This time of year is a fun time for homeschool moms. All the curriculum catalogs are arriving in the mail and it’s time for us to start making decisions about next year’s plans.
My family follows a literature-rich approach to homeschooling based on the methods of 19th century British educator Charlotte Mason. So the catalogs I get are crammed full of the best of the best in children’s novels.
As a homeschool teacher, I also get to choose how I teach Language Arts to my kids. As you can imagine, I have definite ideas about teaching writing. At first, I was doing my own thing since I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for. But then a fellow homeschooler (and former English professor) pointed me to the Institute for Excellence in Writing where they teach a method called Structure & Style.
This program had an interesting beginning: Dr. Webster, a professor at Dalhousie University in Canada, was teaching African History and noticed that his students weren’t prepared for the writing assignments he required. So, he began teaching writing at the beginning of each lecture. Word spread that if you wanted to learn how to write, take African History.
The Syllabus and Seminar Workbook sums up the program in a way that Larry Brooks, our guest this month, would approve:
Structure is rigid, style is fluid.
In the program, the kids learn patterns of structure, create outlines from source texts, then write their own paragraph or story based on the structure of the source text. Once they learn the structure, they can add various stylistic techniques which allow their creativity and voice to emerge.
My son, a panster by nature, started out baulking at the structure. But now, after writing numerous paragraphs, zips out his assignments with relative ease. His nonfiction has topic sentences and clincher endings. His short stories have actual beginnings, middles, and endings (as opposed to his NaNoWriMo opus that is much more episodic in nature.)
If he continues to show an interest in writing novel-length works, I’ll be bringing out the beat sheets and teaching him the finer points of story structure.
Thanks again, Mr. Larry Brooks, for an informative month. I still feel like I have a lot to learn, but I’m getting there!
And if you haven’t had quite enough of Story Structure, head on over to Laura Pauling’s website. I first found her site after she made a comment here on our blog. She’s been talking story structure lately as well. I’ll start you off here for a different perspective: Story Structure vs Voice in YA.
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6 users responded in this post
Holy cow! Can I come over and be homeschooled by you?
Now I’m shocked I can write at all after my mediocre public school upbringing.
Thanks for the link! Yes, I have been really studying story structure and how it relates to all the other aspects of our writing. I think it’s important enough to follow.
Sophia-Excellent! Next time my kids are acting out I’ll warn them there is a wait list to get into our homeschool so they better behave!
Laura-I thought you had an interesting take on story structure and wanted to pass the info along.
Shonna, I’m so glad you discovered the Structure and Style syllabus. I thought I’d told you about it. We used it and I loved it. Good observation about how it applies. I’d forgotten the “Structure is rigid, style is fluid” idea. Actually, it might have been stated a little differently. Something like “Hands on structure, hands off style.” But it definitely applies to all writing.
Stephanie–Hands off content (when grading a learning writer).
Very cool, Shonna and other commenters! I’ll have to ask more about this teaching method when I get back into teaching again. I wish some of my university teachers used this method – hands on structure, hands off style. I’ll try to keep it in mind as I do my peer critiques for the rest of the semester. Good to know!
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