Writing curriculum is one of the most exciting things about homeschooling. I will elaborate more on this, along with How-to's in other posts. For now, I will share the story I wrote about our 2012-2013 school year. It was an art & music history year with three big divisions.
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| our year mind map |
We had a key point writing team, who wrote all the art and music key points before we met to put the adventure together. They were led by an art history major who had them write in an organized and cohesive way. These ladies presented the key points to the group.
We also had a general Humanities 101 slideshow presentation--especially for everyone who missed it in college. This helped to see how architecture, etc. fit in each of the time periods we were going to study.
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| Bridey sharing Humanities 101 |
Sadie presented a drawing class as well, so that those who hadn't taken any art classes could teach their children--this was an art year after all!
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| Giselle posing while Sadie teaches us about Gesture drawing |
We had 3 high school students join us--my daughter Giselle, India and Lorenzo. You can see them in the mirror taking our photo below.
Most everyone lived close enough to go home at night, but the rest stayed at our hostess' home. For 20-some years of writing curriculum, we have spent night and day together so we could work late and get up early, but there were too many of us to do that this year.
This was a daunting writing year--we had never had this many people try to write the curriculum before. I poured out my feelings and impressions and ideas for how to do this.
I originally wrote this for myself, which I later shared with our group of ladies. It makes more sense as you go along.
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Written June 28, 2012
This story proves that when good people collaborate on a great project and rely on The Great Creator for inspiration, their masterpiece is greater than the sum total of any individual efforts, (and proves other sundry points for artists and creators of all sorts).
(My experience with writing week felt a little like a Salvidor Dahli painting—surreal)
WRITING AN EPIC ADVENTURE WITH A BIG GROUP
Creating an EPIC Adventure with a large group of people seems daunting—how do you ever come to a consensus? At the end of three days of writing Swords of Honor: A Knight’s Crusade for Right 2011-2012, we were finished with just about everything—the song was written and recorded, the handbook, the inquiries, the key points, the calendar was nailed down with all field trips, opening and closing days and assignments made. We actually left earlier than anticipated because there was nothing left to work on together as a group. We had closure as a group.
This year, I felt that we would have the same experience. It was not to be. Because of many factors, including me stepping back a little and the year adventure idea not completely nailed down before we began, we did not complete the same amount of work in the same amount of time. At first this looked like a misfortune, but in the end I think it was meant to be.
PREPARATION
Our writing adventure began in March when we met to decide the theme. With little other planning, except through emails and calls, we plowed into our adventure writing week. In years past I had taken charge of the group because most mothers joined with us after I had decided on the theme and sometimes already had ideas planned out. This year however, as a group we planned the year. The key points were completed, but the adventure part was still fuzzy. Since I have a senior--Giselle--who won’t be doing much with the adventure, I had decided to pull back a little—I still care about our year, but I know the adventure aspect is more important to others. These two factors, coupled with the fact that we were not meeting in my home, made me feel less in charge, though this was self-imposed.
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| Everyone looks a little bored! |
I came to writing week with some ideas of things I wanted to do, but felt hindered—how would I tell the ladies that we should take some time out of our work in order to write morning pages or sing a madrigal or learn to draw? (even though those were not my original ideas, I thought this would be good group bonding and also a good intro into an art history year). I felt a little hampered, knowing that we had only three precious days together. I did not introduce morning pages the first day because I felt that others would want to just get to work. Some ladies wanted the year to go one way and others wanted it to go in a different direction. I can see myself sitting at the end of the table and wondering how these divergent opinions would come together? Would we split up the group this year?
SONG
Day One
After a few hours of discussion nothing was settled. We agreed to disagree and leave the question for another time. I felt okay with this, though now I can see that there may have been those who felt it was a waste of time. I was feeling a little rushed that first day too because my daughter Giselle was there for Tuesday only (I thought), and I really wanted her to see the songwriting process. So even though I had never written the song on the first day before, I made the decision to do it anyway.
A few weeks before writing week I had sent out a plea for music ideas for our theme song. I know this is dangerous to an artist—getting opinions from 20 people hampers creativity, but I did it anyway and got back many responses, all of which did not feel like our song. By the time I got to writing week I still didn’t feel settled with the song, but it was the best I had.
Sadie, Amanda and I were in the family room, and had been laughing for hours the first day, but by 8pm we still didn’t have a single word on the board. (I know it looked like we weren’t working, but for me, laughing can be just as or more important than morning pages. I don’t laugh enough, and Amanda helps me free up my creative self. I guess since we didn’t get anything done with the song that day, it wouldn’t have mattered if I had written morning pages, maybe?)
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| Amanda was trying to come up with our adventure idea while we wrote the song. She cracked me up! |
Finally we left the songwriting and went to bed.
MORNING PAGES
I was a little discouraged and wasn’t determined to finish the song that week. Before coming together as a group the idea flashed in my mind that perhaps we would not complete the song before writing week was over—something that had never happened before. No brilliant flashes of insight came that night nor the next day in the shower. I felt unsettled about the music, but didn’t know where to turn.
That next morning I asked a few ladies what they thought about doing morning pages before we started our 2nd day of curriculum-writing. I felt confident that we really needed to clear out whatever was blocking our creativity. We took time to write 3 long-hand pages and then talked about the experience for a bit. I cried the whole time I wrote.
My pages were filled with feelings of inadequacy as a leader: I felt that I was letting everyone down. For me, writing week is always a time to work, but also a time to have a girl retreat all wrapped in one. I was feeling the pressure of making this an amazing week for 20 women, not only in creating the best school year ever, but a life-changing retreat from the world and other responsibilities. I wanted everyone to leave feeling like they had just spent three purposeful, meaningful days. I didn’t know I was feeling so much pressure to create that kind of a week, until I wrote it in morning pages.
It wasn’t my responsibility to create an incredible life-changing week for 20 ladies plus ensure we completed writing the best year ever for our children. I was glad to put it on paper so I wouldn’t feel that pressure any more.
LESSON—pressure to create blocks creativity
SONG-REVISITED
Day two: by Wednesday I decided that we should scrap the music we had and possibly spend the summer looking for the right music—maybe a summer movie blockbuster would have the music, and therefore we were not intended to write it at that time. I had already gone through practically all the classical music I could find, so I thought it would be pointless to try again. Also I thought we shouldn’t try to find music during writing week because sitting with Sadie and Amanda listening to music would be fun, which means it wouldn’t feel like ‘real’ work. No, I would spend the time on my own doing the fun stuff and searching for music during the summer. I also didn’t know how all the other ladies would take it if we were sitting around having fun again on our second day!
Fortunately I caught myself before I dismissed artistic creation as something less than real work. Searching for the right song is part of the creation of the song. It takes lots of time and patience to find the right song. I mentally put my foot down that morning and said, “yes!” to myself and to artistic pursuits—writing the song is real work, and in fact it takes more mental work than anything else I do during writing week.
LESSON—creating art is work: lowering the status of the creation process denigrates it and the artist
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| Brittany works on designing the year mind-map |
Amanda, Sadie and I sat in the family room again and began to go through the music. I was more open to a greater variety of options this day, especially since we had never experienced songwriters block like the 8-hour one we had the day before. Almost immediately Amanda played a song on her computer that I felt miraculously might be right.
REVOLUTIONARY ETUDE
Before writing week I came across a piece of music I had heard in the movie Tales of Manhattan. I had loved it for years, without ever knowing the title. But I found the name of the piece on Youtube and listened to it and watched a performer play it over and over— Revolutionary Étude or the Étude on the Bombardment of Warsaw, Etude Op. 10 N. 12 by Frederic Chopin.
After reading some comments about the piece, I read how Chopin had “poured his emotions … into many pieces that he composed at that time, the "Revolutionary Étude" standing out as the most notable example. Upon conclusion of Poland's failed revolution against Russia, he cried "All this has caused me much pain.”
This etude fascinated me so much that I read several more articles about it, finding that it was a favorite of many people because their grandmothers had played it on the piano for them when they were children. I printed the score and placed that music on my piano, telling Giselle that “this year for school I’m going to learn to play the Revolutionary Etude.”
This all happened one week before our writing week.
Then Amanda played the same exact piece and said she wanted to write a song to this loud, agitating, crazy, minor-key piece that I had just decided to learn to play. I thought I was entering the Twilight Zone--"Doo-doo, doo-doo. Doo-doo, doo-doo.” This was an accident, right?--just a coincidence that I had researched and printed out the song we were about to use for our school song? Except I don’t believe in coincidences—everything happens for a reason. It took more than a couple of days for that surreal Salvador-Dahi-ish feeling to go away.
After Amanda talked about the etude and we had decided to at least try it out, Sadie read several passages of that morning’s pages to us, in which were several beautiful phrases which expressed what we wanted to say in our song, but hadn’t been able to put down any of them the previous day. At that moment I decided that we had to have some privacy to get this done. We went upstairs and began to work. Victoria’s room had some great advantages—it was quiet, it was near Amanda’s baby, and it had a keyboard.
To write the song we usually did what Karen Kindrick Cox did years ago--put one dash on the board for each note, which we would fill in as we go along. We asked Lorenzo to write out the melody electronically on staff paper. That actually didn't work, so we went back to dashes.
I drew out all the dashes on the white board, even though we also had the score. The dashes make it easier to see what is filled in and what needs words. “Commissioned by a Higher Power” was put down in the first line, and the rest began to flow from there. (This line was later changed, because it sounded new-age-y, but it started us off on the right direction). From that moment on I felt vindicated in having the group write morning pages! Doing things that release creativity or sharpen the saw are not only good for creativity, but vital to it.
Amanda, Sadie and I worked until night time, when we decided to share what we had accomplished. Yes, we had laughed profusely, but we had labored long as well. In the middle of the song, my son called from Wyoming to tell me he had been in an accident. He wasn’t hurt, and we went on with our work. I also whined while we were writing the song by expressing my love-hate relationship with writing the school song. I love when the song is finished, but the process is very difficult for me. I don’t dislike it enough to let someone else write something I may not like either, so I am willing to do the work.
When we came downstairs that night, I mentioned to some ladies that I felt that writing the song was so much more difficult than any other part of the adventure-writing process. It’s like giving birth—it’s grueling it when you’re in the middle of it, but it’s worth all the toil when it’s over. This is why I need people like Amanda, who bring out humor in the oddest places. It breaks up the excruciatingly difficult (for me) task, and loosens up my spirit so something of worth can pour out.
LESSON—artists need space, time and privacy
LESSON—artists need to do things like write morning pages to help release their creations
LESSON—long stretches of un-interrupted time is essential for some, if not all, artists
LESSON—humor, whimsy, laughter, silliness, zaniness helps the creative juices flow freely
LESSON—creating can be just as, if not more, demanding than other work.
Everyone seemed to like the song. They all laughed and applauded.
We names our song Fortissississimo! OR I Am My Own Picasso. Sadie and I later recorded it at a professional musician's home. (One perk of having a big group is enjoying all the shared resources).
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There is much more to writing week--but here's what I learned afterwards:
DECOMPRESSING TIME
After writing week was over, Bridey spent the night at my house, instead of with her sisters and mom, because it would make the drive home shorter the next day. As Bridey and I talked I kept feeling sorry for those who had just left without talking to anyone about the experience. Last year we had closure as a group, but this year we all just trickled out of Victoria’s home without a clear vision of “what next?”
(Note: reserve 2 hours at the end of the writing week to debrief. Time every day would be nice, which we did have sometimes as a group and in our morning pages).
LESSON—at least some artists want to talk about their work after it is completed. This time of reflection helps make meaning of the process and the product .
I kept wondering if everyone saw all the miracles that occurred in our three brief days to get to the new school year we created. Bridey and I talked about the good and the seemingly not-so-good, noting that without the hang-ups we may never have struck gold—our new theme/name and our completely quirky, unorthodox masterpiece of a song.
- If we had just plowed into making a decision about the adventure name, then we would not have been open to The Touch of the Master’s Hand name.
- If we had forced the original song music to fit, then we would have never found Chopin.
LESSON—creation is a process which cannot be forced, which process can be appreciated and valued in its own right.
The next morning as Bridey was getting ready to drive home, she mentioned wanting copies of the quotes that were in my bathroom. I pulled them off the cork board and decided to find out where one of the quotes originated. One of the quotes came from my filing cabinet--The week before writing week I found a paper with a quote that my husband Hal had written out at least 20 or more years before. When I saw the quote in his print I thought it would be nice to put it up in the bathroom on our Potty Key Point board.
When I read it again, after Bridey mentioned it, I realized it was about artists. If someone from outside our group had walked into the house that day, it would have looked like the songwriting team were just goofing off and that the rest of the group was actually working. Feeling the artist in me rear up to defend myself—that yes, I was really working all those long hours of songwriting—I felt comforted by this:
The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance. They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience; have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the Vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it "luck". They do not see the long and arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it "good fortune," do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it chance."
“Bridey, this quote is about artists!” Since I had just experienced the pain of creation through two arduous songwriting days, I knew that that quote was about people who create. The quote was not attributed to anyone, so I thought that perhaps Hal had written it himself.
I felt the Universe had again aligned itself to me when I found that James Allen had written the quote in As A Man Thinketh, a book I have read several times, and also that I had been right—he had written the above quote about creators, artists, etc. Here's more:
THE dreamers are the saviors of the world. Humanity cannot forget it's dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die. Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them, laboring humanity would perish.
I almost came out of my skin when I saw that: How did Hal, 20 years ago, copy down, just the thing I needed to read today? How did I just happen to find that quote 20 years later and put it in the bathroom the week before I would experience the “trials, failures, and struggles” of writing week? How did I just happen to read the quote right when it meant the most to me? How did I just happen to read the part of the quote that proved what I felt about the quote—that it was about artists?
I read these words to Bridey “Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven,” And then said, “That’s what those Renaissance artists were—architects of heaven.
I don’t know if there’s a lesson to this, except that when you pray and work and continue to pray and work, the Lord helps you get where you need to be. We had been doing all those things before and during our week, so of course it was not surprising that things would come together.
INSPIRATION
After our week was over I read an article that described how we received the inspiration to change our school year name and song—one way to receive revelation is to counsel together. The article, Obtaining The Spirit Through Counseling Together, from the June 2012 Ensign article of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, refers to counsels in family and church, but the same principle applies: “when working together in a group that seeks guidance from the Lord, He will bless us with His Spirit to accomplish what is expedient.”
Principle 1: Pray, Ponder, and Counsel Together—we did that. We met together in March, and prayed, fasted, and worked together as a group through emails and phone calls.
Principle 2: Seek Unity—this is what we tried to do the first day of writing week—seek unity in making a decision about the year. What we learned was that every person was willing to give a little—even though we all had our ideas of what the year should be like, we were all willing to adjust our desires for the sake of unity. This has happened many times to me while writing a school theme—because I wanted to be together with another person(s) for school, I was willing to compromise my desires, which, in the end, allowed the Spirit to help us create something better than we could have done alone.
The comment was made several times that we were in a safe environment: it was okay to say whatever we felt, and there was to be no prefacing of comments, “I know this sounds like a dumb idea, but…” No, we were to have none of that. We all valued each other’s opinions, and we wanted each person to feel a part of what we were creating as a group. In this respect we were united.
“I see there’s still unsettled feelings about this; we’re not going to make a decision today.” This sounds like what I felt I said that first day, after we couldn’t come to a decision about our year name. Actually, that quote is from a church leader who said this after a group of leaders could not come to a consensus on a certain topic of discussion. When I read this quote I had that feeling again—freaky, Twilight Zone-ish stuff was going on. Why had I read this article now, just after experiencing all of it? It was so much more impactful reading it after writing week.
Principle 3: Move Forward with Faith
This is what we did. We let the year title sit for a day. I had complete faith that it would all come together in the end, so we moved on with other things, and didn’t get frustrated that the inspiration wasn’t there while we talked about it.
Principle 4 : Let the Spirit Help You See Others’ Points of View
During our first day of writing week, while trying to get a consensus on the name, Bridey leaned over to me and whispered something like, “You know, it’s a good thing that all these ladies are so sweet and wonderful. This could get really ugly if these weren’t nice people sitting here.” She was right: everyone was so concerned that all felt included and satisfied with the decision, that no one pressed the group to accept something that didn’t feel right with the rest of us.
We may begin at opposite points, but we talk it through and the Spirit guides what [each person] says. …And pretty soon we’re beginning to coalesce an agreement—not a forced agreement—but an honest agreement and a direction to take.
“It generally requires some relaxation of my own feelings, some accommodation of my own desires and feelings, so the group can make a unanimous decision that is satisfactory but may not absolutely meet the desires of every individual. You make some concession, not a major one necessarily, but some concession—
Principle 5: Look to the Person Who Presides to Confirm the Inspiration
I think this principle applies if the group determines that they are willing to follow the direction of a designated leader. At any rate, the quote from this section applies:
“in the spirit under which we labor, men [and women] can get together with seemingly divergent views and far different backgrounds, and under the operation of that spirit, by counseling together, they can arrive at an accord. What works for the [leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] can work for any group of people, large or small—seeking inspiration from our Heavenly Father.
That’s what we did.
In the end, without all the mishaps and struggles, and the seemingly setbacks, we never would have created the adventure we now have. Looking back at things, I would not have chosen the title The Touch of the Master’s Hand, especially without subtitles, for our adventure name. But it fits. It was there all along, but we had to go through the struggle to find it. The same goes for the song—I never would have considered Chopin’s piece, but it is the song we were supposed to have, and I love it.
There are no coincidences--The Greatest Master shares his Light with us as we look to Him for inspiration in all we do.
Here is the last line of the quote Hal wrote from James Allen:
You’ll find that along the way there will be all kinds of ups and downs, valleys and peaks—but so what. You’re going to conquer.
ADDENDUM:
Every writing week is a new and exciting adventure for me. I love the collaboration—one of the nine elements of Brain-compatible learning, according to Susan Kovalik. Working with a large group means more planning. In the past, when writing with just a few people, we would fit the spiritual, soul-feeding stuff into the week whenever we wanted to do it-- We didn’t have to plan a time to feed our creative selves. It was Brittany’s and Sadie’s idea to do artsy things as a group: drawing lessons, singing madrigals, and I wanted morning pages.
Some great things I loved about the week:
- Singing our madrigal – get our hearts and minds ready for the next task
- Writing morning pages – sharpening the saw makes our work so much more effective.
- Drawing lessons – little things to loosen up and to show us what to do with our children.
- Bridey’s Humanities 101 slide show—this was a great way to share the big picture of the art history year with everyone.
- Bridey, Brittany and Sadie, Dana sharing key point overview
- I loved the way we found our school year name—Amanda bought the print of God's finger touching Adam's finger (from the Cistine chapel); I put it on the door; Sadie said, “That should be on our tee shirts” and then someone, maybe Sadie? Said, “and it should say ‘Touch of the Master’s Hand’”, and then someone else said, “That should be the name of our school year.”
- I liked having the key points written and ready to share. I liked the way Bridey led a team of people so that the key points could be put together in a uniform way.
- I love writing the song. Okay, that just blurted out. I really do love it. I complain because it is so difficult for me, yet I love it too. I guess it’s my workdance, but I want to change that about myself and not complain about it or other hard work I do. I guess I love writing songs, as long as someone is there to make me laugh and not take myself too seriously, like Amanda and Sadie. I like writing the song more than any other task at writing week, I think. I wish we had videotaped the process this time. Amanda was so funny—I loved her alternate verses. All the Picasso and Fortissimo words were just jokes too, but everyone wanted to leave them in there. I especially love that though the song is still powerful and metaphorical, it is whimsical and exciting!
I loved my daughter being there. Even though she didn’t do anything, except pamper (annoy?) the ladies, she got so much out of the week. She likes to sleep, and I was so surprised that after getting to bed so late every night, she jumped up to go with me every day. Her soul was fed too. She absorbed so much just by watching and listening to everyone. I’m grateful that she had this opportunity to learn.
Visiting—I didn’t get to do as much of this as I would have liked, but I would schedule more time for this at night for everyone. When we write in small groups we have time to share informally with each other, but in a big group we didn’t really plan ‘down time’ for us. I would put this on the schedule next time.
I needed time to process the week, and was so glad to talk to Bridey about it. I think it would be good for small groups of ladies to be able to talk about the week, since everyone doesn’t speak up when we’re in a big group.
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| We posted art and music posters and quotes on the walls. |
Note—make sure I drive home with another lady, so I can share thoughts about the week! Bridey and I took notes about what worked and what could work better next time. It is a continually changing process that allows us and forces us to find solutions to make this week more efficient and better for all of us.
Because our group was so big, we had to come up with things like presenting the overview of the year in a formal way. I think this is the next level in EPIC ADVENTURE WRITING.
It is, and would be, so much easier to put together a year adventure with only a handful of people or possibly write my own year by myself, and I have. But I feel called to share what I know with others, that perhaps they may learn from my years of experience. I want others to be successful and to miss the potholes of schooling that I had to go through because we were pioneering this way of learning. I’m grateful for the mentor in Karen Kindrick Cox—that I had the wonderful opportunity to learn at her side through the years. Plus, I have to say that I love being in the group with everyone, and that I why I’m willing to struggle through things like writing an adventure with 20 people—I think the year is enriched so much more by the contributions of everyone. I love it!
I love this process of creating something significant for our family and for ourselves. It truly is a symphony of synergy.
