Good Pirate, Bad Pirate

Robert Louis Stevenson is the author of Treasure Island, The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, A Child’s Garden of Verses, the deliciously creepy The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde based on a real person, and much more. You can learn more about him here.

Pirate in disguise

In Treasure Island, young Jim Hawkins is warned to be on the lookout for and avoid “the seafaring man with one leg.” Yet when he meets a sailor with one leg named Long John Silver, Hawkins is not troubled. Why?

First, he’s had a letter from his friend the squire claiming that Long John Silver is a war veteran who lost his leg “in his country’s service.” Next, when he meets Silver for himself, Silver seems “clean and pleasant-tempered.” Here is the paragraph where Jim Hawkins meets the truly nasty Long John Silver who, at the moment, doesn’t seem so nasty:

Punctuation in Dialog

SHARON’S BLOG

Welcome to the third in a series of grammar tutorials! You can find the first one on commas in compound sentences here.

The second one teaches the position of commas, periods, colons, and semicolons when used with quotation marks. What could be more exciting?!

Dialog punctuation tutorial

Do you have students who love to hide in their bedrooms and write story after story?

Most likely, they are hoping to be published one day, their stories read and loved by millions, their names on the covers of sought-after books.

One thing editors look for in a new writer is proficiency in grammar and punctuation. Granted, it’s not a huge thing; it’s more important to know how to write a great story. But grammar is an indicator of how well the writer knows the language and its conventions, and it is something that editors take into account when determining whom to publish.

Let’s make sure our students have access to the skills they need to get published.

A tiff between Tarzan and Jane in this fun tutorial will guide your students through the punctuation-in-dialog jungle.

2 Fresh Summertime Ideas for Writing and Literature

SHARON’S BLOG

Happy summertime hello to you!

Since we’re deep into vacations, cook-outs, swimming, gardening, swatting mosquitoes, and avoiding school, I wanted to keep this post light and share some fun stuff that doesn’t take a lot of energy.

Writing in summer?

1. Want some fun writing activities for your kids this summer?

Empathetic Characters: The Author Molds Your Child’s Heart

SHARON’S BLOG

I recently witnessed this conversation between a teen and his mother:

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…“The main character divorced his wife and married another woman,” the teen announced after he read his book...

.“That’s not good,” his mother said.

…“But he had to, Mom. His wife was really awful! She treated him really badly.”

The son went on to tell his mother some of the hateful things the wife had done to her husband in order to explain why this man was justified in divorcing his wife. Anyone would agree that they were truly rotten things.

The exasperated mother calmly stated, “God hates divorce.”

Her son did not change his mind. “But he had to divorce her.”..

My friend was scrambling to figure out how her son could have viewed this divorce in a positive light when she had taught him otherwise.

.What had happened to make her intelligent son fall prey to a viewpoint unacceptable to his parents?

This blog is not about divorce. It’s about two methods authors use to influence our children’s minds and hearts.

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3 Myths about Literature That Will Ruin Your Class

SHARON’S BLOG

Choosing a literature program for your teens isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Neither are actually having the class and getting teens to read the books. Are false ideas about literature sabotaging all of your good efforts?

Read on to see if you have avoided believing these three myths about homeschool literature. And before I forget, check out the link at the end of this article for your FREE downloads from our literature courses.

Literature: Why Your Teens Won’t Read It and What You Can Do about It

SHARON’S BLOG

Literature might seem like one of those courses in which pulling teeth is involved.

You assign a poem, play, short story, or novel to read, and you immediately encounter resistance. It’s hard, they say. It’s boring, they complain. The lawyer in them tries to make a deal with you: “I’ll read these more exciting young adult novels, and you can count that as literature. At least I’m reading.”

What can you do?