Growing Writers

One of the questions I am most often asked by other homeschooling parents is how I teach writing, especially academic writing. I plan to write several blog posts this year focused on the teaching of writing in the home school as well as provide very specific lessons and units of study to anyone who would like to explore them.


How do we grow a writer? Do we get out the red pen? Get a book of writing prompts? Assign topics?  Alas, no. Writers grow from love. Writers grow from trust. Growing a writer takes time and patience.


Before we get much further, I need to share a bit about the way we organize our learning time with our children.

The Workshop Model

We use the workshop model in our learning as often as possible and in all subject areas. This model for learning is an approach, a teaching strategy, not a curriculum. It’s an approach you can use given any set of learning objectives. In our home school, we use the Common Core standards to guide our curriculum choices. In reading and writing, we do not use a curriculum but rather use the standards to choose mentor texts to use in our lessons. There are many, many resources available on the workshop model, and many variations for making the model work in a variety of environments. For us, the key to workshop is its structure (because of its emphasis on adult as facilitator rather than knower of all things) and its core values.

The Structure of Workshop

At its most basic, the structure of a workshop lesson is as follows:

• Mini-lesson to introduce and model the learning objective (about 10 mins)
• Independent learning time to grapple with text, writing, project, etc. (about 1 hour)
• Reflection to share thinking (about 10-15 minutes)

There are many variations on the structure. For example, when I was in the classroom, I included a hook at the beginning of most lessons but don’t feel the need with my particular children at home. In lieu of a hook, at the beginning of a new study, we do have more conversations about why we are learning a skill or concept or why what we are learning is valuable or meaningful in our lives or in our role in society. 

It is important to add the role of the adult during the independent learning time. During this time, the adult engages (or confers) with the learners. This can look very Socratic, by asking lots of questions, or it can look like the adult listening to the learner’s thinking. Sometimes, at home, it involves me reading or writing next to my children while they read and write. Just being present often leads to one of us sharing our thinking, sharing an interesting moment in what we are reading, or sharing a part we are stuck on while writing. Sometimes, my children wander off to various spots around the house and yard to read, write, and think. 

Lastly, the reflection time is really valuable as this is the time when we use meta-cognition, when we reflect on our thinking and our learning, how we are learning, and how we want to learn differently. We gather together and chat about how learning time went for us. I often ask questions like: What did you learn about yourself as a reader or writer today? What was challenging today? What kind of thinking did you do while you were reading? What are your goals for tomorrow’s learning?

The Core Values of Workshop

I wish I could give adequate credit to all the scholars of the workshop model that I have read

Reading as a Writer

over the years for where these philosophies come from; but all my thinking has sort of come together, and I can’t remember where these philosophies directly came from. I can say the work of Katie Wood Ray, Samantha Bennett, Ellin Keene, and Debbie Miller have been integral to how I understand the philosophies behind the workshop model. At the heart of workshop are these four values:

• Time: Children and learners need extended stretches of time to grapple with and explore what they are learning -- long stretches of time to get lost in what they are reading, writing, experimenting with.
• Choice: Children and learners need to have the opportunity to choose what they read, write, and learn. You as the home educator can explore with various types of choice as you are comfortable. Choice can be as limited as offering a variety of texts to choose from or as wide open as learners determining their course of study. I land somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, but every year I let go of more and more control over what my children learn.
• Response: Children and learners need to engage in a conversation with what they read and write. They need to engage in meta-cognition to develop their own agency over their learning and develop a variety of ways to respond to their own learning and thinking.
• Community: Children and learners need discourse. They need to collaborate and think aloud to be able to learn from one other. They need to learn how to engage in deep, meaningful conversations in which they can agree and disagree in constructive ways.

Making Books First

When we began our homeschooling journey, my children were rising 2nd and 5th graders. They were excited and eager to school at home, but it was clear from very early that the two areas they needed “deschooling” were math and writing. They both carried a lot of trauma in those areas with a fear of being “wrong”. So, it was important I started very slowly with writing.

Thus, the first year and a half, during our Literacy Studio, a time carved out of each day for just reading and writing, I encouraged my children to make books, following many of the principles Katie Wood Ray addresses in her book Already Ready. Even though Ray’s book is geared toward early writing in preschool and primary classrooms, my children needed that time to explore writing in a low-stress, creative way without pressure to perform.

If your children are a bit reluctant to write or are anxious about writing, they may need some time developing a love of writing, creating the kinds of books they love to read, the books they see about them. For my kids, that was picture books (like those by Patricia Polocco and Chris Van Allsburg) and graphic novels.

Reading as a Writer

Unless your children are already readers of magazines, they are likely not to have a frame of reference for articles and essays. If you aren't a writer of a journal, they probably have little-to-no frame of reference for journal writing, a kind of writing often pushed in public school settings.

Kids need time spent writing what they know, exploring and imitating the kind of print they actually see and read in their own lives.

So, we spent our Literacy Studio time reading books we love aloud, reading books we love silently, and dabbling in book creation. As writers, the children started book projects, abandoned book projects, and even completed some book projects. We read our book creations aloud to one another and focused on celebrating them. Each completed book found a spot in our home library, next to our beloved picture books and graphic novels. It was a time only for love and creation and celebration.
It was also a time for me, as their educator, to earn their trust. Before I could ever give my children feedback on their writing, I had to earn their trust -- a special kind of trust that all great writing teachers have had to earn from their students -- the trust that I won’t forget their hearts when I’m acting as their teacher as well as their mother. As a writing teacher, I have learned that writers need their mentors to wait until the writer wants feedback. Feedback is most valuable when the writer is ready for revision. And that takes time. That takes slow nudging. So, for that first year and a half, there was almost no revision that wasn’t child-driven. Rather, I occasionally asked at reflection: Is there anything you would do differently if you were to write another book like this? Is there anything you are confused about in your brother’s or sister’s book? Eventually, they began asking me questions about how writers write good openings, how writers write strong endings, how writers know when to place a comma. It was then that I knew they were ready, maybe even eager, to learn more about the rigorous part of writing.
Put the red pen back in the drawer and the book of writing prompts back on the shelf. Look to your children’s favorite books for writing inspiration. Snuggle up and read and create and find love in each other’s creations. Take your time and talk about reading and writing with love. Grow a writer.

Child's Author Study
of Mo Willems

Plans for Graphic Novel
Inspired by Svetlana Chmakova

Page of Chapter Book
(Age 9)

Page of Chapter Book
(Age 11)