The One Year Adventure Novel

The writing program we are using this year is the One Year Adventure Novel. It's hard as a homeschooler to pay a lot for a program you don't know will work for your family. This one was worth every cent for us! One of the tricks we used to make it work though is we are doing all together as a family. We all watch the DVD lessons together and we all do the assignments even though it is officially only S and J's school class. The plus side of doing it all together is that we can all discuss what we are learning throughout the day and week.

This class has been so explanitory and detailed that we are learning new things every lesson. It has opened our eyes to the way stories are made and we now have a better base to analyze stories around us. Take, for example, books: I have been reading some kid books to find some fun ones for our family. I loved Ulysses Moore and I'm finding I'm not liking The Name of This Book is Secret. I was able to tell my kids "I don't really care about the characters in TNofTBisS and I don't care if they reach their story goal." They understood that and it meant a lot more to them than me just saying I didn't like it. I've also found this helpful in reviewing movies for my kids. I just watched the movie TAKEN and was able to tell them I had an inappropriate emtional response at the end of the movie...I felt like laughing at the dramatic part. The daughter at the end thanked her father for saving her from something horrific exactly the same as she had at the beginning of the movie thanked him for letting her go on a trip. There was no change at the end of the movie. My kids understood that. They have been able to watch movies and pick out the 4 major scenes: The Inciting Event, the Embracing Destiny moment, The Blackest Moment, and The Showdown. We now shout out while watching a home video "The day everything changed!" like we have just found some incredible hidden clue. We now can voice why we don't like a story and why we do.

When they were younger we tried to write a familiy story and it all fell apart because no one wanted their character to suffer. Now they understand why that is important. In fact we all cheer when someone tells us they've found a new way to make their character suffer.

I have found that doing classes together as a family is a great way to homeschool our teens. The more people doing it encourages everyone else in the family. Our youngest, G, has dug out a computer writing program and is writing her own stories now. She had to be in on the excitement too. We are hoping this year to plan some family Writer's Retreat Weekends.