Raising a Writer

For many families, including ours, summer is a more laid-back time where students have fewer classes and ongoing assignments, and thus more time to devote to activities that might be squeezed out during the traditional academic year.  For many families, this is a good time to explore creative writing, since creative writing, particularly for young and emerging writers, often blossoms better in an environment with fewer deadlines and distractions.

But raising a writer is not an obvious thing.  What can we do as parents to help encourage our children to write?

This blog post has some fantastic suggestions by M. Molly Backes, who works in a writers center in Chicago and has just published her first YA novel, The Princesses of Iowa.  It is all about giving our children space, freedom, permission, and love--which, really, is probably the way to raise children period.  But it is a lovely and beautifully written post, so I won't ruin it by summarizing it for you--you'll just have to go check it out yourself.

One thing I can add to Ms. Backes' advice, however.  She advocates giving children journals and a really nice pen, and letting them go to it.  And while that will undoubtedly work for many children, it (like any educational technique) will not work for all.

I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that journal writing is something that is more attractive to girls than to boys.  Certainly, the idea did not go over well with my son when I suggested it several years ago.  However, we found something that worked better for him--blogging.  Writing a blog was more attractive to him because:

• it was physically easier for him to type than to hand write
• it has the "computer cool" factor
• it has the ability to incorporate graphics and videos and other media files
• it allows other people to read your content and post comments about it (which my son LOVES)

So, obviously, blog writing is very different than journal writing.  It is usually not going to encourage the heart-felt dream-making, the honest self analysis, the often painful search for one's identity and one's own truths that is often the task of journaling.  But again, not that I want to be sexist, but in observing my own son and his peers and talking to other moms, I don't find a lot of boys who are doing that kind of writing, although it seems a number of my friends have daughters who do.

Ideally, students would do both, especially if they really have a dream to be a writer.  But if the quest for more writing is coming from you at this point rather than them, give them a choice.  If you've been trying to get them to journal and they refuse try, see if writing a blog is better received--and vice versa.

It has certainly worked for us.  When my son started middle school, I asked him to start blogging.  And, as I've stated before, since I don't believe in giving my son assignments that I wouldn't or haven't done myself, I started this blog at the same time.  We have both really enjoyed it and grown and developed tremendously.  It has been almost two years now and my son has written hundreds of posts--varied in length and quality, of course, but written consistently and usually fairly well.  It has improved his writing, his spelling, and his grammar.  And it has turned out to be a way for him to connect with his grandfathers and aunts and uncles who live far away and don't get to see him on a regular basis.

Of course, there are those who don't approve of encouraging middle school blogging.  I thought this blog post and resulting comments on Why Should Middle School Student Blog? was an interesting exchange about the pros and cons of blogging.  But for us, the experience has DEFINITELY been a great area of growth and learning.

Finally, I would say that my son was not a reluctant writer.  But if your children are not self-starters when it comes to writing, you may need to give them writing prompts, regardless if they are journaling or blogging.  There are many, many sources for writing prompts, but I'm liking the ideas being posted daily (during the week) on Pinterest by Atlanta-based writer Anjali Enjeti.  I find them varied and interesting, and the whole Pinterest thing is novel for digitally-aware students like my son.  Plus, by being on Pinterest, they are more visual, which I think make them more attractive to visual learners like my son.

If anyone has any other great resources for getting young adolescents and teens to grow as writers, please post them in the comments below.

New Year's Eve 2011 Blog: Highlights of 2011

It's the last day of the year--a time for looking back and appreciating what has been a pretty great year.  One of the things that I love about having a blog is that it captures much of what we've done, which makes it much easier when trying to recall the highlights of the year.  If I didn't write about it in my blog, then it probably wasn't that important to me.

So here is my assessment of my personal and blog-related top items for the year 2011:

#1 Personal Achievement of the Year:
Participating in NaNoWriMo and finally writing a 62,384 word book

Runner Up:
Leading my first online/distance education class on The Psychology of Math Education

These are both things that I've been saying for years that I wanted to do, so I'm really glad that I finally did them instead of just talking about them.  So I'm very grateful to my son for talking me into doing the former, and to my friend Maria Droujkova for talking me into doing the latter.


#1 Major Art Exhibit of the Year:
American Chronicles:  The Art of Norman Rockwell at the North Carolina Museum of Art

Runner Up:
Rembrandt in America at the North Carolina Museum of Art

I think these two exhibits beat out all the great art we get to see in DC galleries when we go up there to visit my father because we took guided tours for both these exhibits, whereas we are just looking at the art on our own when we are viewing art in Washington.   Both the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Nasher Gallergy at Duke University do an excellent job on their educational tours, and we try to schedule a group trip for all the major exhibits, because it is well worth the effort.

What is particularly special about both these exhibits, however, is the fact that I didn't particular appreciate either of those two artists prior to these exhibits.  After taking the tours, however, I had to wonder about how I could have been so blind to their artistic abilities.  I have especially changed my mind about Norman Rockwell.  I used to think his work was simplistic and commercial; now I see it as simple and iconic.  It now reminds me of something I learned recently in researching the Buddhism unit I am currently teaching in World Religions.  The Buddhists say we look, but we do not see, because if we truly saw, we would be blown away by every leaf, every flower, every stone, and every face we ever viewed.  But that was kind of how Norman Rockwell lived--seeing the extraordinary in what people like me dismissed as ordinary.  So that exhibit was a great lesson for me, not only about art, but about life.


#1 Local Gallery Exhibit of the Year:
Carbon Load by Jenny Eggleston at Artspace

Runner Up:
ARTQUILTSrepurposed by Professional Art Quilters of America-South at the Page-Walker Arts and History Center


This is a tough category, because we've seen a lot of great art at our local galleries, fans that we are of First Friday in downtown Raleigh and Final Friday in downtown Cary.  But Jenny Eggleston's exhibit, who also happens to be my son's best art teacher ever, was so creative, so inventive, so beautiful, and with such an important message that even just remembering it brings tears to my eyes.  And we always look forward to the annual ARTQUILTS exhibit, which are not only beautiful, but make us rethink what it is to be a quilt.


Best New Addition to the Local Arts Scene:
The Cary Arts Center

Runner Up:
Chambers Art

Two fantastic new venues for all sorts of arts, and both within walking distance from our house!

#1 Museum Exhibit of the Year:

The Crochet Coral Reef at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

Runner Up:

State of Deception:  The Power of Nazi Propaganda at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

I can't believe I didn't post about the Crochet Coral Reef, since it was the inspiration for the Ocean Studies Coop we are doing this year and will be a major focus of next year's activities--stay tuned for more details soon.  But the State of Deception exhibit was the best thing I've ever seen in terms of explaining how Hitler managed to do all that he did.  It's an incredible exhibit.

#1 Blog Post of the Year (by number of views):

Black History Month Lesson Plan:  African American Quilt Art

Runner Ups (tied for number of views):

Mother's Employment Increases Children's Health Risks

Lesson Plan:  Miracles of Jesus About Food

Lesson Plan:  MBTI for Teens/Tweens

Other than that, as I look back, there have been so many great books, so many great classes, so many great friends, and so many great times that I just can't go into them all.  But many thanks to all of you who have helped to make 2011 such a wonderful year for me and my family and our communities, whether physical or virtual.

And I can't wait to see what 2012 has in store!

Happy New Year's Eve to all!

Are You Downloading Ebooks, eBooks, ebooks, or e-books?

Grammar is a topic we do here on a regular basis because I think one of the most important academic skills I can teach my son is to communicate well.  However, English being the highly adaptable language it is, it is hard to find a definitive source to settle some of the grammar questions about recent English language use.

The title gives one such example.  Many of us are getting our books in digital format, whether it is a novel to be read on the iPad, Nook, or other such electronic book device, or curriculum, resource material, or other such items.

But when we download these items, what is the proper way to refer to them?  Are they Ebooks?  eBooks? ebooks?  or e-books?

One site I've found that helps with such questions as this is Daily Writing Tips.   Not only do they debate topics like this, they have lots of resources on the subject, including a section on Grammar 101 and a basic grammar (their choice is) eBook (although they suggest that the most popular choice is probably e-book).  If you subscribe to their blog, you will get a daily email relating to writing, which can be helpful to students, teachers, and bloggers alike.

Curriculum Resource: Visiting Presidential Libraries

I realized that I haven't mentioned on this blog one of the American history and civics resources I've been following this summer.  My youngest brother, David Cross, has been on a quest to visit all 13 of the official American Presidential libraries.  The great thing is that we can participate virtually by checking into his blog, Across the Country with the Presidents.

David is a lawyer, a part-time writer, and, like most of my family, an aficionado of politics and American civic history.  He plans to write a book about his trip, which is centered around what determines a President's long-term reputation and whether their presidential libraries play a role in that.  (For a full explanation of his project, click here.)

So of course I am biased, but I think he does a great job of capturing the zeitgeist of the places he visits.  And I think he makes a good case that for all these guys, even with all the modern PR techniques and carefully controlled messages and media manipulation and such, that you learn something about their core by seeing where they came from and observing how they try to lay out their legacy.

So if you have the opportunity to visit some of these places yourself, I would recommend you do so.  It helps these historical figures come alive and seem more human to students of all ages.  But if you can't get there yourself, then check out his blog.  It is certainly something I plan to use as we study 20th century history this year.

First Anniversary!

Speaking of looking back.....

Today is the last day of the first year of the Teaching Your Middle Schooler blog.  When I started this blog on September 7, 2010 (with that memorable post of  Are Bella and Edward LITERALLY Warping Your Adolescent's Brain?,  foreshadowing a much more famous debate on this issue in the New York Times),  my motivation to actually do it (as opposed to however many years I had been TALKING about doing it) was that I wanted my son to start a blog as a means of getting him to write regularly, and I didn't think I should ask him to do it if I weren't willing to do it myself.

However, I had another goal for myself.  I really wanted to see if I could go for an entire year and actually write something on my blog every day for all 365 days.   And I'm glad to say that I did it!  Even over holidays and long field trip days and hurricane days and vacation days, I managed to post something every day for the past year.  In fact, it turns out that tonight's is my 391st post, so for a number of days, I even managed to post twice!

Perhaps even more exciting than the fact I actually did what I set out to do is the fact that so many of you all were willing to check out what I had to say.  As of tonight, we have had 17,257 page views from people outside our household, which I think is incredible.  I don't know how many unique visitors that is, but it has to be a bunch more than I ever thought would be interested in what I had to say.  Just over one quarter of those were from other countries, which I found really wonderful.  Again, I don't have a count of how many different countries visited my blog, but I know it was a bunch.  Yes, the biggest numbers have come from other English-speaking countries (UK, Canada, and Australia), but we've had visitors from every continent except Antarctica, and all sorts of different countries--big ones, small ones, technology-advanced ones, and technology-deprived ones.  I've had visitors from countries that I had to look up because I didn't know where they were, and I'm NOT one of those geography-deprived Americans who don't know where anything is.

So it has been thrilling to see the visits, and, really, an honor to share my thoughts with you all.  Thank you so much for coming and checking me out.

I also have to acknowledge my 12 year old son, who has also really stuck to his blog.  He never had a personal goal to write every day, but did most days, and has accumulated 369 posts.  So, to use one of his favorite expressions, Huzzah for him!

So I may not be quite so obsessed about writing every day this year as I was for the last one.  But I will continue to share my thoughts, resources, lesson plans, curriculum links, and opinions about education as it relates to our (roughly) 11-14 year olds.

So I hope you all will continue to visit as we launch into Year 2.

Teaching Blogging to Middle Schoolers and Teens: Group Projects

As I said in a post last week, I am co-teaching a class on blogging for middle schoolers and teen.  One of the things that we discussed last week were online projects students can do together to help build a community of people who have interests in similar things and to attract new readers to their own blogs.

Here are some examples of such group projects that we visited in our latest class:

Teen Book Club Blog Tour and Giveaway
Lipstick Laws Blog Tour by Amy Holder
This one was not initiated by teens, but it is geared towards them.  YA author Amy Holder is conducting a "blog tour" to promote her new teen novel, Lipstick Laws.  Blog Tours are similar to convention Book Tours, except that each day the author visits virtually a different blog instead of a different physical book store.  So Amy has arranged three weeks of unique online interviews, articles, and reviews on 15 different blogs that relate to Young Adult literature or teen culture.  She is also giving away one copy of her book each week by drawing among everyone who comments on her blog tour posts on the different blogs.

Teen Blog Theme Event
Make Believe:  A Peter Pan Event!
In this event (which was done last year), the teenage blogger invited readers to post something related to the book Peter Pan in one of four categories:  Peter Pan-related blog post, Neverland-style, My Own Neverland photoshoot, or Dreaming of Peter Pan.  Post authors had a week to post their entries and then the blog readers voted on their favorites.  The winning entries (which can be read here) got, besides eternal glory, a special graphic or blog button they could post proclaiming their vicory.

Teen Book Blog Carnival
Spring Reading Carnival
A blog carnival is where a bunch of blog all agree to post articles on a common subject during the same timespan, and readers go from blog to blog to blog, reading about that topic.  In this case, the carnival was organized by a bunch of different Young Adult novel review blog, with different book giveways among different genres (romance, paranormal, etc.).

Online Teen Fashion Contest
Nancy Drew Fashion Week
There are lots of teen fashion blogs, and quite a number of contests like this, where the blog presents a challenge and people post photos of outfits or clothes items that they think meet the challenge.  This particular one deal with dressing like fictional girl detective Nancy Drew in one of three categories:  Nancy Drew-Vintage (vintage clothes that look like they came out of the original versions in the 1940s-1970s), Nancy Drew-Modern (what Nancy Drew would look like today), and Nancy Drew-Costume (an actual Nancy Drew costume).

There are many other kinds of contest and events and other group activities, but these are some good examples to get your teen blogger's ideas flowing about how to create a group event around his/her blog, cause, and/or interests.

Blogging for Middle Schoolers and Teens

My friend Maria of Natural Math and I are teaching a class on blogging for our local coop.  Today we visited a number of blogs by teenagers or younger that have won awards, gotten some important local or national coverage, and/or have helped their authors achieve their goals or have an impact on the world.  I thought I would list them for others who are looking for some inspiration for what young people are doing with their blogs.

I've divided them into several categories:

Personal/Diary-Like Blogs
These are blogs that basically deal with the life, interests, events, and musings of it author.  Here are two example that were nominated for national awards:
Castles, Quills, and Cameras:  This is written by an 8th grade homeschool students.  In addition to her interest in writing, other key passions she has are books (Quills) and movies (Cameras).  Castles contains everything else:  her schoolwork, her spiritual beliefs, and other random events or thoughts.
Oh Clementine:  (Warning--this blog does have some mild profanity, so don't visit if that offends you or is against your family's rules):  Clementine is a quirky, highly right-brained 16 year old Canadian high schooler who loves dinosaurs, video games, music, and neon.  She is passionate about her politics, which are liberal, but is not loving her high school education.

These examples illustrate some important points about writing interesting and successful personal blogs.  The main thing is, you have to have something interesting and valuable to say.  It helps to be humorous and  to provide helpful information, to be honest about yourself and your weaknesses or failures as well as your successes, and to include content or thoughts that are relevant to the experience or interests of your readers.

Project or Cause Blogs
These are blogs that done to chronicle some other larger project, fundraising, educational, or social or environmental cause.  Here are two by younger populations:
Team PyroTech:  Team PyroTech is a local team of high schoolers competing in the FIRST FRC national robotics competition.  While the primary emphasis of the project is the construct and program large robots to perform the tasks required by the contest, the teams get extra points for having exemplary supporting media, such as videos, websites, and blogs.
Wyatt Workman: Now, this one is just adorable.  A seven-year-old boy living in California who is concerned about the oceans decided to make a claymation film, publish a book, and sell his clay figures at an art show, with all the proceeds going to an environmental nonprofit.  His blog has updates about the media coverage of his work (he's been interviewed on television and national newspapers) and the funds he has raised (over $3,000 at last report).

Project or cause blogs generally support some larger effort, but are a great way to get media exposure or to get the word out to a larger audience than the ones who may be directly involved with the project.

Food Blogs
Food is one of the most popular topics for blogging, and that is true for teenagers as well as adults.  These two have both been nominated for national awards and mentioned in local media:
Foodie at 15 (Now 18):  Nick started sharing his recipe, cooking tips, impressions of great restaurants, and other food items when he was 15.  Now he is 18 and finishing up his senior year before heading to the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he plans to get the business acumen to go with his fantastic cooking and eventually open his own restaurant.  If you read his post on his ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, where he shares not only his personal experience with such cookies, his researching and adapting of the recipes of other famous chefs, his explanation of the science behind the changes he made, and the recipe itself, I'm sure you'll have no doubts that he will do exactly that.
17 (now 18) and Baking: Elissa, who is now a college student, doesn't plan a career in food, but is instead pursuing a journalism degree.  With the degree of professionalism her blog shows, she also seems assured of a bright future.  Her writing is good, her photographs of the food are GORGEOUS, and the recipes are luscious!

Personal Passion and/or Expertise Blogs
These two are example about how becoming an expert in a field that you love can really pay off:
Laura's Life:  When she was in second grade, Laura decided that she wanted to read all the Newbery Award winning books before she was in middle school.  Well, she did, and posted reviews of all of them on her blog.  Now she is working her way through the Fuse#8 Top 100 Children's Novels, as well as participating in Mock Newbery each year.  With hundreds of reviews on her site already, Laura is known by authors and people like the head of the ALA, and receives many free books now to review.  Oh, and she's only 10 years old.  Pretty amazing...
Style Rookie:  This is the queen of the successful teen blogs.  Tavi started blogging about fashion when she was 11, and has since been featured in the New York Times, Pop Magazine, French Vogue, and a number of other media.  This has led to her getting invited to front row seats at New York Fashion Week and the opportunity to write a Fashion Week article for Harper's Bazaar.  She also has designers sending her all kind of clothes and accessories.  Now 14 and in high school, Tavi is still going strong, sometimes getting 50,000 hits per day on her blog.

So there are some samples of outstanding blogs by teenagers or younger.  Have I missed any other teen or younger blogs that really stand out?  Add them to the comments below.

The Beginning

This is a beginning for us...the beginning of the new school year, the beginning of middle school.  As one of my son's new levels of academic expectation, now that he is doing middle school, he is going to start keeping a blog.  And since he is learning to blog, I thought it was about time I started doing it as well.  So this is the beginning of my blog about our journeys together in the wonderful new world of middle school.