Cathy Larson
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Do some writing this summer

6/20/2016

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I began working with a few dozen kids this week at my two week writing camp that I run every year at Rush Park. Every day begins with a large circle activity that allows all the kids to get to know each other.  I ask a leading question and everyone takes a turn answering it. Activities like this remind me why television programs with children are always so popular -- kids are hilarious!

This week I started our camp with this question: “How often are you asked to write in school?”

I like to get a feel for how much experience and practice these young writers have in probably the only setting where they get to write. The answers this summer were more encouraging than they have been in past summers-- it seems teachers are building more writing into their curriculum -- but I am still amazed at the number of kids who respond with answers like “once a week” and “once a month.”

I’m a teacher and a parent, so I understand the importance of taking everything a child says with a grain of salt. And my neighbor would add that an adult can tell teenagers are lying “when their mouths move.” Regardless, I do trust my campers when they tell me writing doesn’t happen very often. I’m especially saddened when I also hear comments from them about not having the freedom to pick their own topics, not getting help when they get stuck, and being told all the things they’re doing wrong.

I work diligently during camp every summer to help kids experience the joy of writing. We play with language, practice writing strategies, experiment with topics, build fluency and work on authentic voice. In the end, however, what we’ve built is their confidence in knowing they can write -- that writing is nothing to fear.

Even if your little ones aren’t joining us in camp this summer, I wanted to take the time to encourage you to give them this same opportunity. A little time spent this summer encouraging “play” with writing will absolutely pay off during the next school year.

Here are a few ideas to try.

Encourage your child to keep a daily journal. This enables freedom of expression and opportunities to take risks with topic choices. You can even do this electronically with a blog. I like Blogspot through Google. It's easy to setup and easy to post entries. Additionally, get extended family to follow their blog; your kids will love the feedback, and it will encourage even more writing and more posts.

Write stories as a family about your individual days or a family vacation that you then share with each other. You'll be amazed at how different your perspectives can be. And take your writing outside, as this is the one piece of feedback we get from our young writers every year ... they love the freedom of writing in the park.

Write letters to family members or friends who live far away. Write them by hand and by email, as sometimes introducing the electronic media for communication makes it more fun.

Set a timer when writing. This reminds your kids that writing is not about page length or number of sentences; it's about using whatever space is needed to tell the story. You can even do this as a family, and then share your pieces with each other.

Participate in writing contests. When they have a real audience, with the potential for a prize of any kind, you’ll be amazed at how interested in writing they can be.

Get them writing Yelp reviews for restaurants you visit. This will help your kids understand how to write for a specific purpose.  

Regardless the ideas you try, please remember that writing is about discovery, fluency, voice, experimentation, and storytelling. Please, whatever you do, do not focus on the conventions. There is plenty of instruction in our schools about conventions. In fact, it is usually this instruction that causes anxiety and reluctance in kids. Imagine writing from your own heart about something personal, only to have someone tell you all the things you did wrong: misspelled words, wrong verb tense, lack of periods. These conventions are important for final pieces, but unnecessarily halt the creative process. Please let your children continue to develop as writers, build on the successes, practice without fear of evaluation, and learn to love the process. This will be more powerful than any properly spelled adjective ... I promise!
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Enjoy your summer and write away!
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Summer Homework Blues

5/9/2016

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A group of families, including my own, spent this past weekend in Santa Ynez camping, barbequing, golfing, enjoying each other’s company, wine tasting and running a half marathon. The weekend couldn’t have been better. The parents found time to relax, and the kids spent time being kids: catching snakes, walking to the alpaca farm, playing bocce ball, and roasting s’mores.

The weekend reminded me that summer is coming. The lazy days of summer wherein our engines are recharged doing those things that inspire us and give us purpose. This may include traveling, hanging by the pool, hiking with the family, or even engaging in new hobbies. What it shouldn’t include is pressure from our schools to complete summer homework.

Summer homework is like requiring an adult taking a two week vacation to spend some time every day of that vacation reading and writing reports for a client who expects a full proposal or accounting the first morning they arrive back at work. Has this ever happened to an adult? Absolutely. Once in a blue moon. But it doesn’t happen at every vacation, and I can’t imagine an entire career rests on this first morning back. So why do we expect this of our kids?

Summer needs to be a time for our children to follow a passion, get an internship, create a business, play a sport, develop new skills, volunteer or pick up a book for pleasure and enjoyment. I know that’s what I do, and I know that’s what most teachers do.

But this doesn’t mean our minds are inactive.

Active minds are important in the summer to prevent the “summer slide,” but that activity doesn’t need to be studying environmental science, world history or even the “The Odyssey.” Activity comes in the form of creativity, engagement, creation and innovation. Activity comes from team building, group play and problem solving. Activity comes from participating in the local library’s summer reading program, setting goals and discovering new authors.

What activities hamper real growth and stall passion? Rote memorization and pages of outlines. The exact kinds of activities the summer homework requires. Rather than read chapters in a science book, our kids need to go out and plant a straw bale garden. Rather than complete history outlines, what if they instead traveled to an historic city or museum. Rather than read literature written in 700 B.C., how about they try to write their own short stories or rediscover a love of reading -- actually find a genre that gets them excited about reading again.

Summer should be a time to refuel for the upcoming race. Adults who work year-round jobs would kill for the concept of the old-fashioned summer. So why are we stripping our kids of those carefree days that build the foundation for nostalgia? Let’s allow our children the benefit of stepping out of the rat race for just a few months, in order for them to be able to tackle it head on with a full tank of gas come September. They’ll all be better for it.
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And isn’t that the point?
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It's Time to Re-Evaluate Summer Homework

11/16/2015

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The summer before my freshman year of high school, I was required to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) and Great Expectations (Charles Dickens). I remember sitting on my parent’s bed struggling to finish both novels but enjoying the process of tackling the stories and feeling confident upon completion that I’d done it on my own. As hard as it is for anyone to believe me, today Great Expectations is one of my favorite novels. I argue this is the case because I conquered it on my own when I was just a kid.

However, that’s not the end of the story. I also argue it’s one of my favorites because my teacher introduced me to Pip and Miss Havisham and Estella in her unique and talented way once we started school that year. My only job that summer was to get through the texts. Upon our return to class, my teacher spent the first weeks of school helping us unpack them. These two texts are complex, intricate, long and written in the 1800’s -- not one of these qualities conducive to generating a teen’s interest over summer. Nevertheless, I completed them and felt a sense of accomplishment when I finished.

What I wasn’t expected to do upon my return to class in September was take a comprehension exam, a vocabulary test, and a character quiz that either set me up for success or failure within the first days of school. While reading the novels over the summer, I wasn’t stressed to the point of needing expensive private tutors, study groups, Cliffs Notes, Sparknotes, and Wikipedia (if it’d existed) just to be “prepared” to be tested on day 1 of the new school year -- especially if I’d finished my work at the beginning of summer and felt like I needed to re-read everything.

I’m sure my teachers must have been aware of the “summer loss” we hear so much about today. They knew a summer reading assignment was a good idea to keep us engaged. They must also have been aware of the importance of their role in teaching. Yes, my teacher challenged me with complex texts, but knew that I was going to need her for strategies to maneuver the subtleties of the themes, to glean context from character’s names, to approach 19th century language, to understand the power of the cliff hanger, audience, figurative language, satire, and tone, and to be able to synthesize the symbols from both novels to make an argument about classic, canonical literature. These are sophisticated texts with sophisticated needs that I, as a fifteen year old, couldn’t cognitively grasp without her support.

I am not opposed to summer homework, but I’d like to see it approached in a way that celebrates teaching and teachers while giving kids opportunities to both enjoy their summer and challenge their mind. Using summer homework to kick start the curriculum workload isn’t a bad idea, but expecting kids to be able to unpack a challenging text without assistant for the purpose of a summative assessment is unfair and erroneous.  

I will argue any day that testing isn’t the point of education; rather, it’s the learning and love of the process that allows success. So why do we continue to treat education as punitive process? Why do we expect students to learn material on their own and then punish them when they struggle? How does this “more,” over a time during which our kids are supposedly on break, equate to “rigor”?

As parents, it’s time we ask our school leadership teams, the LAUSD district curriculum division, and our school board to step in and re-evaluate the purpose of summer homework.

And because we are only in the first half of the school year -- there is still time for us all to have discussions and, ideally, influence change.
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Why does summer homework mean summer stress?

9/3/2014

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The summer before my freshman year of high school, I was required to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) and Great Expectations (Charles Dickens). I remember sitting on my parent’s bed struggling to finish just the number of pages I was expected to get through, but enjoying the process of tackling the story and feeling confident upon completion that I’d done it on my own. As hard as it is for anyone to believe me, today Great Expectations is one of my favorite novels. I argue this is the case because I was expected to read it on my own.

However, that’s not the end of the story. I also argue it’s one of my favorites because my teacher introduced me to Pip and Miss Havisham and Estella in her unique and talented way once we started school that year. My only job that summer was to get through the texts. Upon our return to class, my teacher spent the first months of school helping us unpack them.

What I wasn’t expected to do upon my return to class in September was take a comprehension exam, a vocabulary test, and a character quiz that either set me up for success or failure within the first days of school. While reading the novels over the summer, I wasn’t stressed to the point of needing expensive private tutors, Cliffs Notes, Spark Notes, Wikipedia (if it’d existed) just to be “prepared” to be tested on day 1 of the new school year.

I’m sure my teachers must have been aware of the summer loss that we hear so much about today. They knew a summer reading assignment was a good idea. They must also have been aware of the importance of their role in teaching. Yes, my teacher challenged me with complex text, but knew that I was going to need her for:

  • strategies for how to maneuver the subtleties of the themes
  • background for how to glean context from character’s names
  • approaches on how to read 19th century literature with all its language challenges
  • help in understanding the power of the cliff hanger, audience and figurative language in relationship to the author’s staying power
  • assistance in synthesizing the symbols from both novels to make an argument about classic, canonical literature

I am not opposed to summer homework, but I’d like to see it approached in a way that celebrates teaching and teachers while giving kids opportunities to enjoy their summers, challenge their minds, and kick start their curriculum work load in September.

Because I’ll argue any day that testing isn’t the point of education; rather, it’s the learning and love of the process that allows success.

Don’t you agree?
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