Writing. . .

When I was in the 7th grade I had an English teacher named Mrs. Reinboldt. She taught me to love writing. We had to write something every, single day in her class. We kept a journal that stayed in the classroom that only she could see. She didn't correct it but we knew she read it. It didn't matter how much or how little we wrote, we were just required to put something down on paper. I still have that journal somewhere and I remember very vividly pouring my little 7th grade heart onto the lined notebook paper and almost always feeling better about my situation afterwards. I continued to enjoy writing all the way through college and my mom was convinced that someday I would be an author! Who knows, maybe someday. . .

All that to say, teaching my kids to write has been one of my biggest challenges. The grammar rules and the spelling lessons are the easy part. It's the critiquing that's difficult. Just like with their artwork, the mother in me wants to say, "Oh, that's so wonderful!!" But the teacher in me is supposed to say, "Re-Write!!" Writing is just so personal. It doesn't have definitive, factual answers like math and history (well, history may not be the best example . . . ) so I've always just tried to encourage writing without using a lot of red-pencil instruction. It's been sporadic, at best, but today Zach was working on a writing assignment that he was really enjoying. Gloria seemed to pick up on that and decided to sit down and write one of her own. They spent over an hour sitting together on the couch diligently working on their respective papers.

Later, as I read through the words they had written I could see that, in spite of my feelings of inadequacies in this area, my kids are both good writers. The stories were funny and interesting and even had good spelling and punctuation. On the way home from church tonight, Gloria said, "I felt smart today in school".


Yeah, well, I felt like a good mom today in school . . .