Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

Tagged: brave writer and journaling

This topic has 24 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 1 month ago by MichelleG.

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May 18, 2016 at 3:02 pm
Tjbowman34
Participant
I’m not familiar with Brave Writer but it looks quite good! We have never done a formal writing program. Do you think it is necessary, why or why not? Is narration really enough?
May 18, 2016 at 4:50 pm
Melanie32
Participant
I’m going to chime in and say that yes, I do think written narration is more than enough, when coupled with other CM methods, to teach a child to write well. It’s the whole CM language arts process that works together to build a great writer. The child reads great literature and becomes familiar with great writing. He/she forms relationships with great writers and their writing style. The student then copies from these great writers and finally composes his/her own compositions via written narrations.
I’ve looked at Bravewriter a lot. I think it would be really good for a mom who just feels that she has to have a program and is maybe being to rigid in her writing expectations for young children. However a mom who learns about Charlotte Mason’s methods and applies them is really in no need of purchasing or using Bravewriter.
I purchased a writing curriculum (IEW) for my son when he hit middle school age because I thought CM methods were not enough. He slowly developed into a good writer and was writing nice papers by 9th grade.
I chose to trust Charlotte and follow her methods with my daughter. She slowly developed into a good writer by 7th grade. Her writing skills are growing every day and she naturally adds all the things to her compositions that IEW taught my son to add in. Also, her compositions show her own style and are not formulaic in any way while my son struggled in these areas.
You may or may not enjoy reading The Writer’s Jungle which is a guide to teach parents how to teach writing. However, I truly believe that Charlotte Mason’s methods are more than enough. There is a wonderful thread on writing programs around here somewhere. I will find it and bump it to the top for you. You may have read it already but someone usually bumps it to the top around this time of year as moms are trying to decide on curricula for next fall.
I will say that I think one important hinge that composition hangs on is having your child read truly great literature and plenty of it-also lots of mom reading aloud for the child to get an idea of how great language sounds and should be read.
May 18, 2016 at 5:07 pm
Melanie32
Participant
I wanted to add that Charlotte Mason did give formal writing instruction in the high school years. Brace writer looks like a good choice for that purpose. I really like the looks of their Help For High School program.
May 18, 2016 at 5:23 pm
Tristan
Participant
I’ll have to disagree with Melanie. (Love ya Melanie!)
Brave Writer encourages young children (ages 5-8ish(K-3rd)) to NARRATE. The parents jot down the child’s words because kids that age often love having their own words to show others and to have read to them over and over like a favorite real book. Around age 9 or 10 (4th grade)in Brave Writer the child begins partnership writing, meaning parent and child take turns writing because a child this age doesn’t yet have the writing stamina and speed to get their interesting thoughts down on paper without tiring. So the parent facilitates. A child may begin the writing one day and then narrate to the parent for a while, who jots down the narrated part. The next time they work on writing together maybe the child begins with narrating (parent writing it) and then takes over to write part of it themselves.
Around age 11 or 12 the student shifts to faltering ownership – they do the writing and the parent is more support than hands on help. This is 5th/6th grade. Written narration. Right on par with Charlotte Mason. Age 13-14 is transition to ownership, a student is emerging as an independent writer with the mechanics (which have been honed for years with copywork and dictation in the Brave Writer method a la CM) in place to write in volume and in their own voice. Somewhere around ages 15-18 (10th grade and up) the student is ready for academic writing using academic formats (essays!).
Do you need Brave Writer to homeschool in a CM way? Nope. Written narration is wonderful. But Brave Writer offers interesting ways to capture a student’s written narration, as well as creative writing opportunities (that are valid as written narrations too – think of a child writing a historical diary from the perspective of a person in a time period they’ve been reading about, or a spin on what they think may have happened to Amelia Earhart or some other historical unknown, or their own version of a fairy tale when learning about the varying ones recorded by cultures over history).
Bravewriter also includes the many CM practices that round out a child’s living education (art appreciation, copywork, literature, poetry, nature journaling, Shakespeare, etc). Why? because the author of BW appreciated those CM practices as integral to language and writing development. The more things you are interested in and enjoying the more you have to say in your writing.
To each their own!
May 18, 2016 at 6:14 pm
Tjbowman34
Participant
You both have GREAT things to say! I’m still so confused! With having 4 children at home, I feel like having something to say “guide” me would benefit me, however, it is rather pricey for me. HMMM….I get a little nervous, who am I kidding, I get a lot nervous that narration isn’t enough…LOL
May 18, 2016 at 6:26 pm
Melanie32
Participant
Hi Tristan! I figured you would have something to say about this topic! 🙂 (Love ya too!)
Actually, I don’t see where you disagreed with me. We seem to be saying the same thing. CM methods work and Bravewriter is not a necessity. You did go on to share how Bravewriter works and how it has blessed your family and I’m so glad you did! You would know much more about that than I would and it’s good to hear from your perspective.
So, in essence, we are both saying that CM methods are enough. Bravewriter can help you to implement CM methods if you feel you need a little more handholding along the way. Each family should do what is best for theirs in each season of life. Sometimes we may need something a little more concrete. Others, we may be content to wing it on our own using Charlotte’s advice as our guide. Neither is the right or wrong way.
I went through a CM purist phase but I am over that now. I still find that CM is the closest educational philosophy to fit with mine but I do veer from her advice here and there to do what I feel is best for my family. I heartily recommend that each mom pray and seek the Lord’s will for her homeschool and for each child within that homeschool as well. His direction trumps all-even our dear mentor Charlotte Mason.
I am still very passionate about CM methods for language arts especially. I just can’t say enough good things about her methods and how they have born fruit in my daughter. I couldn’t be more pleased with the results of consistently reading great literature, doing copy work and narrating orally and in written form.
May 18, 2016 at 6:28 pm
Melanie32
Participant
Oh and TJbowman-check out that writing thread I bumped to the top. If you’re not up to reading the whole thing, just read Bookworm’s contributions-they are so helpful!
May 18, 2016 at 6:46 pm
Tjbowman34
Participant
Melanie 32…..this thread is GOLDEN!!!! Thank you so much!
May 18, 2016 at 6:46 pm
my3boys
Participant
I have The Writer’s Jungle and many of the book studies and writing guides, etc. I *think* that it is a great program if you have the time to read all of it, familiarize yourself with it, and then apply it. For me, that is the most difficult part. Oh, and the cost was hard to swallow 🙂
What I have gained so far is many ideas for narration (which can be found on a lot of different sites, like SCM), which have been good, but I still haven’t had the time to implement them. Instead, I have kept going with CM, and it really is so much easier, for me. I think the hardest part about CM language arts, narration, to be exact, is knowing *what* to do, *how* to do it, and is *it* enough. As the parent/teacher, we have to be disciplined to actually use her methods in our LA program, consistently.
My oldest son is using Help for High School, after trying out The Power in Your Hands for over a semester. I do like the HFH best out of the two, but I don’t really know why. Something about how Julie Bogart (BW) writes resonates with me; it is very soothing and her ideas are simple and can be very CM. I just feel like so many writing programs take precious time away from what my kiddos could be doing, but that also hinges on *me* making sure they are doing it.
I think I’m rambling now. I’ve begun to read some of the different components I have from BW along with CM’s words and narration threads here and there. All very interesting.
BW has given me some editing ideas I hadn’t thought of and I truly plan to use some of her ideas as I do find them useful. We have yet to use any of the literary guides and I have no idea if we ever will 🙂
How’s that for an answer?!
ETA: Last night I spent time on the pc printing out some narration ideas for a Narration Jar and for a Narration Cube (like dice). I plan to implement these and they were free, along with the advice 🙂
May 18, 2016 at 8:07 pm
Tristan
Participant
I love that people can share here without the crazy arguing you see on other forums. 🙂
tjbowman (sorry, can’t remember your first name!) If you are looking for a starting place with Brave Writer I always suggest skipping The Writer’s Jungle and starting with one guide to group all your kids into and adjust your expectations of them to their age/ability. (The Writers Jungle is theory and how to create your own writing classes for your kids from that theory, which is great but not the easiest place to jump in to!) So, for example, I have used a project from Faltering Ownership (ages 11-12) with the following ages at the same time: 11, 10, 8, 7, 5. The 11yo did his own writing, I was just support, same for the 10yo who likes writing. The 8yo wrote a little bit each day and narrated a bit. Then we printed up the whole thing at the end of the month. The 7yo did none of the writing, just narrated to me. The 5 year old (may have been 4 at the time, I can’t remember) just wanted a dust jacket to draw on for his favorite book. 😉 This particular project was a dust jacket review. They made a dust jacket for a book they had read, illustrated the cover and did title, author, etc as copywork during the month. The inside was the main writing spot and it was a review of the book that didn’t include spoilers. The back had ‘critic reviews’ like you read on books sometimes, they made those short quips up and each became copywork on a different day that month.
I have used each of the three guides (Jot it Down, Partnership Writing, and Faltering Ownership) this way, as one for all my kids. Each guide is 9-10 month long projects. You can get samples of all 3 on her site. I generally get ebooks and print them on my computer in black and white. Many of her ebooks are available at a discount at Homeschool Buyers Co-op too (The Writer’s Jungle for example is $47.40 instead of $79 right now and Jot it Down is $29.99 instead of almost $40).
May 18, 2016 at 8:35 pm
my3boys
Participant
The dust jacket review is one of those ideas I plan to use. My middle child, 13, will love it, and I think my youngest will enjoy it once he knows what he gets to do.
The jot it down guide is very helpful in giving you permission to not expect your kids to know how to write right out of the gate. She talks about how we support our kids in all other endeavors, may even get a tutor, but with writing it’s like they should just know how from the start. (Ha! I’m not even a writer.)
Now, narrating is different. They can orally narrate at a very early age, but writing is different. And as CM moms, we know that written narrations can make us feel like we’ve just gone backwards two years and that we are doing something wrong. Or worse, that our kids are failing and so are we! When, most of the time it’s the actual activity of writing that is the struggle. I have a ds who does not write quickly at all. To expect a paragraph out of him without supporting him would not be helping the process. And we all know that. We are encouraged to write as they share, maybe even type it up and let them copy their own words. We are encouraged to write the first part and have them finish, slowly giving them the reigns inch by inch.
I appreciate how Julie Bogart pretty much talks you off the ledge about all that:) Maybe it’s just comforting to have an actual “program” say the same things that we already know CM said many years ago. Maybe it just NOT having to come up with narration ideas for a season…that’s how I plan to use the guides.
May 18, 2016 at 9:05 pm
Angelina
Participant
On the question of where to start – I was a bit lost as well on where to start with Bravewriter. I had a feeling it was a great offering of programs but it was a little overwhelming trying to figure out what would work best for my children (and for me!)
In the end, I decided to go with Pouch of Boomerang. I really liked the idea that we would get to choose a favorite book from among the lists on Arrow, Pouch and/or Boomerang. I knew that even if the program and/or some of the deliverables might be challenging for us (or, at the least, tricky to get used to), we would just HAVE to love the program if a great book was involved. (book loving crazies in my family, such a blessing).
We started with Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. LOVED the book (we’d read it before) and loved doing the Pouch of Boomerang alongside. It may appear (I’ve seen comments posted) a pricey program “for what you get” – but for us it was golden. We had so much to talk about, and yet it wasn’t in a “reading comprehension” way (yay!)
Following our discussions on the book, the boys would go off and write, using their own choice from among the Boomerang prompts. Prompts were intelligent, thought-provoking and open-ended enough that I could easily customize to be either a simple writing assignment or a more complex one. After the writing, we would sit together, discuss answers and do a bit of editing on what was written – as an informal writing lesson. Is this program a “writing program”? No. But it got my kiddos actually WRITING – whereas many other writing programs had them crying. And then, once crying was over, they would write – and it would be shlop.
Very happy to have them writing intelligently now thanks to the Pouch of Boomerangs. Given that my kids are BOOK lovers but writing haters, this was the perfect fit.
May 18, 2016 at 11:50 pm
Tjbowman34
Participant
I was just on their website and I am at a TOTAL loss….LOL! Why is this so complicated for me to follow? I’m thinking I need to get Partnership Writing, however, at the bottom of the page it says “Here’s how it works” and lists 3 steps. So do I need to buy The Writer’s Jungle, The Arrow and Partnership Writing? Maybe my brain is tired and I need to go to bed! 🙂
May 19, 2016 at 5:04 am
Tristan
Participant
The Arrow would be a literature guide that just gives you copywork/dictation and a language mechanics type lesson for the month while you read that book. If you are already using CM things you don’t need the Arrow. (We don’t use them. We just use the projects in Partnership Writing or the other age guides). Again, The Writer’s Jungle isn’t needed to start. I like it, I read it myself over the summer most years, but I don’t use it day to day when teaching the kids because it doesn’t have assignments.
May 19, 2016 at 8:48 am
Tjbowman34
Participant
Thanks Tristan!! That helps a lot!
Tameka 🙂