If you have been around here for any time, you have probably figured out that we are big fans of S. D. Smith of The Green Ember books (and Jack Zulu books, and Mooses with Bazookas, and Found Boys). We have so much respect for Sam and all things Story Warren because Sam’s love for our children is obvious in everything he writes and makes. He really is on our side.
We (Sara’s family) jumped on the Green Writer bandwagon immediately when it was released in 2021. The lessons are short, simple to understand, inspiring, easy to apply, and Sam pretty much always makes us laugh. With each session, I saw my children grow in confidence and desire to try to write. Sam makes it clear who to write for, how to break it down into easy-to-do chunks, what success looks like, and how to have fun while doing it. I have done a great number of writing programs with my kids. I have never seen them take to one like this one. Nothing about these lessons felt intimidating, boring, or “for someone else” as most other programs have felt to us. These are dynamic, leave my kids feeling confident and capable, and make them want to come back each week to do another one.
The best part is that you can try a couple of Green Writer lessons for free! When you are ready to purchase the program, use this link and code WRITENOW for $10 off.
I have long wanted to try to adapt this to small group use. When I met up with Sam and his brother Josiah in Chicago this summer, I explained what I wanted to do in my library and asked them if they had a plan to scale it for group use. As always, they were wonderful to work with! As with everything Sam does, they just want to minister to the hearts and minds of our children and made it easy for me to offer it as a 13-week class in my library. If you have a co-op, book club group, or library of your own, reach out to them, here.
On this page, I want to draw your attention to the program generally (which can be done comfortably in your own home at your own pace). As well as to chronicle how I am using it in my library.
How The Green Writer is Set Up?
The Green Writer is a streaming video course. The course has 13 units with one video in each. Each video is about 5-10 minutes long and is accompanied by some questions and a writing prompt or two. The teaching is instructive and easy to understand. The writing prompts are creative and very useful for a developing writer. Users purchase the program here and then have unlimited access to it. My family used it twice. Once in 2021 and then once again this summer (2024). Families can watch it again and again as their family grows and their writers mature.
Who Is The Green Writer For?
The Green Writer is ideal for independent readers and writers. That said, I have had success using it with young children (as young as 6) who are accompanied by a scribe who can capture their stories while they are developing them. This program is not about grammar and spelling (although those things do matter ultimately), it is about knowing how to let the stories out of us in a way that makes sense to us and the intended reader. It is about practicing the art of storytelling.
I saw a 1987 interview with Julie Andrews by Andre Previn. The interviewer says, “where did you get your diction from, because, I swear, no one’s diction is anything like yours.” Julie responds that it was a gift from her vocal teacher who told her to “hang on to your words because your voice will follow… finish your words and make your constants sharp and hard and follow through with your vowels…”
I think that this course gives a similar message to our writers: keep practicing and stop not writing, and the storytelling will follow. Sam gives our young writers key things to practice that will ultimately help them to be very practiced storytellers.
How do you do it?
It is simple. You purchase the course and play it for your writer. There are questions that accompany each lesson with a writing prompt. We developed a pretty and easy-to-use workbook to go with the videos that we are using in our library. If you reach out to me and prove that you purchased the course, I would be happy to share our workbook with you. By submitting your request, you are consenting to be signed up for our newsletter.
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I will be updating this page with more details about our experience in the library soon!