"I'm both happy and mad at you" Daniel said to me.
YESSSS! The words were music to my ears. This was a major homeschooling victory for dad!
This is a somewhat different post than has been common to this blog, but I just had to share the fun we had last night.
Last Monday, Andrea came to me in a huff stating that Daniel refused to do the writing assignment she'd given him and had in fact drawn a big red "X" in crayon through the lesson in his book. He's not been doing well in writing - particularly creative writing - and she had him doing extra lessons in a supplementary workbook. When I asked Daniel about it, I was expecting to hear that the extra work was too much for him. He's been complaining about being overloaded lately and unable to get all his work done, etc. (even though it only takes 3-4 hrs a day.) But that wasn't his response. What he said was that he didn't have the creativity to come up with the things he was supposed to write about. It was seemingly painful for him to have to come up with a story to write even a single sentence or a paragraph. I told them I'd think about it and make a decision later that evening.
The furnace went out this week, so I've been a bit distracted with getting it replaced, but yesterday (Thurs) I finally told Andrea that I wanted him to do the extra lessons, but I wanted to do them with him, at least in the beginning. My thinking was that I would try to make this fun for him. Encouraging creativity in him is something I've wanted to do all his life anyway, and I know I've been dropping the ball of late. So this was a good chance for us to find a way to connect, foster creativity, and have some fun (hopefully) as well.
Just before dinner was ready, I opened his book to the assignment he'd crossed out and read the instructions. It was to create a single paragraph telling a story about being a scientist or archaeologist of some kind and making a great discovery. It could be about making the discovery or about the object itself.
I said to Daniel, "QUICK, think of either another country or another planet and tell me what it is. There was too much delay as he looked strangely at me and thought it over. "DON'T THINK, just answer! What's the first thing that comes into your mind?"
"Mars" he finally said.
"Perfect! Now decide what your job is. Are you a scientist, a xenoarchaeologist, a prospector, ..." and I listed a few others. He asked what a prospector is and then picked that one. "You are a Martian prospector out wandering through the Martian country side with your trusty pack animal beside you called a ... what's it called?..."
He thought for a moment and slowly sounded out "a blarsil" (or something like that).
"Now, as you and your blarsil walk along the Martian desert landscape, you see something up ahead slowly coming over the horizon ... what is it?" I prompted him. And so we continued on creating a story with a little prompting from me and the basic story elements coming out of his head. Slowly, he began to get into it. In fact, I was a bit surprised at how difficult it seemed to be for him, but he gradually got into and the "juices" began to flow. As dinner progressed, a story formed and we were both having fun with it. I encouraged him and congratulated him on his creativity and after 10-15 minutes we stopped and I said, "do you see what you've done here? You've already come up with WAAAAY more than the single paragraph you needed. You've got the bulk of a great short-story here. Heck, you could write a series of BOOKS about this character you've created!"
"How am I going to fit all of that into the paragraph space provided in the book?!" He seemed almost panicked.
"You don't have to! Just pick a small part of your story - the part where you discover the giant green gem stone in the dragon's nest," (yes that was really part of the story) "and write your paragraph about that part. Do you see how easily this came to you? You have a WONDERFUL imagination in there, you just need to unlock it and let it out!"
He stared at me and then back at the page.
"Now you want to write your whole story down don't you?!" I laughed. "You enjoyed that and you're even thinking of where it can go next, right?"
He smiled and laughed in agreement. "Yes."
"If you're not careful, you could find you have a real talent for this." I offered with a big grin.
"But you were the one asking all the questions" Daniel parried, looking for excuses as to why this wasn't really something he could do.
"I only showed you how to start the process, how to get your imagination going." I answered. "You can ask those same questions to yourself, or just close your eyes and let the story come to you. If you stare at a blank piece of paper and think about the words you need to write, you'll likely freeze and get nowhere. But if you put the pencil down and close your eyes, and let your mind create a fantastical place and begin to tell a story, you'll be amazed at the places you'll go and the people you'll meet! I was prompting you to do something we call 'association' or 'free association'." I then proceeded to explain how it worked with one person prompting with a single word and the other expressing the first thing that popped into his mind. We tried it and enjoyed the "game" that followed. "See," I said "this is how you let your imagination go free. And the more you do it, the easier it will become. It's like a muscle that needs to be exercised to become stronger. But it's always there, waiting to be let out."
He looked thoughtfully at me and said, "I'm both happy and mad at you."
I leaned back and let out a belly laugh. "You really wanted to hate this writing didn't you?!"
He smiled and nodded his head.
I went on to tell him about a story I'd written in my own 7th grade Creative Writing class that had a surprise twist in it and really impressed my teacher. Andrea shared one of hers too, and it was wonderful to see the enjoyment and excitement in his eyes. He then insisted the 3 of us play the "free association" game for the next hour or more until Andrea & I finally put a stop to it. I tried a few more exercises with him explaining the difference between coming up with "logically associated" words, and truly "FREE association" and we experimented. We talked about clearing the mind and "observing" the first thought that came up in response to a prompt word and tried that exercise too.
I deeply hope that last night's fun made a big and lasting impression on him. I'll continue to work with him in this regard, but I deeply desire to inspire a love of writing in him as I have. If I can make my son mad at me for making him enjoy a school assignment, then I have won a great victory.
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