As our fall classes our winding down, I'm astonished (as always) with the impressive amount of quality writing my students have completed this semester. Often, I think my main job as a writing mentor is to encourage kids to write early and often. When they take my classes, this is exactly what happens. They absorb all kinds of guidelines and advice about how to improve their writing, but the very act of writing regularly yields amazing results. Beyond this, the next best thing you can do for your young writer is to provide them with an audience. In my classes students read their essays aloud to each other and serve as an audience for their fellow authors. They exchange advice (with my guidance) and benefit from both ends of that exchange. As an author, they have an opportunity to understand the impact their writing has on others -- they can see first hand when they've interested, entertained or puzzled their readers. As an audience member, they must articulate what about a piece of writing should be improved and really think through the best way of accomplishing the necessary revisions. Alas, this is rarely an environment that individual homeschoolers can easily create working one on one with their kids. Finding a homeschool writing class or co-op is often the answer.
I like to give students a wide range of writing opportunities and I think the classes I have planned for this next semester will do just that. If you live in the Los Angeles area and are interested in enrolling your child in one of my classes at the Huckleberry Learning Center for the spring 2012 semester (beginning in early February), the following links will take you to more detailed descriptions. The Huckleberry Learning Center website - www.hucklc.org - will be ready for registration within a few weeks, but here's a preview:
Mondays: 12:30pm
Mondays: 2pm
Wednesdays: 10:30am
Wednesdays: 12:30pm
Wednesdays: 2pm
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