Carnival of Homeschooling- The NaNoWriMo Edition

Preface

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Welcome to this hundred-and-umpteenth Carnival of Homeschooling! Because November is National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo or nano), and I’m over 10,000 words into the writing process (and can’t think of anything but writing, writing, and more writing), I thought it would be appropriate to format this Carnival as sections of a book. I even consulted the Chicago Manual of Style for an authoritative list of book parts!

Introduction

For me, homeschooling is first and foremost a heart matter. In Mangled Schedules and Grateful Hearts, an article I wrote for Home School Enrichment magazine, you can read how a father’s presence and influence can shape a family school. Enjoy! Read more

Celebrate National Punctuation Day!

Okay, students, put on your party hats! It’s time to celebrate the not-so-lowly punctuation mark. We’re a little late to join the baking contest planned as part of the celebration, but there nothing stopping us from using commas, periods, apostrophes, and semi-colons to our hearts content. Choose your favorite punctuation mark and make merry!

Imagine a worldundefinedwithout punctuation a world in which wed have to guess at meanings and try to read smoothly without the aid of those handy little signals imagine how silly wed sound stumbling through Dickens or trying to skim through Hamlets soliloquy to be or not to be that is the question whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them to die to sleep no more and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to making sense of that without punctuation could be quite a nightmare especially for 10th graders if they are allowed to read Shakespeare anymore

Jeff Rubin, the founder of National Punctuation Day offers tongue-in-cheek suggestions for how to celebrate the holiday, including:

Rubin has graciously provided a page of horrifyingly funny pictures of errors spotted in public places (and instructions for how you can submit your own photos) . TIP: If you don’t find all the photos on this page hilarious, find a grammatically-correct friend to explain the joke. They’re too funny to miss!

P.S. The fact that I find these common errors funny doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally overlook things in my own writing. It also doesn’t mean that I check incoming e-mails for typos. I’m not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be. I’m always writing under deadline, and I expect that you are too, so don’t worry about having your comments or e-mails perfectly proofread. I don’t have the time or inclination. I just like to hear from you–with or without typos!

Andrew Pudewa’s Video on Excellence In Literature

I know that many of you still have a lot of questions about Excellence in Literature. Andrew Pudewa of the Institute for Excellence in Writing has just put together a little video (about two minutes long) to give you an overview of the EIL approach.

If you have enjoyed IEW’s materials, or if you have a teen who loves to read or write, I think you’ll find that Excellence in Literature is an ideal next step for your motivated teens. But I’ll let Andrew tell you all about it!

IEW co-published the American and British Literature levels with me, but there are three other levels (Introduction to Literature is a available now; Literature and Composition and World Literature will be available by late summer, Lord willing–if all goes as planned). All five levels have the same format and approach, and they don’t have to be used in order. You’ll find more about them at www.ExcellenceInLiterature.com.

One of our Convention Season Specials is Evaluate Writing the Easy Way for only $5 with the purchase of any level of Excellence in Literature. This offer is good through July 12, so don’t miss it!

Note: If the video doesn’t show up for you, try playing it at the original site.

The Discipline of Writing & NaNoWriMo

I was sitting at a sidewalk table last week, enjoying a cup of coffee, when I overheard a group of twenty-somethings at the next table talking about the writers’ conference that was starting over the weekend. The conversation turned to the art of writing.

“It just takes so long to get inspired…”

“I get stuck making the first paragraph perfect, and never get any farther.”

“I get this great idea, then the phone rings, and it’s my friend, and I end up going out and when I get back the idea is gone, and I don’t have anything to say.”

“There’s just not enough time. I get home from work, and it’s dinner, catch the news, work out, go out with friends, walk the dog, call my mom, whatever. There’s just not enough time to write.”

“When I write, I have to get my music going, light candles, make sure everything’s perfect, then I can get in the the mood, and it will all flow.”

“I can write pages and pages, and I know it’s good, so I don’t even have to go back to read it. Someday, I’m going to sit down and write a whole book.”

Anytime I hear a conversation about writing, I’m fascinated. Writing is my avocation– something I’ve done steadily since childhood, at one level or another. Although I started with some of the same ideas as the young people I overheard, I’ve since learned a few things. Read more