Monthly Archives: September 2009

Our school district recently changed their curriculum to place more emphasis on writing. This is one of those changes that has been a very good thing.

Andrew has always disliked having to write things like essays and reports. And honestly? I’ve never liked it either. Worse, when you’re a writer, people sometimes expect help with that sort of thing. The conventional wisdom being: Dude, you’re a writer, why can’t you write a scholarship application essay/grant application/whatever.

Well, for the same reason that if I didn’t write installation instructions five days a week, I wouldn’t be very good at that.

Anyway, I’ve seen a huge turnaround in Andrew’s writing in the last year. And they have designated free writing times for the younger grades as well. They do learn proper spelling, punctuation, and so on, but for free writing they’re encourage to sound things out of their own and keep going.

I’ve been amazed at their progress.

Here’s a “journal” entry that Kyra wrote. I cleaned up the spelling, but I feel compelled to add that she got all the apostrophes correct.

I’m a little girl. It’s close to Halloween. I’m going to get a costume that’s a devil. It’s going to be fun.

Kyra would like everyone to know that she’s going to be a good devil.

Here’s part of an essay that Andrew wrote, the goal being to write about yourself in the third person:

Andrew is so messy you cannot see the floor of his room because it is covered in stuff, mostly books and junk. Unless the floor is clean and the mess is really holograms. But what is the point to go through all that trouble. Unless he does that so when his mom or dad asks him to clean his room, he turns off the projection of the holograms, and then gets a raise in his allowance. I guess that theory does not work because sometimes when he cleans it, it actually gets messier. IT ACTUALLY GETS MESSIER.

I’m hoping his English teacher doesn’t ding him for the use of all caps.

As you probably guessed, I’m psyched that both of them are writing. Whether they become writers is neither here nor there. I think being able to express themselves in writing will server them well.