I love writing. I’m sure that’s not that much of a surprise since I write articles, I have a blog, and I can’t seem to tell my fingers to just quit. Once I get on a topic, I have a tough time just letting it go. But my affliction does not seem to affect my children. In fact, writing even one sentence seems to be the worst form of torture that I can apply to my children. I’m not sure if that is because they were schooled partly in a public school or what, but they just really don’t seem to get my affection for writing.

So I came up with this wild scheme. It was so far fetched I just knew that it would work. Don’t all far fetched schemes work out perfectly? LOL, Ok so I had no clue what I was going to do, but I was determined to find a way to share my enjoyment of writing with my children.  I did research. That’s always my first step. By doing a quick search for “teach writing” I came up with a few ideas. The first was a journal or a writers notebook. This gave me a place to start.

Writing a journal was a great idea. I have a journal, I knew I wrote in my Diary as a kid and I still have it. (SHHH don’t tell my Mom or my brother!) I thought it was a logical place to start. Until my kids stared at me and said “what am I supposed to write?” Well writing to a prompt wasn’t what I had in mind for a journal. It makes it more artificial than a true “this is what happened in my life” type entry. So I went for further research. Hoping to find a way to teach them how to pick a topic.

And that’s when I came across the public school’s answer–the Writer’s workshop. Now I was overwhelmed with the possibilities. There was so much for me to take in that I truly had no clue where to start. And all the books I read and webpages I visited really left me with more questions than answers. It was just such a huge undertaking. And no cut and dried place to start or path to follow. And so I traversed one. I took it step by step as always! For this you will need 2 composition notebooks. Spiral is just fine, but I find those pages are a little easier to rip out and therefore–they also have a tendency to fall out easier. Today’s article is going to walk you through the beginning of a writer’s workshop. In future I’ll take you through the mini-lessons and the remaining steps of the writer’s workshop.

Where to begin
Looking back at my first attempt–those journals–I knew right where to start. I needed to teach my children how to pick a topic. This is always the hardest part. once you know what to write it about, it get’s a bit easier.

Using the first notebook, Label the first page: LISTS On this page you will teach your child to create a list on any topic. Such as their likes or dislikes. This is your first mini-lesson. Teaching them the first stage of picking a topic. After the list–have them choose one item from it. This is now their topic.

There are other ways to help them to choose a topic. Lists is just one. You can even use that first list to help them narrow down their topic. Such as if one of their “likes” is sports, you can have them narrow that list down to the various sports: Soccer, football, track, gymnastics, etc.

Other ways of picking a topic (Be sure to label the page with the correct label):

JOURNALING: Looking at previous writing entries and elaborating on it. This is a good follow up to the first option of LISTS. Once you have a few entries in your journal/writer’s notebook then you can take those topics and see where you can lead with them.

CLUSTERING: Taking a broad category and branching off the center “bubble’ to create more defined topics. Such as Sports–breaking it down to football, soccer, tennis, etc. Below is a picture that has a chart that breaks down forms of learning aids–this will demonstrate how to cluster.

SENTENCE COMPLETION: This is basically a writing prompt. It gives your child a place to start. The prompt could be something like: One day I . . . . OR I wonder how . . . . Etc.

CREATE A CHECKLIST: checklists can be of various things. Such as how to’s, life essentials, etc.

LIFE MAP: This utilizes the creative mind. The child will make a detailed drawing of their day or week, perhaps even a year. They will then look it over and circle the items they feel can–or should–be elaborated on. Things they have an interest.

Observe your surroundings. Life happens all around and that is what writing is all about–writing about life. Either history or personal experiences, etc. Have your child look around them–what do they see. Have them write it down.

NOW WHERE TO GO?

Once they have chosen your topic, you will need to have them write on it. For this you will turn to the LAST page of your first notebook, and have them do one of the following (Again be sure to label the page) These are NOT your actual rough drafts, this is just a way to begin your writing. To see where you mind is going.

Free write–This is just taking a specified amount of time and letting them ramble about the topic.

Scrap writing–this is having them focus on just one aspect of the topic–such as how it looks, sounds, tastes, what it does, what they think when they hear the word, etc. It takes the narrow topic, and defines it even more. This can be repeated for even more aspects. Very effective for teaching how to describe characters or locations. For adding details to their writing.

5 W’s & H–This is the classic. WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? HOW? These can just be answered simply and then elaborated on during the actual writing.

Clustering–Again this can be used to help brainstorm ideas. Help define details and more. Refer to the chart above.

So now you have a starting place. Work on various ways to define your topic and elaborate on it. Practice it so that they will be ready for the next portion of this lesson plan. Use the first notebook for this writing. Be sure to label each page accurately for future reference. The reason you put the second section at the back is to give yourself a little organization. Another option would be to add tabs to your notebook–Tabs can be Mini-lessons and Examples. However you need to make sure that you leave enough room for more mini-lessons (This will be covered in a future article). The second notebook will come in handy in another article as well. For that you will need 4 tabs.

Well this will get your Ready, pretty soon we’ll cover what you need to Get Set, and then you’ll be off and ready to WRITE!

Patty Thompson is a homeschooling mom to 4 kids and wife to her high school sweetheart. She has been homeschooling for 4 years and loving every minute of it. Future plans include Homeschooling through high school. Her kids range from Kindergarten through 8th grade. Her style is very eclectic and believes in going with what works! She is rarely seen without a book in her hand. She loves to plan lessons and unit studies. She has started working with a co-op group and has enjoyed teaching group classes. Her hobbies include Genealogy and card making. She has often been found lost in thought on her blog. Catch her there and take a moment to feed their school mascot, Shiver, at Shiver Academy.