From the Desk of WriteShop

Have you ever wanted to sing the praises of a book or other homeschool product you absolutely love? You may have found that it’s easy to fill your friends’ ears when you gather at park day, but if someone asks you to write up a review for your support group newsletter, you may have no clue how to go about it.

Or suppose you want to post a review in your blog.

Or maybe you want to assign a book review to one of your teens as a writing project.

No matter who’s writing it, you’ll need a different approach to review curriculum than if you were to review, say, a novel. But it’s easy—and fun—when you have a little formula to follow!

I’ve seen three different kinds of curriculum or book reviews. You’ll choose the one that best fits your experience with the product:

• Neutral review. Having never used the materials, will you simply explain the method and approach?
• Positive review. Based on what you’ve learned, will you also give your opinion?
• Personal review. Have you actually used the material? Can you review it based on your own experience?

Regardless of the type of review you write, make sure you include some basic information to familiarize readers with the product’s key features.

Describe the Book or Product

Start off with the basics. First, what is this product? What does this product cover? What’s included? Is it complete on its own, or will the parent need to purchase additional components to complete it?

Second, is it a book? Workbook? Is it hardback, soft cover, or spiral bound? E-book/download? Computer program? CD/Video?

Explain How the Product Works

Describe its purpose. Tell how the instructions say to use it. Or, if you’re reviewing a product you’ve actually worked with, describe how you’ve used it with your own child.

Next, tell who the product targets. What age or grade? What educational method(s) will it appeal to? What type of learner might benefit from this product? Is it created for homeschool use? If not, is it easily adaptable to the homeschooling environment?

Express Your Opinion

If you’re reviewing a product you have not used personally and plan to give an opinion, what appeals to you about it? What makes you excited? What do you think your children would enjoy?

And if you’ve actually used the product, how did it work in your homeschool? What did you enjoy or appreciate? Did your kids like it? Be honest but try not to gush.

Make a Recommendation

Again, if you want to give a personal opinion, use your closing sentences to let your readers know if you would recommend this product. Would you buy it were it not already in your hands? Offer a professional review, one that is honest but not overly enthusiastic. After all, this isn’t meant to be a sales pitch.

Finally, close by providing contact information, including company name, website, email address, and phone number.

This is a simple way to get started writing a review. As you can imagine, it’s always easier to evaluate a book or product you’ve personally used. But eventually, you can begin having fun reviewing products you’ve never seen before! And if you’re giving an assignment to a teen, perhaps requiring both kinds of reviews will help strengthen some of her writing skills as well.

Next week I’ll give more details about writing a neutral product review, along with some examples to follow.

Enter a Book Review Contest!

Successful-Homeschooling.com is sponsoring a contest with an opportunity to win FREE books! For every qualified product review that you submit by September 21, 2008, you’ll have various opportunities to win up to $100 in Usborne books!

So now that you have some tools in your belt for writing a great product review, what are you waiting for? Click here for contest information.

When I was little, I loved Benjamin Elkin’s story of The Big Jump, in which a young boy finds a stray dog he hopes to keep.

The boy and the pup become fast friends, but unfortunately, in this land only kings are allowed to own dogs. The king, who can spring from the ground to the top of his castle in one leap, promises the boy he may keep the pup if he too can jump to the top of the castle.

Well, the motivated lad goes home to practice but, try as he might, he can only scale two boxes. And then . . . an idea strikes!

Returning to the palace, he finally does succeed in jumping to the top. How on earth does he accomplish this? Well, the king has never told him he must do it in a single bound! So the clever boy takes it one…step…at…a…time!

Delighted by the boy’s “out of the box” approach, the king awards him the coveted dog.

Writing is a lot like this. Our kids want to make The Big Jump, leaping from blank paper to final draft in one stride. But when they realize that their target is more reachable by taking smaller steps, they begin to believe they can do it. And in the end, they achieve a worthy goal: a polished composition they’re proud to share with others.

. . . . . 

Do you struggle with teaching, editing, and grading your teen’s writing? Are you looking for ways to integrate the steps of the writing process into your lesson plans? Perhaps WriteShop is the answer. Visit www.writeshop.com and poke around. About WriteShop and Parent Testimonials may be good places to begin.

Care for some “cheedear”? It’s from “Austraulia.”

Thanks for stopping by on this Wordless Wednesday to enjoy another dose of bad signage!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to cast a vote and post a comment. The blue poster was the overwhelming winner by four to one, with 24 votes, while the red poster received only 6 votes.

This week, we’re going to polish up the blue poster and try a couple of your suggestions to see if we want to change anything. Then we’ll print ‘em and send them off to our winners.

Speaking of winners, WOO HOO! We drew five lucky names today, and each one will receive a free poster! (Coincidentally, our winners all voted for the blue poster.)

Teresa Bryan

Marianne Handlir

Cheri Bennett

Deborah Thomson

Karen Mountjoy

Congratulations to each of you, and thanks for joining in the fun! We’ll notify you when your poster is on its way.

Edited: How remiss of me! I need to add a huge thanks to my talented daughter Karah of Blue Flombingo for designing our fabulous poster!

1. Kids only want to write a paper once. But getting it right the first time is pie-in-the-sky. Perfectionism sets your child up for failure.

2. The writing process is a lot like scrapbooking. Let’s say you have a dozen photos to use in a layout. Once you set the photos down, you wonder if there’s a better way to arrange them. You angle several pictures. Perhaps you crop a few to focus more on the subject. Then you move two or three others around, trying different arrangements. Finally, you realize the page will look much cleaner with fewer photos, so you carefully choose your favorites and make your final layout.

The writer does the same thing with ideas, words, and sentences—removing, replacing, arranging and rearranging, adding colorful touches—until the final composition is as pleasing to the eye as a well-arranged scrapbook page.

3. Rewriting is the key to writing. Say it till you believe it. Then tell it to your kids until they believe it too! Remind them that their rough draft is just that—rough. The real writing takes place once the ideas are in place. Good writing results from frequent editing and revising.

4. Pre-writing activities teach valuable skills, but they don’t teach independent writing. Use writing games, prompts, and pre-writing exercises to warm your kids up before the “real” writing begins.

5. Writing needs to be relevant. As often as possible, give your child a say in choosing a topic. When a student is passionate about hockey, horses, World War II, or Lord of the Rings, you’ll get more (and better) writing from him because he has a vested interest in the subject matter.

6. Writing takes time. And there’s no way around this. Of course, in a classroom, teachers just don’t have enough time to devote to it. But if you’re homeschooling, you have the luxury of helping your kids nurture a writing assignment from start to finish.

Cast Your Vote

Our WriteShop Starter Pack includes an 8-1/2″ x 11″ poster featuring the 5 Steps of the Writing Process. Well, after several years, we decided it’s time to retire our old poster in favor of a fresh new look.

My daughter, our talented designer, has presented us with two great choices. The problem is we love them both and can’t make a decision, so we need your help! Please vote for your favorite by adding a comment…

…for a Chance to Win a Prize!

On September 1, we’ll put all comments into a hat and draw five names. Each winner will get a free poster! We’ll announce the winner here on Tuesday, September 2.

Red Poster

Blue Poster

Woohoo! Tomorrow we’ll be guests on the podcast Grace Talk Soup, and we invite you to join us LIVE!

Host JoJo Tabares will interview our WriteShop Primary team, giving you a chance to find out how we pulled off this project with “six people, one idea, and 3000 miles.”

You’ll get to meet me and Debbie, of course, but Nancy Sanders and David Borrink will be joining us too. You’ll hear our personal testimonies and find out just what’s involved in moving a book from the author’s head and onto your bookshelf!

Where: Tune in to Grace Talk Soup

When: Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. EDT

Episode Description: Kim Kautzer and Debbie Oldar of WriteShop join JoJo to discuss their newest project and how it took effective communication between them, author Nancy Sanders, and graphic designer David Borrink. Tune in as they discuss their new younger-level writing curriculum and what it took to get that project published.

Join the Fun!

Want to ask us some questions? Guess what? You can call in too!

How to join the show live via the phone:
Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Call ID: 19736

How to join the show live via your computer:
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/19736
Click on the Listen Now button anytime starting 15 min before the show

And here’s how to listen to any of the past shows:
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/19736
Scroll down to the “Past Shows” and click one of the orange “Listen” buttons.

Hope to see you there!

I know a cat that blogs. Really.

His name is Humphrey, and he belongs to our dear friend, Nancy Sanders. Nancy, who also happens to be the author of our new WriteShop Primary series, invited Humphrey to be a guest writer on her blog yesterday, where he offers his own tips for making editing fun.

But don’t take it from me! Here’s “The Humph” himself to share some of his fabulous secrets!

Hi. My name is Humphrey. I’m a cat. You may already know that. But what you may not know is that I’m also a writer. And today, now that you’re writing your [composition], I want to tell you about putting on your editor’s hat.

Do you like to edit your own [writing]? You know—self edit? Come on…really?

I don’t.

I mean, it’s just not the cat’s meow.

But I know I should. I know I’m supposed to. I know it’s what a cat’s gotta do to learn how to be a successful writer. So I decided to break my habit of neglecting this part of my writing life.

The first thing I did was get myself an editor’s hat. You know—first you wear the writer’s hat and then you take that off and put on your editor’s hat? Right? Well, I didn’t have an editor’s hat. So I went out and got one. Like it? It even has a little mouse at the top and this twirly thing to twirl around. It’s purrfect for a cat like me. You should get one, too!

After I finish my first draft of my manuscript, I set aside some time to edit. And now I make sure it isn’t the drudgery it used to be. I make sure it’s fun!

I put on my silly editor’s beanie. It gets me in the mood to have fun, dude. Then I get out my special . . .

Read the rest: Put on Your Editor’s Hat

Humphrey may be joking about wearing a special hat. Or…not! Nancy shared with me that she’s in the process of making her own editing hat. She’s going to stick velcro all over a floppy cotton beach hat and attach items related to the story she’s writing. Cute idea!

How about a baseball cap with the word “Editor” across the front? Or maybe a favorite beanie? But editing hat or no, once your kids adopt a few of Humphrey’s clever tips, I think they’ll actually begin to discover the JOY of editing.

And if you’re using WriteShop this year, your older kids will be able to apply these ideas while using their Writing Skills Checklists. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

We often get letters from moms who don’t quite know what to do with their reluctant fourth graders. This email is a pretty typical lament:   

My 9 year old and I haven’t done any routine writing projects together. He hyperventilates (not really but you get my point) when I try to do any kind of writing with him.  I’ve tried story starters, but he just doesn’t want to participate, [or] he comes up with a totally silly story. I know he can do better, but he has this thing about writing.

Writing Stories: Too Abstract? 

It’s so normal for a nine-year-old to be a reluctant writer. And believe me, I understand. My son was the same way! I’ve found that often, storytelling can be too abstract for such a child. Even kids who are slightly older (junior high) will do better when asked to write about more concrete topics, such as events they have personally experienced or objects they can observe firsthand. That’s why descriptive writing or personal narratives usually produce better results than made-up stories from the child’s imagination.

Why do such activities bring about success? The child can actually see and touch a toy car, taste and smell a ripe peach, or recall a story that happened to him.

But don’t throw out the baby with the bath water! You might still want to use a story starter now and then. And when you do, know that it’s really OK for the story to take a silly tack. Sometimes writing should be just for fun!

If you need some ideas, you’ll find two inexpensive StoryBuilders card decks in the WriteShop store—World of People and World of Animals. By mixing and matching story element cards, children can create lots of different stories, from serious to silly. Each StoryBuilders set includes activities that will appeal to students of all ages and writing abilities.

Journaling Idea 

With my own reluctant son, we did Journaling…with a twist over and over again. Because this type of “journaling” is based on facts gathered through reading, your child won’t get stuck trying to invent details or a come up with a story line. It’s also much more entertaining to read and write than a report!

Overcoming Writer’s Block

What’s one of the most frustrating assignments you can give a reluctant child? Believe it or not, just ask her to “write about whatever she wants.” While it seems that this should be freeing for her, it actually has the opposite effect: it contributes to writer’s block!

That’s why it’s really important to establish parameters for your budding writers. Just as a sturdy fence helps a child feel safe in a big back yard, clear boundaries and expectations help young writers feel secure about putting pencil to paper. The blank page can be pretty intimidating, so instead of asking her to “just write,” be very specific. For example:

• Write a paragraph of 3-5 sentences
• Describe a __________________ (taco or Tonka truck, for example).
• Do not tell a story about it. Just use your five senses to explain how it looks, feels, sounds, tastes, or smells (as appropriate to the object).
• Use your thesaurus to include one new word.

You can probably see how this sort of guided writing helps inspire confidence. Start small and don’t expect too much at first. If you were teaching a child to play the piano, you’d give her exercises and simple tunes to practice long before you asked her to compose a piece on her own. It’s the same with writing!

. . . . .

If you’re looking for a writing curriculum for your 9- or 10-year-old, a gem of a book is Wordsmith Apprentice. We love to recommend it for the 4th-6th grade set.

The joy of bad signage continues! Gotta love this one. If you’re going to fall, please do so C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y.

…less chance of injury that way.