Raising Writers

Yay!  It's one of my favourite times of the year... curriculum planning:) 

I think there is something powerful about having an overarching goal each year - it makes the progress focused and measurable.

We really focused on reading last year and it paid off.  By the end of George's Grade 5 year he assessed at a Grade 7.2 reading level, and Muffin Mouse assessed at Grade 8.8 at the end of her Grade 6 year.  

So my focused goal this year is writing skills - in particular non-fiction writing.

My summer reading on this topic was William Zinsser's On Writing Well.  It is outstanding.  Zinsser is a writer, editor, and teacher - He taught writing at Yale and Columbia universities.  Based on Zinsser's recommendations, my writing curriculum will have the following principles:

• You learn to write by writing. It's a truism, but what makes it a truism is that it's true.  The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis. (Zinsser, 2006, p.49)

With this principle in mind we'll write daily.  I don't think it will be hard to get going as we have established daily reading in our routine and seen the benefits - this should be an easy sell.

• Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have an emotional equity in our first draft; we can't believe it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't. (p.83)

 I've chosen a writing curriculum that has a strong foundation in writing conventions and grammar.  These skills will help with the editing process.

• Clutter is the disease of American writing. The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. (p.6-7) Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into the or style and how it obstructs what they are trying to say. If you give me an eight page article and I tell you to cut it to four pages, you'll howl and say it can't be done. Then you'll go home and do it, and it will be much better. After that comes the hard part: cutting it to three. (p.17)

 Each week we'll include an exercise in editing a piece of writing. We'll also edit each others writing.

• You will never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive. (p.32)

This will be interesting - finding a balance between everyday language (such as texting language) and developing a love of the English language. I think we'll focus on reading good work and not allow too much everyday language to creep into our writing - at least to start.

• You are writing for yourself.  Don't try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience - every reader is a different person.  You are writing primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for. (p.24)

The writing curriculum I chose builds through-out the week. We finish the week with a writing assignment. I think we'll do this assignment in our journals to help reinforce the sense that we are writing for ourselves. 


I'll post later this week with details on each child's curriculum so you can get a sense of how this will look in our day.  I'm also completing the curriculum this year with the kids and will blog my writing assignments - sure to thrill!

Joyfully writing,
Caz.