I don't teach Creative Writing. Actually, there are a lot of things i don't do as a home schooler. I am a firm believer in learning through osmosis.
I have a tape from a home school conference more than fifteen years ago entitled "Storytelling in your curriculum". The speaker summed up her point in one statement: your children can only write stories out of the fund of stories that is within them. It's very biblical: what you put in is what you'll get out.
Mark Twain said that Moby Dick was the only American novel worthy of belonging to great world literature and every one of his themes was based on the Bible. Her point is made.
On a personal level, I used to tell the kids stories while we were waiting in the car for Steve to run errands. I came up with one that was a combination of The Chronicles of Narnia, Merlin legends, Make Way for Ducklings, and Candyland. It really did work.
Anyway, we read a lot of living books in our house. The only readers we use at our house are for the little ones, mostly so that they get the large print version! And we read out loud. I come from generations of read aloud cultures. It's amazing what gets passed down! My grandfather read Alice in Wonderland to my dad and his sisters, my dad read it to my brother and me, I've read it to my children. We've read everything from A Tale of Two Cities and Moby Dick to Charlotte's Web and An Angel, a Shepherd, and Walter, the Christmas Miracle Dog. Why, you may ask?
First of all, for the relationship it develops between me and my children. Sarah ,at 14, discovered Jane Austen and we read ALL of them. We are now working on The Lord of the the Rings. We talk, do chores, knit, ask questions, answer questions; she started to get ahead of me in recognizing foreshadowing.
The reason I am wrote this post. Ben, at 20, skyped us from his internship up north. He is writing something he has been working on for years and wanted to know my recommended reading list for Creative Writing. Here it is.
For Characterization: Jane Austen, esp.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Introduction, Part 2
Well, what happened once we got to Wisconsin?
First, we lived in town in two small houses. Steve was investing the equity of the home we had just sold, and we were able to live off the profits - until 2002. Oi. Steve started packing boxes at Lands' End for the Christmas season and was, fortunately, asked to stay on after New Years. His mom had followed us up in 2001, and she gave us a few hundred dollars every month that paid for food. We also learned the joy of living in the country - people kept giving us food! We had squash pie for breakfast quite a bit. Thank heavens, the kids still like it!
When we moved to the property, my folks paid Steve to work around the property because we had gotten to the point where we thought we would have to move back to the city for a job more suited to his computer skills. With all the land to be mown, it was worth it. Also, my mother had bought five alpacas to start our alpaca business. I started getting a paycheck from the alpaca business because I was doing most of the fiber processing, which I had to learn on the job. My dad, meanwhile, managed to get onto the board of directors of a few companies.
Out of the blue, Steve got a call from the brother of someone that we went to church with in Chicago. He lived in Wisconsin and we had only met him once and he was attending church with a gentleman who had a programming job that he didn't think he could handle; so he passed the job off to Steve! That was a good time for us. Knowing God's provision and the grace of the body of believers gave us so much joy! The paycheck was nice, too.
Eventually, that job slowed down and Steve's brother had a vision for Steve. It involved selling cell-phone service and accessories via websites to businesses. So, Steve worked for two months to put together a basic model. Bill's company didn't want it, so Bill changed companies. That company wasn't too excited about it, either. So, Steve worked for another two months without pay to further develop it. The point of their website was that they could set it up in only two weeks and start selling phones immediately, instead of a year later, as most other providers had to do. Finally, they were willing to take him on as a consultant on the off chance that it might work. After four months as a consultant, they hired him and the whole company got a pay cut. They were the poor relations at the engineering company but after Obama got into office, their little cell phone website supported the entire firm. (No one was spending money on new engineering at the time.) They now have clients like the Mormon church and the US Navy. I'm so proud of him. Not only that, but after three years, he finally got a raise!
The alpacas are slowing down, but we still go to shows and sell our products in shops around Wisconsin. I have enjoyed the fiber work and I'm glad to know how to do it, but I really want to focus on being a mom, since I'm getting more teens and they all want to TALK to Mom!
First, we lived in town in two small houses. Steve was investing the equity of the home we had just sold, and we were able to live off the profits - until 2002. Oi. Steve started packing boxes at Lands' End for the Christmas season and was, fortunately, asked to stay on after New Years. His mom had followed us up in 2001, and she gave us a few hundred dollars every month that paid for food. We also learned the joy of living in the country - people kept giving us food! We had squash pie for breakfast quite a bit. Thank heavens, the kids still like it!
When we moved to the property, my folks paid Steve to work around the property because we had gotten to the point where we thought we would have to move back to the city for a job more suited to his computer skills. With all the land to be mown, it was worth it. Also, my mother had bought five alpacas to start our alpaca business. I started getting a paycheck from the alpaca business because I was doing most of the fiber processing, which I had to learn on the job. My dad, meanwhile, managed to get onto the board of directors of a few companies.
Out of the blue, Steve got a call from the brother of someone that we went to church with in Chicago. He lived in Wisconsin and we had only met him once and he was attending church with a gentleman who had a programming job that he didn't think he could handle; so he passed the job off to Steve! That was a good time for us. Knowing God's provision and the grace of the body of believers gave us so much joy! The paycheck was nice, too.
Eventually, that job slowed down and Steve's brother had a vision for Steve. It involved selling cell-phone service and accessories via websites to businesses. So, Steve worked for two months to put together a basic model. Bill's company didn't want it, so Bill changed companies. That company wasn't too excited about it, either. So, Steve worked for another two months without pay to further develop it. The point of their website was that they could set it up in only two weeks and start selling phones immediately, instead of a year later, as most other providers had to do. Finally, they were willing to take him on as a consultant on the off chance that it might work. After four months as a consultant, they hired him and the whole company got a pay cut. They were the poor relations at the engineering company but after Obama got into office, their little cell phone website supported the entire firm. (No one was spending money on new engineering at the time.) They now have clients like the Mormon church and the US Navy. I'm so proud of him. Not only that, but after three years, he finally got a raise!
The alpacas are slowing down, but we still go to shows and sell our products in shops around Wisconsin. I have enjoyed the fiber work and I'm glad to know how to do it, but I really want to focus on being a mom, since I'm getting more teens and they all want to TALK to Mom!
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