Sarah Mackenzie (00:05):
Hello, hello. Welcome back to Read-Aloud Revival episode 235, the show that helps your kids fall in love with books and helps you fall in love with homeschooling. I’m your host, Sarah McKenzie. Today, I’ve got a couple of guests who are going to join me to talk about something I think is going to resonate with a lot of you, because I know that if you are a Read-Aloud Revival family, you are raising kids who love to read because that’s what we do around here. Often what follows is that those same kids who love to read don’t always, but often, are inspired to write, and then those young writers want feedback on their stories.
(00:48):
Of course, they do, but if we as parents aren’t exactly fiction writing experts or maybe we don’t even see ourselves as writers, we might feel like we don’t have much to offer in the way of feedback. I think this comes up especially for homeschoolers, because a lot of us, I think, intrinsically know that homeschooling is a fabulous place to grow young writers, but we also feel a little ill-equipped as their writing mentors, which is why I invited these particular guests on the show today. They were both homeschooled themselves. They’re homeschool graduates, and they’re both committed to mentoring young writers and helping parents become the mentors to their own young writers.
(01:27):
First up is Brett Harris. He’s the bestselling author of Do Hard Things that has over 600,000 copies sold. That’s amazing. He’s the co-founder of the Young Writers Workshop and the Author Conservatory. Both of those are programs that have trained thousands of writers since 2017. We’re going to talk about those programs more later. He’s also a personal mentor and coach for many of the world’s top young writers and authors. His mission, and I love this so much I cannot even tell you, is to raise up the next C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I’m so on board with this. I know some of you just went, “Oh, didn’t you?” I could hear you from here.
(02:09):
Kara Swanson is also here, and she is the Christy Award-winning author of stories about fairytales and fiery souls. She says she spent her childhood a little like a lost girl running barefoot through lush green jungles that inspired her multi-award winning Peter Pan retellings, Dust and Shadow. She’s also the co-founder with Brett of the Author Conservatory and she’s a faculty member for the Young Writers Workshop where she teaches young writers to craft sustainable author careers. Brett and Kara, you know I’m a big fan of one of your students in particular, Anna Rose Johnson. She’s the author of The Star That Always Stays. It’s a highly recommended historical fiction novel. Listeners, you can find that book in the show notes of this episode, which by the way, show notes are at readaloudrevival.com/235. Brett, Kara, welcome to the Read-Aloud Revival.
Brett Harris (03:10):
Thank you so much for having us, Sarah.
Kara Swanson (03:12):
Yes, thank you, Sarah. It’s such a joy to get to be here with you all.
Brett Harris (03:16):
We are big fans of Read-Aloud Revival. My wife and I are always going on your site to find recommendations and pointing people there if they need another good read for their family or for themselves personally.
Sarah Mackenzie (03:28):
Ah, thank you so much. Well, we are very like-minded in that one of the things I love that a young writer constantly tells parents… I think you guys go by Y-Dub. I think I hear people calling it Y-Dub. Is that a thing?
Brett Harris (03:40):
It’s a student derived name, because it’s YWW is the acronym for Young Writers Workshop and they figured out that you could just say Y-Dubs. So, it stuck.
Sarah Mackenzie (03:51):
Got it, got it. Yes, yes. I was at a conference and someone said it and I was like, “Wait, what is that? That sounds very cool and I need to know what this is.” So it works. So, one of these Y-Dubs things that you often say is that even if parents have no “writing expertise”, they already intrinsically know what makes for a good story, which I think we’re saying this all the time at Read-Aloud Revival. We’re created for stories. We are created as stories and every single one of us are telling and swapping and hearing stories every day. So, we’re much better equipped at storytelling and knowing good stories than we might think, but we don’t always know how to talk about it with our kids.
(04:33):
So, maybe we could start there. We have kids who are wanting to write, they want feedback on their writing, and we think, “I mean, I’m a reader and I read aloud to you, but I don’t really know why it works or what those key components are of a good story.” So how do we give feedback to our kids? I don’t know. Brett, do you want to start us off by helping us think through that question? How do we give feedback if we don’t really know the concepts and key terms that might help us?
Brett Harris (05:00):
Yeah. Well, I think for a lot of parents, and this is the classic homeschool parent insecurity, it goes all the way back to when my parents were pioneers in their homeschooling movement and they told people they were going to educate my older brothers at home. People looked at them like they were saying they were going to remove his appendix on the kitchen table. There is that insecurity of I’m not the expert. How could I possibly provide a healthy learning environment for my child to tackle all these school subjects? Over the decade since the homeschooling movement started, we’ve seen that parents can actually provide such an ideal environment, that the outcomes can be so good, and not just academically, but spiritually, character development, family closeness, all of these things.
(05:47):
Yet when we tackle a new subject or maybe a slightly more unusual subject like creative writing, the same insecurity, it pops right back up. Who am I? I am not equipped. I don’t have a degree in English or creative writing. How could I possibly help my kid with this? The reality is, like you said, every parent is so much more capable than they realize, because they have grown up watching films, reading books. I mean, Real-Aloud Revival families, come on, you guys know good stories. You know what a good story is like. You know what it feels like and you have those instincts inside you. I think where we get hung up is that we don’t know how to put what we already know and what we can feel into words.
(06:32):
So, if a child is sharing some creative writing with us, we have a sense of something that’s working or something that’s not working, but we don’t have the terminology to then explain to them what we’re seeing. So, one of the things that we like to do for parents is just give them some vocabulary, because as soon as you have the vocabulary, you realize, “Oh, I know this. I know this stuff. I can give feedback on this.” So when we’re teaching parents how to give feedback to students or to their children, we focus on two main categories and that’s characters and plot, the story and the people. Under characters, we focus on three main things. We want to make sure that each main character has a desire, a weakness, and a fear.
(07:20):
Under a plot, we want to make sure that the story includes goals, obstacles, and stakes. Of course, we could teach on each one of these elements, but as a parent, as you’re reading this child’s story, you can easily see, “What does this character want? What’s their desire? Do they have a weakness? Do they have a fear? What are they afraid of?” Under the story as a whole, what’s the goal? What are they trying to achieve? What are the obstacles that stand in their way? Are there high enough stakes that make us worried and wonder what’s going to happen and care about how it turns out? So again, I’ll stop there as just a big picture overview, but even just having these simple vocabulary terms and starting to draw those out of your child’s story is going to give you the ability to give really good feedback that’s going to level up what they’re able to produce.
Sarah Mackenzie (08:10):
I love this so much. I know you have a PDF for our listeners today. We’ll tell you at the end, listeners, how you can get that free PDF that really walks you through each of those pieces Brett just mentioned for characters, the desire, the weakness, and the fear, and for the plot, the goals, the obstacles, and the stakes. But what I specifically love, and this is in that PDF, is those questions that parents can ask themselves as they’re reading their child’s story. When I’m thinking about my child’s story and I look at it and they’re like, “Well, what do I do to make it better? Give me some feedback on this.”
(08:43):
I can just ask that question about the character. I can pick a character. Do I understand what this character desires? Because if I don’t, then that’s a place that the child can revisit their story and beef it up. That feels to me so helpful. I mean, so many homeschooling parents, I know we don’t really give grades. We’re not used to using a rubric. I don’t give grades to my own students, so I don’t use a rubric of any kind most of the time. But having some guiding questions that help me know how to give my child feedback, that feels like a real tool. So, I love that.
Brett Harris (09:20):
Yeah, there’s simple questions you can ask and that your child can learn to ask of themselves as they’re writing a story that really say, “Do I understand what the character’s main goal is in this scene? Is the goal in this scene clearly connected with the overall goal of the story?” and just simple questions like that that can really hone in on what’s working and what’s not working.
Sarah Mackenzie (09:44):
I know I said we just keep this really high level, but I’m looking at the PDF and I’m thinking, “Could you take us quickly through Edmund Pevensie from the Chronicles of Narnia? Could you take us through those main points, that whole desire, weakness, and fear for characters, and then goals, obstacle, stakes for plots?” Just so parents can hear how simple this is and how it’s not so complicated. Because what I’m seeing the descriptions in your PDF, I’m like, “Oh, yeah, this is totally doable.” I’d love for listeners to be able to hear how simple it is.
Brett Harris (10:16):
So a simple example of this is as we go through the Chronicles of Narnia and we take a character like Edmund Pevensie. What is his desire as a character? Well, his desire is to be greater than his older brother, Peter. What’s his weakness? Well, his weakness is related to that desire. He needs to be the greatest and the best. What’s his fear? Well, his fear is always having to do what Peter says. He doesn’t want Peter being the boss of him. It’s the classic big brother, younger brother squabble. Then as the story progresses, we have to ask, “What is the goal? What are the Pevensie’s trying to accomplish?” Of course, there’s a very clear goal in the Chronicles of Narnia and that’s to help defeat the White Witch, but there’s obstacles, right? There’s real obstacles.
(11:02):
They must overcome Edmund’s betrayal at the beginning of the story, the wolves, the White Witch’s army, and so much more. It’s these obstacles that stand in the way of our main characters and their goals that make the story exciting. Then we have the stakes. This is the cost of failure. What’s going to happen if they don’t succeed in reaching their goal? Of course, in the Chronicles of Narnia, Edmund and his siblings, the risk is that Narnia is going to be ruled forever by the White Witch and they themselves will be turned into stone. So, really high stakes that makes the cost of failure a driving motivation for readers to keep turning pages and find out what’s going to happen.
Sarah Mackenzie (11:43):
So good. I think that is a really clear framework. So, you can just ask yourself, “Do I know what the character desires? Do I know what their weakness is, and do I know what their fear is?” Because if you as the reader, as the parent reader don’t know that, then that means the writer has a little more work to do to get it on the page. So, that’s really, really fabulous.
Kara Swanson (12:01):
Something else that’s really valuable about knowing how to ask these questions of your student and then teaching the student to ask these questions of themselves is that at a very fundamental level, this is how a professional editor works. When you hire an editor or when you’re working with an editor in a traditional publishing house, a lot of what their job is to assess a project and see whether or not all these moving pieces are working together and whether or not the goal is actionable and whether or not the stakes make sense and that the arc is actually flowing well.
(12:32):
So, as your student learns how to navigate the questions from you as a parent, you’re actually really equipping them for a future as an author, because this at a much higher and probably a much more intense level is what they’re going to have to navigate when they get an edit letter from a publisher, when they submit an article to a nonfiction magazine to try and work with them. Any area of their life if they want to pursue writing traditionally and just in general professionally, they’re going to have to learn how to navigate feedback, how they’re going to navigate basically criticism and being able to have a solid answer to those questions.
(13:05):
So, you are not only preparing them to be stronger writers overall, but you are also very specifically preparing them to navigate dealing with professionals in the industry as they navigate answering the questions from you specifically.
Sarah Mackenzie (13:18):
That’s right. It’s giving them the exact tools that they’ll need, which is something I really value about the curriculum you use at Young Writer and the Author Conservatory, which feels to me different than other writing curriculum, because it matches so closely what I see in the professional writing world and traditional publishing. So, often my biggest frustration with writing curriculum is the advice that’s given in there is exactly the opposite of what I just got from my editor on my own writing. I’ll think how interesting that we teach students to write using tools or tips that are not actually employed by actual writers in the real world.
(13:56):
So, I love so much that you guys are so tuned into the skills that they’ll need in order to work with editors professionally as they go. So, it’s a double whammy. You’re not only just helping them become a better writer, but you’re also preparing them for a future of writing if that’s in there.
Kara Swanson (14:13):
That’s a huge cornerstone of why we started the Author Conservatory in the first place, because I’m not traditionally trained in terms of having an English degree. I learned on the job by working eight part-time jobs in the industry by the time I was 19 and just going to every conference that I could. My approach was really just learn and gain as much mentorship and feedback as I possibly could and learn by just showing up and sitting at the feet of those who knew a lot more than I did and learned from the people who were actually doing what I wanted to practically do. The more that I did that, I watched a lot of my peers who went more of a traditional route, realizing that the skills they were learning didn’t necessarily cross-apply or some of them did, but a vast majority didn’t.
(14:55):
So, I was able to be published by the time I was 21 and have been able to really just achieve some incredible milestones by the absolute grace of God and the generosity and kindness and mentorship of so many amazing people, but a lot of that was because of just diving in. I know you mentioned this in the beginning, Sarah, but the reason that I grew up a bit like a lost girl was because my parents were actually overseas missionaries. So, I spent 16 years overseas. So, when I say that I was homeschooled, I mean literally, we were in a village that was so remote, it was only accessible by airplane. We didn’t have electricity, roads, anything like that.
(15:33):
So, I grew up just inundated in another culture, learning how to understand that perspective, how to respect a lot of those experiences. Having my dad read Narnia out loud to us as we’re hunched under mosquito nets and learning how to shoot bow and arrow and all this stuff. So, I really learned my schooling on the job in the middle of a very unique life situation and gained a lot of, I think, just overall life experience really early and then took that same approach when it came to just jumping in with both feet and having just a voracious love of learning in how I approach my author career. It has just served me tremendously well and I think allowed me to be able to understand at just a very deep level how the industry works, but also how people work, which is incredibly important.
(16:21):
So, my parents using a similar practice when they approach how to teach their young people how to write and how to actually pour into those motivations, you’re really using the same heart behind a lot of the pieces that work really well with homeschooling to actually train. Then we’ve carried a lot of that heart and mission over into building out the conservatory and really creating something that feels more like a trade school with a lot of mentorship built into it.
Sarah Mackenzie (16:48):
Like an apprenticeship almost, feel. It’s so interesting to me, because to me as a homeschooling mom, one of the reasons I love homeschooling so much is it feels more connected to the real world. I mean, when we think about a classroom of 39-year-olds or 25 or even 9-year-olds, there’s never another time in real life where you’re in the same room doing the exact same thing with 20 other people your age. That’s just a very manufactured environment. The only place that exists is school. One of the things that I dealt with homeschooling, my oldest three who are all now graduated and we’ve got three still at home homeschooling, but our second is now at Savannah College of Art and Design studying sequential arts and illustration.
(17:33):
When she was homeschooling, she had an obvious inclination toward both writing and art. I remember feeling a lot of like, “Oh, am I giving her what she needs?” She wasn’t getting any formal art training, but she did have a lot of time to practice and explore. She had access to some internet resources that we were able to give her, what you were saying, Kara, like that autodidact, that self-teaching or teaching from mentors that you find. Then you can think about, “Oh, I need to work on…” A good example for is at one point, she was like, “I’m terrible at drawing hands. If I want to be an artist, I have to know how to draw hands.” So she gave herself a challenge where she drew a hand every day. I think it was a year. I think it was a whole year, and she has this sketchbook full…
(18:19):
She’s amazing at hands now, by the way, but that’s not necessarily what you would get if you were in a formal “art class”. They wouldn’t spend a whole year working on hands or whatever. It’s just one little example. But I think what I’d love for listeners to hear and I hope that they hear in what you were just saying about the way you grew up was that having an out-of-the-box educational experience is in many ways a great advantage toward being able to cultivate and grow those skills that God gave you for whatever that work is in the world that you are set out to do.
(18:56):
One of the things I think though that can be tricky is approaching our kids with feedback, because we’ve got these key concepts. Now, we know the questions we can ask about the characters and the plot. Again, we’ll let you know at the end of the show where you can get that download if you definitely want it, but what if our kids aren’t very receptive to it or is there something we could keep in mind as parents to how we approach our kids with feedback?
Kara Swanson (19:23):
That’s a great question. I love everything that Brett shared about walking your child through the right questions to ask. So, I’ll go ahead and jump in on this question. But yeah, I think there’s probably two really key things to keep in mind as you’re approaching your child and learning how to work with them and ask these questions. The first thing is that fiction or creative writing is significantly more personal than a lot of other kinds of writing. Now, there are other kinds of writing, more academic that can have a lot of personal elements to it, but it’s built into this method of they’re used to having even just the way that sentences are put together be very critiqued and poured over.
(20:01):
Whereas when it comes to creative writing, a lot of times I find that students use creative writing as an outlet before they use it as some kind of an overarching goal. Tons of students that I see, and I was this way growing up, it’ll take them a long time to even articulate that they want to be a writer or even call themselves or let alone an author. They’re terrified to even use a term because they’re like, “I’m not that yet. That’s huge. I haven’t even written a novel yet. That’s massive.”
Sarah Mackenzie (20:26):
They don’t have a cabin on the top of a mountain.
Kara Swanson (20:31):
Yes, that’s a magical [inaudible 00:20:32].
Sarah Mackenzie (20:31):
[inaudible 00:20:32]. Yeah.
Kara Swanson (20:32):
Exactly. Yes. So, realizing too that even if you have a child that’s pretty confident or one who squirrels the writing away secretively, they’re probably still a little bit nervous or maybe even a lot nervous. So, in order to be able to give feedback, you have to be able to show your child first that you are someone who is going to understand their heart as you approach their writing. You need to be able to show, “Hey, I am a safe place that you can trust to be able to see what you need as I approach your writing. I’m not going to just approach it from this perspective of I want to just…” Not that any parent would actually do this or think this, but a child may feel that you’re going to just rip into it or view it as this thing that you’re trying to make sure is up to snuff as it were.
(21:17):
So, being able to communicate to your child and sit with them and communicate, “Hey, I am really invested in what you’re doing. We want to lean into the things that our kids are excited about and that they care about.” So being able to first off say, “Hey, I’m really proud of you.” I think that giving feedback on writing is tremendously valuable, but to be honest, the thing that’s going to have the most lasting impact for your child is going to be your support as a parent. A parent’s support of their child’s writing will help that child navigate so many other large obstacles throughout their career, far more I would say even than just having a parent who gives feedback.
(21:51):
You have a parent who gives feedback but isn’t very verbally supportive and isn’t telling your child, “Hey, I believe you can do this. Hey, I’m rooting for you. Hey, I’m willing to invest in this with you,” that’s going to mean that one side of that feedback falls flat, because they’re not actually seeing that this is something that’s believed in. It’s just something that’s poured over as it were.
Sarah Mackenzie (22:09):
Kara, that resonates so much, because Tomie dePaola, the great illustrator, told me once about how when he was young… I’m going to get the age wrong. I want to say he was like seven or eight or nine, something like that. His mom reorganized the house so that the attic, I believe it was, could become his art studio. He still at 82 years old would talk about how that vote of confidence, and it really was just a physical, tangible vote from his mom of support. That’s really what it was like, “Oh, I believe in you as an artist.” That helped him believe in himself as an artist forever. So, I can hear you saying it’s like that support will actually go much further than any feedback you give your students.
Brett Harris (23:00):
I have to jump in here because this is something I’m so passionate about because this is really how my parents approached education as homeschoolers. My dad taught what he calls delight-directed study and the idea that as a parent, you are so uniquely positioned to identify what your child is passionate about, what delights them. Sarah, you’re talking about your daughter showing that interest in art and writing, and you recognize that. It can be as simple as, “Look, mom, another horse.” You’re like, “Okay, I’m seeing some signs.”
Sarah Mackenzie (23:32):
Yes, yes.
Brett Harris (23:33):
So you recognize that and you have an opportunity to make space. I love that story about Tomie dePaola of making a literal space for him to do his writing. We can make that space in terms of physical space, space in the schedule. We can make space by eventually investing in and supporting them and getting resources and good industry standard tools. But really, like Kara is saying, the very first step is just to be that supportive parent who recognizes those signs of delight and lets their children run with those delights and doesn’t hinder them.
Sarah Mackenzie (24:06):
Yeah, so good.
Kara Swanson (24:09):
Yeah, absolutely. I think too, it’s easy for us to underestimate just how incredibly powerful that will be. I know it has been tremendously helpful for me and for so many other young writers that as you’re navigating, there are going to be people who are standing at the gate waiting to make sure that you can pass through when it comes to actually stepping into the publishing industry, whether you’re pitching to agents and editors or other steps, and knowing that you have somebody who has your back, who believes in you, who’s rooting for you, who’s cheering you on. I mean, my grandmother paid to take me to my very first writer’s conference, and she actually went with me. That vote of confidence, even from a grandparent, was incredibly, incredibly powerful.
(24:54):
She would go with me. She was also a writer. So, she was actually writing a collection of stories about my childhood and all of her trips, but she would go with me to writer’s groups and all kinds of things. She was someone who was such a big advocate in my life for this, and knowing that she was there behind me, cheering me on meant so incredibly much. So, even if you are not able to give feedback to your children, that’s what we’re talking about. So, the hope is that you can, but even if all you do is just get excited with them, tell them that you’re proud of them, tell them that you know it’s hard.
(25:27):
Instead of looking at the time that they’re spending on their computer writing, they’re writing again, tell them like, “Wow, you’ve put in so much time toward this. This is amazing. You’re so invested.” Cheering on the things that they’re engaged in, because this industry is going to be really, really difficult. I mean anything is, but especially when they’re having to essentially get their hearts broken over and over again in some ways as they’re having to take this soul story of theirs and set it on the chopping block before these professional perspectives essentially.
(25:59):
The support of a parent who says, “You can do this. I saw you at 12 or 15 sitting there, writing draft after draft. You’ve got this,” that support is going to carry them so far through the rest of their career and their journey. So, if that’s all that you’re able to do, that is going to be tremendously more valuable than you can even imagine for your child.
Sarah Mackenzie (26:19):
Well, I just got back from a trip to Boston. I seem to do every time I’m in Boston. I drove to Concord, Massachusetts and went to Orchard House, which is the house where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women. They do these tours, and one of the things that they show you on this tour is the desk in Louisa’s room, which is not at all impressive. It’s just like a slab of wood on the wall where she wrote Little Women. One of the things that they say is that at the time, it was widely believed that writing was not good for women’s health. So, it was not proper to give your daughter a desk to write was very counterculture. It was very forward thinking of Bronson Alcott, and it also was like a vote. So, then we see this in other places in the house.
(27:12):
So, we saw it with him building this desk for Louisa. Yeah, not only do I believe in you as a writer, I think you should have your own space to write. I take it this seriously. Then you go to her younger sister, May’s room. May is the one who in Little Women is Amy, the youngest sister, the artist. All over her bedroom are her sketches. They let her write, draw pictures all over her wallpaper and stuff. In that time period, in the mid-19th century, the fact that her parents were like, “Oh, yeah, use the wallpaper as a canvas.” Again and again, I just keep feeling like I hear this message of that is really our supreme role as parents is to be that voice of support, that one that says, “I see it. Even if nobody else can see it yet, I can see it in you.” I love that.
Kara Swanson (27:54):
Yeah, that’s amazing. I love that so much. Yes, absolutely. Then once you’ve built that foundation of just belief in them and even you can bring this to me and I understand, then I would say it’s going to be really important to ask your child what they need from you, because there’s going to be seasons where they don’t actually need the intense feedback that we’re going to walk you through, the more in-depth feedback. They may just need you to tell them like, “Hey, I know today, you feel like you’re the worst writer who’s ever existed. That can’t be true. I believe in you. Hey, look, I love this piece of dialogue.”
(28:28):
They may just need you to be their cheerleader sometimes. I mean, I do this with my husband all the time, probably weekly. I’m like, “Hey, my writing must be terrible. I need to turn this into my editor. Can you read something and tell me it’s not horrible?” He’s like, “There, there, you’re fine.”
Sarah Mackenzie (28:43):
Then the next week as in the life of a writer, you’re like, “This is the best thing anyone’s ever written in the whole world.” Then you read it three days later. I’m like, “Maybe not. Maybe that’s not true.”
Kara Swanson (28:52):
Yeah, absolutely. But I think being able to ask your child what do they need from you in that season is going to be tremendously helpful. I have a very strong expectation that by doing that, even if they start out with like, “Well, I just need you to cheerlead,” by doing that, you’re going to form this bond with them where then they’ll be able to be like, “Well, I’ll give you the first chapter and you can give some feedback on it.” Realizing that they may not be ready for you to give them your full perspective just yet. That has to be okay because they’re building up their own sense of courage to be able to digest outside feedback on their writing. As they build up that muscle, it’s a skill that they’re learning, right?
(29:29):
They’re learning the skill skillset of how to take something that feels personal and that feels creative and feels probably insecure to them and be able to actually share it with someone else and actually digest through their feedback and detach the story that they’re writing from their own sense of identity and their own sense of worth. Because a lot of times, they’re going to take your feedback and anything negative as something personal, whether or not they even realize it. So, they need to learn how to set aside who they are as a person and their value as a storyteller and as a story who’s living.
(29:58):
Like you always say, Sarah, they need to be able to detach that from what they’re actually creating and be able to let you give feedback and view this as this is my parent who loves me, who loves what I’m doing, who’s rooting for me, who’s already told me that they’re excited for me. They’re investing in this writer’s conference, or whatever this thing is, and now they’re giving me good feedback and I can make it better. This is a joy. This is an opportunity to grow. So, you may need to walk them through those steps. You may need to teach them first that you are here as a parent who loves them and who sees the value in them as a person. Then you may need to show them, “Hey, I see the value in what you’re doing and that this is really hard.”
(30:31):
Then you may need to show them, “Hey, I see the value in your growth, and this is a part of your growth. This is a step in your growth and you will be able to continue to grow. What you’ll be doing next and how you’ll learn through this is going to be incredibly remarkable. Just keep going. Just keep learning and practicing your bravery.”
Sarah Mackenzie (30:48):
If you could tell parents to stop worrying about one thing in particular, I can think to myself, I have had a few people at conferences say, “Oh, I know one of your daughters is at art school. What was the most important thing you did?” It was honestly, I can say with all sincerity, just give them time, which was great. I had a hundred babies at the same time that this child was growing up. So, it was fabulous because she had all kinds of time because I couldn’t give her the time that I needed to, that I thought I needed to. This gift was that she had more time than she would’ve had if she was in school. That was really the thing that I would say to a parent who’s like, “What do we give my kid who’s artistically inclined?”
(31:30):
Especially because I’m not an artistically inclined, so I didn’t feel equipped in any other way. But what would you say to a parent who’s worrying about things? What would you say that’s one thing you don’t need to worry about at all?
Brett Harris (31:42):
Yeah, I think there’s two things that I would say. The first is what Kara said is don’t worry about correcting things so quickly. Don’t view your role as primarily corrective, but as encouraging and supportive. So, just that belief is so important. If they’re serious about this, they’re going to go and they’re going to get feedback. They’re going to get professional feedback and all of this. It’s just part of the process, but they need to have that base of support from you. So, don’t worry about I need to be the world’s best editor. Even when you are starting to give feedback, which is helpful and valuable, it’s a good safe place for them to start experiencing feedback. We like to talk about it as an encouragement sandwich.
(32:24):
So, one encouragement, one thing they can improve on, and then another encouragement. You can use this PDF we’re making available and all of these categories to say, “Hey, you’re doing a really great job. I can see a clear desire in this character. I know what he wants. That’s really good. Then I think we need to work on a few more obstacles, because it feels like it’s a little too easy, but I really think there’s great stakes. If he fails, the world’s going to blow up. That’s great.” So being able to sandwich it like that I think is really important. But the other thing that I think a lot of parents, especially of these creative writers, need to know they don’t have to worry so much about is the academic writing. That is not to say it’s not important.
(33:11):
It’s important while you’re in school. It’s important as long as you’re in school and if you ever want to be an academic and teach and all of that. But as we were talking about earlier, there’s a big difference between academic writing and real world writing.
Sarah Mackenzie (33:24):
Huge difference. Huge.
Brett Harris (33:24):
Yes. So, for these students who they clearly have this draw to real world writing, whether it’s creative writing, fiction, whether it’s blogging, whether it’s communication through speaking, podcasting, teaching, being able to say, “Hey, we recognize that what you’re aiming at is not what academic writing courses and curriculums are aimed at,” that’s still important too. There’s great resources. IEW, amazing curriculum, great foundation for a lot of our students, but as they get older, they really have got to focus on the actual target they’re shooting at, which is real world writing.
(34:01):
I can’t tell you how many publishers, how many business owners I’ve talked to who feel like they have to retrain college graduates and high school graduates to write in the real world, because the academic writing is, like you said, Sarah, it’s like the opposite sometimes of what they’re learning in school.
Sarah Mackenzie (34:21):
No one in the real world actually writes a topic, three supporting sentences, and a conclusion sentence that repeats what you just said. That never happens in the real world. It only happens at school. But we spend a whole lot of time teaching our kids how to do that writing, which is very interesting. What about you, Kara? What’s something you would tell parents not to worry about?
Kara Swanson (34:41):
This is going to sound really random, but I think I would not fixate too much on as they’re writing fiction, whether or not their grammar is perfect.
Sarah Mackenzie (34:51):
Excellent. Okay.
Kara Swanson (34:53):
They will learn some of those pieces over time, and spellcheck does exist. To this day, I always tell our students at the conservatory, I’m like, “I’m a really good writer. I’m a terrible speller, but I get hired to be a writer, not a speller. So, spellcheck exists.”
Sarah Mackenzie (35:07):
That’s right.
Kara Swanson (35:08):
So I would say too, you want to be able to give your child the space to just be really creative and free flowing. Sometimes that means their grammar’s not going to be great. There’s going to be a lot of run-on sentences or in my case, a lot of fractured, segmented sentences because they want to have the flow and the voice. So, give them the creative ability to not necessarily worry about whether or not they’re following all the rules when it comes to how they’re formatting. In a lot of ways, actually, like you were just talking about, Sarah, with your daughter, they need just the time and the freedom to be able to learn how to break the rules well sometimes.
(35:41):
They need to be able to learn how to lean into their own voice, lean into this type of story they’re trying to tell. Have them read widely and let them learn how to break the rules as they practice over and over and over again.
Sarah Mackenzie (35:54):
In the show notes to this podcast, I will share a link to this sample from Kate DiCamillo. I love this so much. It’s her first draft of the first chapter of Because of Winn-Dixie. When she writes her first draft, she doesn’t worry about capitalization. There’s almost no punctuation. Things are not spelled right. It is a mess. I love it so much, because I think a lot of times, we put all of those other pieces in place, like you’re saying, Kara, it gets in the way. We have to spell right or we have to get the grammar right or most writers I know don’t really know how to use commas. I’m raising my hand here. That’s why we have copy editors who do know how to use comas and can fix them for us. I’ll put the link in there.
(36:36):
So, if you have a student who would be inspired by it, it’s a link through Scholastic and it’s just really helpful to see the difference between… It compares her first draft of chapter one to her final draft of chapter one, and it has some notes in there from Kate on what happened in between those stages. But she says, her first drafts always look that bad, which I find extremely encouraging as a writer.
Kara Swanson (36:59):
Very validating. Yes.
Sarah Mackenzie (37:00):
Exactly. Exactly. So, good. Okay, so this was a lot of information into one podcast, but let’s think about first, what can our listeners do first if they’re inspired here and just want one tiny step they can take next?
Brett Harris (37:15):
Yeah, I think one of the easiest things to do, as we’ve already talked about, is just making that space and encouraging your young writer. I mean, that’s step one. Just start doing that and you’ll be ahead of so many people.
Sarah Mackenzie (37:29):
Even that physical space, right? The time and space.
Brett Harris (37:31):
Right, space in their schedule, giving them time. But another thing that I think is really good in between step before you’re giving feedback on their writing directly is to use this framework that we talked about, plot and characters, fears and desires and goals and plot obstacles. Use that to analyze the books and the movies that you’re already engaging with together as a family, because this is a great way to indirectly teach them. They’re analyzing someone else’s work, not their own heart story. So, it’s a great way to learn together, help them internalize good storytelling skills. You, too, right? You’re learning as well.
(38:09):
So, you’re reading a book. What’s the character’s goal? What’s the goal in the scene? How does that relate to the goal of the overall story? What obstacles are they facing? Oh, here’s another obstacle. You’re going from just being a consumer of stories to being a producer. So, your child is trying to learn how to create stories, so they need to start to read stories a little differently. We get really advanced with this inside the Author Conservatory. So, it’s actually annoying for some families to watch movies anymore with their kids, because they’re like, “He’s going to die, and in a few minutes, everything’s going to fall apart.”
Sarah Mackenzie (38:45):
I love it.
Brett Harris (38:45):
But it’s because they’re pursuing this professionally and they’re becoming producers of stories. So, they’ve got to be able to understand it at that level. So, I think that’s a really easy first place to start. Use this framework, use these concepts, not to critique their stories yet, but to critique the stories you’re already engaging with together.
Sarah Mackenzie (39:03):
Fabulous. You can grab that download. So, this PDF download from Young Writer is super fabulous. It’s a very simple framework that shows you the questions that you can ask about character and plot that will help you do exactly what Brett and Kara have been talking about today. You can get that by going to theyoungwriter.com/rar for Read-Aloud Revival. So, theyoungwriter.com/rar to grab that free printable PDF. Kara, Brett, this has been so fabulous. I knew it would be, and I hope our listeners are very inspired to let their young writers fly. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Brett Harris (39:38):
Oh, thank you so much, Sarah. It’s been a joy.
Kara Swanson (39:41):
Oh, yes. Thank you so much, Sarah.
Sarah Mackenzie (39:45):
Wasn’t that so good? I really love the work Brett and Kara are doing both at the Young Writers Workshop and the Author Conservatory. You can find links to them in the show notes, readaloudrevival.com/235. That PDF, you really do want it. It’s a fabulous resource. I printed it out. I’m using it all the time as framework as I’m giving editorial feedback to my own writers. So, just visit theyoungwriter.com/rar and you’ll grab that free printable PDF. All right. It’s time for Let the Kids Speak, where we find out what Read-Aloud Revival kids are reading lately.
Elena (40:28):
My name is Elena and I live in North Carolina. I like The Boxcar Children and The Green Ember. I like them because they’re so fun. The Boxcar Children has so many mysteries and The Green Ember has so much adventure.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
My name is Terry.
Terry (40:52):
Terry!
Speaker 5 (40:54):
I’m one and a half. I’m from Texas and my favorite book is There Was a Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea by Jennifer Ward and illustrated by Steve Gray. My favorite thing about the book is that it’s silly and it got lots of repetition. I love the pictures. Yeah, you’re doing it. I love to shout, “Yippee-o-Ki-Yee!”
Terry (41:25):
Yippee-o-Ki-Yee!
Lion (41:33):
My name’s Lion and we live in North Carolina and my favorite book is Frog and Toad.
Lavender Height (41:40):
Hi, my name is Lavender Height. I live in North Carolina. My favorite book is Secret Garden. I love it because there’s so much freedom in it. I’m seven years old. Bye.
Jonah Thomas (41:54):
Hi, I’m Jonah Thomas. I’m 11 years old. I’m from Pasadena, Texas, and my favorite book is Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood by Nathan Hale. I liked how he told the story of World War I with animals.
Jeremiah (42:09):
I am Jeremiah and I am nine years old from Texas. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth Speare is my favorite book. Why I like it is because there is adventure and friends.
Sarah Mackenzie (42:29):
I will be back in two weeks with another episode. In the meantime, you know what to do. Go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books.
