Writing the Natural Way

Today Jasmine wanted to play school. I was busy with something or other and told her to write a story. She's been working on it with a lot of intensity on and off all day. Jasmine went to school for four months starting almost a year ago (at her own request). This is the first time since that she has written anything without worrying about spelling. This story is written completely phonetically--so the spelling is "atrocious"--but she is using complex words and ideas and rewriting sentences to prevent redundency (on her own initiative).

In school, writing began with learning to spell simple words. She was expected to write a sentence everyday using a new spelling word (ex The cat sat in a box.) This induced both a concern about spelling correctly but also a crimp in creativity. And I believe it is the root of many people's writing block.

In her own natural process she writes what she is passionate about and plays with how sentences sound and how they go together to create a mood. As she reads more and more the spelling will become more natural and she can write creatively and spell correctly. David Albert wrote in one of his books about his daughters' writing process. He told them at an older age (maybe 11 or 12) that people judge someone who spells incorrectly as stupid irregardless of whether it is true. At this age his girl were ready and motivated to learn to spell correctly. This makes perfect sense; spelling is introduced after much writing has been done not before.

Absorbed in writing

Jasmine took breaks to build a little house out of twigs, to play cribbage with her mom, and of course to dance.

And mom...well I've been helping grandma prepare for her first ever back-packing trip by dehydrating food for the trip including green smoothie fruit leather. I have not yet published my post on green smoothies, but hold tight. Between my living foods and my mom's back-packing food, the dehydrator has been going for days.