Susan's Homeschool Blog

Homeschooling Reluctant Writers
(A series of 10 fun writing assignments given by a pirate)

Aaaaarrggghh! This is Dread Pirate Susan Evans here to give you ideas for homeschooling reluctant writers.

Writing Idea #6: Conversation with Yourself

“What do you mean?” you say.

• You can write a script of you talking to yourself. What you’re going to do is dress up in a costume (or have a hat or a certain hair style), and say something. You’re sitting on one side of the table, and you go ahead and say something.
• Then you quickly stop the camera, and you go run to the other side of the table. Put on a different costume because you are a second character. And then respond to yourself. Oh, yeah.
• As you go back and forth like that, you can film it. Take a look at how fun that can be. (Watch the conversation between a car mechanic and a race car driver.)
• To make it easier to record, you can record all of one character’s lines first, and then record the other character’s lines second. Put it onto your computer and cut and paste it together into a conversation. Fabulous idea, huh?

This is Dread Pirate Susan Evans, signing off. Aaaaarrggghhh!

Calling all homeschooled kids! I dare you to make a video response to this pirate video on YouTube:

• Write a full page conversation between two characters that you will play.
• Dress up as those characters.
• Read your lines (or memorize your lines for better acting), and record it on a video camera. Upload it to YouTube.
• Go to the above video on YouTube, and press “video response.”
• I am automatically notified when someone posts a video response. After watching it, I will embed it right here on this page!

Homeschooling Reluctant Writers
(A series of 10 fun writing assignments given by a pirate)

Aaaaarggh! This is Dread Pirate Susan Evans, here to give you ideas for homeschooling reluctant writers.

Writing Idea #4: Puppet Show

• First you need to find yourself some puppets. If you do not have puppets, you can make some puppets with paper sacks. You can make them luxurious with suede and all kinds of fun stuff. If you need help making super cool puppets, you can look at my website SusanEvans.org, under Art, under Paper Bag Puppets. What else would it be? (Note: This great article, along with hundreds of my best articles, are now locked inside my Unit Study Treasure Vault, the best place on earth for homeschoolers.)
• Look at what puppets you have to see what characters you have to write into your puppet show.
• Grab a sheet of paper, and write the names of the people. You write the name in capital letters, you put a colon, then you put what they say.
• Put stage directions in brackets or parentheses. Then you have the character say whatever he says. And so you write your puppet show and make it as wonderful as you can.
• Now comes the fun part. Get onto your computer. If you have a camera attached to your computer, which most people have nowadays, you can record your puppet show. Yes, you don’t even need anybody to record you because it’s right there. So you act it out with your puppets, and you’ll have a fabulous show.
• Watch the fun “Around the World” puppet show. Notice that it includes backgrounds that were drawn on construction paper. Feel free to make the scenes more elaborate and colorful.

Now wasn’t that fun? This is Dread Pirate Susan Evans, signing off. Aaaaaarrrrggh!

Calling all homeschooled kids! I dare you to make a video response to this pirate video on YouTube:

• Write a full one-page puppet show.
• Perform your puppet show into a video camera and upload it to YouTube.
• Go to the above video on YouTube, and press “video response.”
• I am automatically notified when someone posts a video response. After watching it, I will embed it right here on this page!