinking so much of others.

Whoa! Is a Christian allowed to say that?

You see for about three years now, about as long as I’ve been homeschooling, I’ve been feeling responsible to keep my choices (for example, to homeschool) from making other parents feel guilty for making a different choice.

Before that it was about being a stay-at-home mom, but it seems more people do that with preschoolers so I didn’t feel the separation as keenly.

The point is, I imagined how I’d feel if I were the other parent, and I downplayed the significance of our different choices because, well, if she wanted to be home, I didn’t want her to feel bad, and even if she didn’t, I wanted very much to avoid any possible conflict or fight over which choice was better or (an even worse word) “correct.”

This sheltering or defending of others has continued as Jay and I made our lives more complicated and atypical: gluten-free, debt-free, tiny house, homegrown (I like to call it “ethical”) meat.

I’ve avoided talking about our choices, especially the whys, because I didn’t want to draw such stark lines as I knew they’d create.

So I basically said what anybody chooses doesn’t matter, because we’re all different, with different needs and different stages.  And while that’s true, and I really don’t want to create a hierarchy or polarize folks, it killed me emotionally.

Because I had just said– continually said, over years— that what I invested in, the hard stuff I chose because it was important to me and I felt it was worth it and made a difference– Didn’t. matter.

And I don’t want to do that any more.  This is where I need to be my defender and trust everyone else to be grown-up enough to own and love their own decisions.

I’m certainly not going to pick any fights, but I’m going to quit being embarrassed of how hard I work. I do it for real reasons, and those reasons carry me through. Make me stick with things even when they’re hard.

What I do is valuable. Not something to kick under the bed like the shoes my husband won’t get rid of.  I’m proud of what I do. It is important and worth defending.

 

 

*Faerie are creepy to me on a couple levels.  The main one is their commitment to the truth– as it is useful to them.  Their methodology is to manipulate the “mortal” they speak with by speaking nothing but the *exact* truth.  Of course they will direct, imply and manipulate to their purpose’s end, but they will never be culpable to the charge that they ever spoke falsehood.

When I talk of me speaking faerie I mean it in terms of working words or reality as a puzzle that I’m trying (by means of the exactness or slipperiness of language) to meld differing views enough to bring cooperation if not true peace.

And in case anyone needs me to add it, no I don’t believe in faeries. They’re just a usefully specific type of truth-teller, and I like having a precise vocabulary.

Reading, Rabbits and Arhythmofwriting?

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Eh. I’m just trying to decide if I can do “3 Rs” here at Untangling Tales without boring my delightful lurkers.

So here’s your chance to tell me.  I’m always shocked at the number of hits my stat-counter tells me I’m getting, and while some of it is Google sending people to my archives, I’m curious what makes the rest of you come back.

This is the place where I feel like I’m talking to myself in an empty room.

I am having a great deal of fun with my rabbits.  I’m thinking of starting a category for pictures and projects.  (For example, we have Before:

and After:

Both pictures and a project. Whee. About an hour it took me to shear him; I hope that gets shorter as I get more practice.)

And really, the only connection to what I already do here is the atavism I mentioned yesterday.  The idea that animals and fiber arts are a part of life as much as reading and writing (storytelling).

But then, perhaps that’s just my life.

But you’re welcome to peek in and enjoy.

So there’s the question: Are you interested?

Atavistic Dreams

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Atavism is the idea or concept of a throwback.  A recurrence of a trait that (genetically, say)  had not shown up in a few generations.

I tripped over the term earlier this year.

I’d stopped into a yarn shop to see what blends they sold of angora yarn, and to buy a pattern.  My girls were with me (we’d just come from a baby shower), and between us we started talking with a woman who was probably in her 50s.

It came out that we raise rabbits, that I spin their wool and knit and love old stories– the old tales where spinning and knitting could be critical elements.

“Ah,” said she, “so you’re atavistic.”

I’d never heard the word, and asked what it meant.

“It means you love the old ways,” she said.  “Traditional things.”

I really enjoyed being given a useful new word (I had her spell it for me).  It is used more frequently in an evolutionary context, but her explanation is still solid. (The word is related to the word for ancestor.)

Anyway, all that to say, that I’ve been looking for a focus on Untangling Tales, and this might be what I end up with.

I do not automatically agree with Older-Is-Better (expect a post on that, eventually), but I am also against reinventing the wheel.  Such a waste of time.

With such a full life, I often think about time and how we have to make the most of it.  One of the ways I look at frequently is How did other people manage?

“There is nothing new under the sun,” and that concept gives me hope: I don’t need to know everything, or even figure out everything. If our generation has fewer physical resources because of the “depletion of the earth,” we can at least benefit from the many generations that have come before us.

Stories, songs, skills, delights: What a gift that we are not limited to ourselves– the past or the present.

 

NaNoWriMo 2011 in Review

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Glad I did it, glad it’s done.   50,648 words since November 1. Happy to take a breather from creating reality.

Next project is getting ready for a talk on personality theory (Meyers-Briggs, as I’ve been writing about on my family blog). It’s scheduled for January 18 if anyone local wants to come here me speak.

But my next writing project is to finish moving Lindorm into first person so I  can start submitting it ASAP.

I saw an “unagented author” opportunity at a Christian publisher (whom I’d never heard of) getting ready to launch a YA line in 2013.  It sparked a whole series of internal questions about how ready I am to push my “baby” out to receive the spitballs of the world.

Answer: I’m not.

Provoking the mirrored response: So I should jump at this chance, just to get moving.

But the story isn’t done yet (for real: this isn’t stalling), and I am certainly not starting Lindorm at a Christian publisher.  This isn’t snark or hierarchy: I have broken my heart more times keeping this story “neutral”

In the form of most (Western) traditional tales: good and evil exist, and maybe even the outward showing of religion (churches, prayer), but within the story itself redemption is not personified in Christ.

So I am not going to “waste” all that by sending it somewhere that would have taken the incongruity of active magic alongside a real-world redeemer.

I’ve got two other stories I’d only expect Christian publishers to touch, so they’ll get their turn.

(If anyone’s lining up for the opportunity.)

So the writing progression is this: finish Lindorm’s revision.  Send out submissions, and once that’s out turn to finishing the novel I wrote last November.

NaNoWriMo 2011 Update #2

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Two days left, currently at par (thanks to a 5,228-word day Saturday).

And I’m sick.

And exhausted.  Not exactly sleepy-tired, but exstruded; squeezed out.  I was thankful last night my huge “bump” had put me a little ahead, becasue it meant I could switch to consuming (from producing) that much sooner.

Of course, that means I have to give the full 1,667 words tonight.  But I’ve got time to recharge.  I hope.

Ready for a break, but also ready to press through and finish word-count even if it’s not finishing the whole story.

This month has done what I wanted it to do: give me a sense of accomplishment, almost “mastery” (to use a clinical term), to encourage myself in other areas of my life.  It’s allowed me to prove to myself I have more than two stories in me, thereby reducing the amount of power those first two have over me.

That is, I don’t have to hang my whole “identity” as a competent writer on how well *one* story works because I’ve now got more than one egg in the basket.

And it’s been fascinating to watch the different things that different novels address– how they are the same and how things change.

  • Lindorm (2006) was a full-on fantasy, magic and epic explosions and assassination attempts.
  • Shadow (2010) was a fantasy of world-crossing, bringing half of the action into our own world.
  • Water (2011) is a this-world-and-time suspense/romance, involving quite a bit of travel (nothing I’ve yet mastered), so I already know what revisions will require of me.

All involve personal transformation, managing life as a “couple” (story’s not over when sweethearts pair up) and what is probably more straight-up communication and motivation-reading than is realistic (I work on that in revisions).

Also, I just noticed this this month, none of my couples (and this includes the established-before-the-story-began couples like the parents shown in the story) have both partners from the same country and/or race.  This made me laugh.  I’m sure it is a subconscious application of my family’s line about Every marriage is a cross-cultural marriage.

But it’s kinda fun to see that trend.

Wish me luck (or just pray for me): only two more days after today.

NaNoWriMo Update

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I just passed 29K tonight.  That means I’m almost caught up with yesterday’s  writing goal (30K)

I’m very glad to have learned two things–

  1. The second female character I introduced isn’t a complete idiot. (For a while I had to wonder if she was.)
  2. [spoiler] the guy I killed the same day I discovered/introduced him isn’t actually dead.  In the end his brother couldn’t kill him and instead decided to risk some girl’s reputation in order to keep him alive. (Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.  Like most stories, It’s complicated.)

I was very glad to learn there was a line Charles wouldn’t cross.  He was pretty creepy for a while there.

Who the main characters are is getting thrown all around.  Now that this guy is back from the dead (in a manner of speaking) and his whole character’s been revised by the near-death experience, he’s showing a lot more depth and interest than the erstwhile hero.

So all that convolution to say I’m still on it.

And part of the fun is that I’ve basically written off the possibility anyone would publish this story: It’s blatantly Christian, with *ahem* edgy humor (Yes! I have funny stuff in my story, Yippee!– If you’ve been around a while you’ll remember this has been a sticky spot for me), so I have a hard time picturing a publisher that would take both.  So it’s made the creation process quite a bit more relaxed and free.

When I think of a new angle (that would require changing a character, role, or interaction that I’ve already written) I have a separate file where I make notes about that.

When I think of a fun before-and-after, and plant the before I make a note not to forget the after, and also where it might fit best, if I’ve already thought of that.

Blessedly, I’ve not yet been at a loss when writing time comes around, and while I am a bit behind, it’s not killer.

This has been a wonderful experience so far, and I still hope to finish on time.

21K to go.

Failure Happens

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I get nervous when I discover new things.

Not particularly because those things rock my world (so much) as I immediately start to wonder how long ago I was supposed to figure this out.

This popped into my novel a couple days ago:

A: I just figured out I’m ‘gifted.’
B: Just now?
A [self-conscious, embarrassed]: Yeah.
B: Maybe you should seek a second opinion.

A new friend mentioned how no one believed her when she said she was afraid she might fail. “Oh no, not you,” was all she heard.

It made me think of a quote I read recently: “I want to die” is often the way of saying “I want the pain to stop”… try, if you can, to respond as though you heard the second statement rather than get caught up in the horror of the first statement.

Not only in writing circles we can trip over the concept of *subtext*. The idea (reality, actually) that what’s being said is not always what’s really being said.

While listening to her story and hearing how utterly unhelpful the friends’ response was, I was embarrassed to realize I would have responded the same way.  It led to my new discovery:

We are (culturally?) conditioned to negate negativity.

When child says I can’t we jump in to say he’s wrong.  Only we do it by saying You can! A child says I’m afraid and we say she’s wrong by insisting, There’s nothing to be afraid of.

An adult friend asks, What if this proves too much for me? and instead of saying, I’ll love you anyway, or, How can I help you feel less overwhelmed? we jump in to remind her of her past competency.

I loved it last week when (in response to I-don’t-remember-what) Jay jokingly misquoted, “Past performance is no indicator of future success.”

“Uh-uh,” I corrected. “Past performance is no guarantee of future success.” (He agreed that was the accurate line.)

The past is an indicator, but it can also become a type of impossible standard.

Just because I’ve been relatively competent and self-sufficient much of my life does not mean I’ll never fall apart and call up three different people for help in the same week.

I did!

And I’m so thankful that there are those in my world who hear me when I’m scared or weak. And I’m even thankful for those folks who, even if they don’t particularly seem to believe me, will still come and wash dishes or fold clothes so I can keep my nose above water.

~

But hearing this friend’s frustration was a good reminder of what I’ve bemoaned lately: What’s so horrible about failure?  Instead of jumping to head every *potential* failure off, I wish we could adopt more of a wait-and-watch approach when we’re not dealing with life-and-death issues.

Yes, this might not turn out so well, or *maybe* it just isn’t what you would choose to do with the same time; but with no heart/soul/mind or body in line to be irreparably damaged, maybe you could just say you’ll love me anyway? No matter what?

That’s what we need to hear most.

Especially when we fail.

NaNoWriMo 2011

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I think it was Steven King in his book On Writing  who said the Writer is as much an artist as the sculptor– and maybe more, since the writer must create the raw material he then shapes into his work of art.

This is one of the reasons I find NaNoWriMo useful: successfully completed it leaves me with a block of raw material that actually exists.  Throw in the power of deadline (this is my second year writing with the My Book Therapy community) to make me think of writing every day, and more gets done.

I’m choking every time I sit down to write; I’m woefully out of practice.  If it weren’t for the stat tools and the 10p.m. deadline for the daily reporting (any word count is fine, just reporting is the required part), I’d continue to whittle away my free hours with YouTube and Hulu.

Putting down words is hard.

Two different friends reading my Lindorm novel have commended me for sticking with it; getting the whole thing down.

As it’s happened over five years my perception of it gets a little fuzzy, but these last two nights have reminded me: they’re right! It’s work to get something coherent and all points driving a single story forward.

I also like how these WriMo novels have developed: my first was a fantasy. Last year’s was pretty straight-up a YA romance.  This time I’ve got a murder mystery/intrigue thing going on.  And yet all of them are based on distinct fairy tales I love that all go “beyond the rescue.”

Sure it’s nice to be human again, but then you have to deal with all the junk humans have to deal with.  The nice thing is that when someone makes you human, at least in my story worlds, they’re usually getting themselves in for the long haul.

And a partner makes any load easier to carry.