Hi Laurie,

I found your blog a few years back and have found both it and your website to be a tremendous help with my homeschooling venture.

I have one son who is now 9 years old and has disliked writing since we started schooling. This perplexed me because I can remember writing for fun for hours when I was young and even trying to teach myself to write with my other hand. Then I read in your book Teaching the Trivium about your experience with your son and his aversion to pencils. I took your advice. I only required a small amount of writing daily. I increased that amount very slowly. I would allow my son to dictate to me when he made up stories or wrote letters or had to do any other type of writing. And now he’s able to do a decent amount of copywork everyday and is willing to do other types of writing even though it is still far from his favorite thing to do.

He and I had a funny little exchange this morning that I thought you might enjoy. I’ve been re-reading through Teaching the Trivium in order to plan next year’s studies now that he’s passing into the Later Knowledge Level and once again I came across your story about your struggle with Hans and the pencil (p.354). This time I read it aloud to my son and he said, “See, girls are for writing and boys are not.” Then I told him that Hans is now a writer and has written two books (leaving out the part that Hans more than likely typed his manuscripts as opposed to hand writing them). My son frowned and then he shook his head and said, “Why did he have to turn to the dark side?”

Anyway, besides sharing that story I just wanted to thank you (and your family) for all of the products you produce that help the rest of us along.

Best Regards,
S. H.