Creative Writing

[tiffanieh]

My apologies if this is found in a different post, probably in a DITHOR post...but does DITHOR cover creative writing? And if so, at what level does that begin?

[my3sons]

Hi Tiffini! No, it doesn't - DITHOR is primarily a reading program and teaches all of those necessary reading skills (comprehension, story elements, oral reading ability, reading response, character traits, etc.). Writing is done in the form of notebooking, copywork, dictation, lab reports, etc. first in Bigger Hearts, and the all of those forms of writing are kept and creative writing and written narrations are added to them in PHFHG. We've enjoyed that progression, but if you are wanting to add creative writing earlier than PHFHG, you could check out Igniting Your Writing Vol. 1.

In Christ,
Julie

[tiffanieh]

Julie...thank you so much for your response! We will be doing Beyond for him next year, 2nd grade, so it looks like we wouldn't flow into PHHFHG until the 4th grade...is that when you "normally" incorporate creative writing?

It's so hard to not start to get yourself overwhelmed when you hear what "others" are doing. The school we took our son out of last year (Christian private school...highly academic!) has their 1st graders doing CRAZY amounts of stuff, from breaking down a sentence structure (grammer) to creative writing, spelling tests, science exams, etc... that I do my best to just be STILL and know that God led me here and just do as the book is written and don't "add" more to it.

I know even within the homeschooling community that there are differing opinions on when to start this and when to start that!

It can make a kids head spin!

[my3sons]

You are right - people's opinions vary widely when to begin creative writing. Charlotte Mason believed in doing written narrations first, for quite awhile (in fact, it's probably early to start creative writing even in PHFHG according to CM ). I actually did my master's thesis on the topic of writing, and I think the way writing is taught CM -style makes a lot more sense. It first teaches dc to absorb excellent writing habits through copywork of classic authors, dictation, and eventually from written narrations - which still allows dc to borrow author's phrasing and wording as they write a written narration from something worthy they've read. All of that does an excellent job of getting dc ready to write creatively, which is actually quite a bit harder to do well than one might think. When we did "writer's workshop" in our classroom (Carrie and I job shared a year), we ended up having to try to undo a lot of poor writing habits through endless "creative writing" by having 1 on 1 conferences with dc and doing guided lessons in mini-lessons. It would have been so much better to first do written narrations first!!! How I wish I could go back, but way back then, I had not met Charlotte Mason yet!

Anyway, my ds (who definitely did NOT have a natural talent for writing creatively) has become an excellent creative writer following the HOD plan. I think it's wise to wait until dc are older and more ready for creative writing, and let them first learn from the best - authors who have a lot of talent for telling a story. The living book choices of HOD help that to happen. Just imagine if we taught music by just letting our dc wing it - sure, some of them would have natural talent and would flourish, maybe even become the next Bach - BUT most of them would be stuck expressing themselves quite creatively - but also quite unrefined and misguided, making some not so pretty music. No - studying the "greats" is the way to learn how to create great music, and writing is no different. If we want our dc to write well, they need to learn from the best, and that is what HOD is striving to do. O.k., I am now stepping off my soapbox, writing is just something I love!!!

In Christ,
Julie

[LynnH]

Julie your answer is very interesting to me. I am glad the op brought this up. My ds is still in public school and in 4th grade. They have been expected to write lengthy creative writing projects since 1st grade. It has been a nightmare for my ds. I felt like they never taught them the steps that go into writing, they just jumped in to doing 6 page long "All about ... books", or lengthy "small moment" papers and this was all in second grade. Since my ds has CP and struggles with writing he was doing well to just get a few sentences down on the paper, much less have it be creative and written with proper sentence structure. This is the same school system that doesn't believe in teaching much grammar until 7th grade, so to me it is setting them up for bad habits. I can't wait to work with him next year in Preparing and see how things change using copywork and then the written narrations. I feel like finally he will be given the tools he needs to write creatively.