How to Help Reluctant Writers, Interview with Kat Patrick

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: How to Help Reluctant Writers, Interview with Kat Patrick. How to Help Reluctant Writers, Interview with Kat Patrick Some teens are born writers. Many are not. Today our friend, Kat Patrick of Dreaming Spires Home Learning shares tips for building confidence and getting unstuck for teens who do not like writing. Kat, who was born in Texas but married an Oxford professor and lived in England for twenty-five years, has been with us for three episodes already: * Homeschooling in UK and US (A fun comparison of homeschooling her kids in both England and the United States) * Teaching Shakespeare and Loving It! (Kat shares about ways to enjoy Shakespeare as only a Brit could do) * Research Paper Writing (a popular episode where Kat shares her expertise in training teens for research paper writing) And Kat's daughter, Lauren Patrick joined us right before she headed off to her freshman year at Mt. Holyoke University * How I Prepared for a Competitive College, Interview with Lauren Patrick Some of Kat's teens have been enthusiastic writers but some were reluctant writers. Kat has used Charlotte Mason's phases of developing a happy writer in helping her reluctant writers. Here are the phases as Kat teaches them in seminars and in her Dreaming Spires courses: What do I mean by writing? * Handwriting is the first stage. * Believe it or not, this is so important. It helps develop the brain and skills in capturing words. * As Vicki points out that when she is working with her counseling clients, she tells them that handwriting a gratitude list actually helps some of the calm-down parts of the brain. * Kat points out that this skill also helps develop attention and memorization along with picturing words in their heads * It also helps develop vocabulary and sentence-creation skills * You can use copywork to develop this skill. * Copy quotes by hand * Copy Scripture by hand * Copy poetry by hand Reading and telling back what you are reading is important to good writing * Kat recommends a book Know and Tell by Karen Glass that helps explain this skills * Teens can read and explain their reading to their mom. * This will help them build comprehension and inferential skills. * It also helps teens learn to capture their thoughts in a non-threatening way. Then begin to write these ideas on in a jotting sort of way * Just jot ideas from on paper with no stress, no rules * Eventually, mom can ask for 150 words, then 200, etc * Then use this as the basis for a composition Eventually, teens will learn to use these skills for composition * Ask teens to identify their audience * Ask teens to understand the format or genre of their composition * A good composition to start with is letter writing * Then write a journalistic/newspaper style article * You write a who-what-when-where-why type paragraph to start * Fill in interesting details afterwards