Brave Writer and Michael Clay Thompson

Let's start with this: I did not intend to use two English programs. I definitely did not intend to use two English programs plus several supplemental pieces. But that's what I've ended up doing. I notice others doing similarly on various forums, but given that both of these programs are hard to wrap your mind around until you start using them, I thought I'd have a bit of a comparison post.

Brave Writer's strengths include its focus on creativity and language as a natural part of our world. It encourages Big Juicy Conversations, not just about books but also about movies and art and life. It encourages us to simply enjoy what we read without feeling the need to analyze it all. Brave Writer emphasizes how much our writing can be about the things that we naturally enjoy and are inspired by, and not necessarily related to traditional academics at all.

Michael Clay Thompson's program's strengths lie in the absolute joy it takes in academics. The love of academic writing and language comes through very clearly. He emphasizes that the most enjoyable reading starts with writing that is extremely well done.  Because of this, he focuses on technical grammar, classic vocabulary, and academic writing.

So, can you see what the likely weaknesses of each program are? Brave Writer can come across as almost anti-academic at times, and MCT's program feels as though it is almost discouraging creativity. They both start with a love of language, and they both eschew teaching/following formulaic writing methods, but they approach it from very different sides.

We don't try to use these at the same time. It would be far too much. We started with Jot it Down, and it was a light, fun introduction. The Kid wasn't ready to move on to Partnership Writing yet, but did want to know parts of speech, so I crossed my fingers (there are nearly no sample pages!) and bought MCT's Grammar Island. She loved that, and learned easily and quickly from it, so I picked up the rest of the Island level as well.

We continued on like this. When we would hit a point where we were getting restless with one approach, or finished one level but she wasn't ready for the leap to the next level, we would switch to the other one. They have balanced each other perfectly for The Kid, giving us a solid set of academic books, and a good number of creative projects.