Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

I won’t make any money if I share with you my approach to writing; actually no one can make any money on this approach, and probable that is the reason why so many will not believe that this simple approach to teaching writing will yield results, but it does do just that. I’ve seen the effects of this writing curriculum and they are outstanding. Amazing that a free-writing curriculum works, and is just so easy to use. Free and easy, it must not be right, but it is and does.

Last weekend I attended a weekend Writing Workshop hosted by Veritas Press featuring Susan Wise Bauer as the speaker. Susan is the author of Story of the World, The Well Educated Mind, The Well Trained Mind, and several other books; and someone I have heard several times over the last 4 years. Some of my home educating friends have suggested that I might fall into the category of being a “swb groupie” , but not really. I just find that the education approach suggested in TWTM suits me quite well, and I enjoy getting away for a weekend of professional education, but let me get back to explaining this free writing curriculum.

Last weekend’s workshops were on writing; a skill area that I sorely lack skills in, and consequently an area I always want to read and hear about in the hopes I can pick up some tidbit to pass onto my boys so they will have the writing skills their mom lacks. Many years ago, even before I started homeschooling I wished for two things for my sons—that they would LOVE to read and be able to write without struggle. Remembering how I struggled to write throughout high school, college and well into my early working years was not something I wanted my boys to experience. Heck, I still struggle with writing.

For the past seven years we have strictly followed TWTM, never deviating from the plan laid out for a classical education. You might be wondering what all this has to do with last weekend, and writing, and why I won’t make money but what MK wrote today prompted me to share with you our approach to writing.

Back when MK was in his preschool years and well into first grade his writing program consisted of daily copying a sentence someone else had written. He absorbed the grammatical conventions of our language; and absorbed the words good writers used. Sometime in second grade MK switched from doing copywork four times a week to only doing this two times a week. In place of copywork MK now switched to ‘dictation’. On these days I would recite a short sentence to MK, twice, and then he would write these sentences. The sentences did not come from some fancy, over-priced ‘dictation’ book or ‘copywork’ book but from his favorite Read-Aloud book. By the beginning of 3rd grade MK was doing dictation 3 or 4 days a week, and writing several sentences during our 15 minute session.

Another part of MK’s writing program began back in his preschool days too, narration, or the simple act of retelling the story he had just heard. At the beginning of his schooling MK narrated fables, and later he narrated history or science stories. Sometimes I wrote these narrations down for MK but around 3rd grade MK began writing his own narrations.

This year MK is in 5th grade and is required to write a short narration in the subjects of history, reading and science weekly. He’s also learning to outline using his history book and will soon go through the process of taking this outline and writing a report from it.

Today MK did not have his history narration completed before we were ready to go to the homeschooler’s Friday skate. He promised to write the narration when we returned from skating or miss a friend’s birthday party on Sunday. Sure enough when we came home MK started writing the narration. He began by verbalising the entire story line to me; he wanted to get the ideas into his head. As he put the pencil on the paper he stated his first sentence, dictating it to himself out-loud, and then he wrote it down. He read the sentence over, checked that the grammatical conventions were there, and then repeated the process. In less then 20 minutes he had a two page summary written explaining why Egyptians mummified their pharaohs based upon an Egyptian tale we had read earlier in the week. Each sentence was a complete sentence, and one thought flowed into the next with ease. It was a lovely piece to read and thrilled me to no end.

This is the second child I have taken through this writing approach, and am pleased to see such an easy approach to teaching writing to work. Neither boys’ writing education is complete but it is so rewarding to see MK reach this point and know he has a great foundation that we will continue to build upon. So often I hear HS moms express concern over what writing program they should use with their first or second grader, and even though I have shared our approach the continue to search. I know, I should just package this writing approach, put a huge price-tag on it and market it as the sure fire way to give your child a great writing foundation. But I won’t. Copywork, dictation, narration; so easy.

If you want to read more about this approach to learning to write read how Benjamin Franklin taught himself to write, or read about this approach in Ruth Beechick’s, A strong Start in Language book, and of course The Well Trained Mind.