BJU Press Blog

language arts

When Am I Ever Going to Use This?

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WP-Real-World-Learning-2-2015

If your child hasn’t asked this question yet, he will. You probably asked it yourself many times while you were in school. And it is a valid question.

I don’t know many adults who do long division without a calculator or go through the newspaper underlining subjects once and predicates twice.

But consider how many of those grade school subjects have played important roles in your adult life. Were you thankful for your multiplication and division facts while standing in the supermarket last week deciding which brand of detergent to buy? Or when you wrote that important letter for your boss, were you glad you had finally grasped some of those tough spelling words? Did you still think music entirely unnecessary when you had to lead your Sunday school class in the opening singing time?

Depending on our individual fields of interest, we find much of what we learned as children is useful in some way. Even if we never use a particular skill again, learning it builds our overall knowledge and enhances our scope of appreciation. Practice develops our self-discipline, and knowledge develops discernment. How can we communicate this hope-giving truth to children?

Talk about the practical uses of school subjects as you encounter them in everyday life. Around the house, point out the ways you use math: measuring wall space for hanging a picture; adjusting recipes for cooking; balancing your checkbook and paying bills; figuring out medicine dosages; doing simple home repairs or rearranging furniture; measuring and cutting fabric for sewing. Let your child help you do some of these chores as part of his math lesson one day. Or encourage him to count the number of times in a day that he encounters the need for grammar in ordinary tasks—such as making a phone call or writing a journal entry. Have him write a letter to a family member on the computer and use the spell checker to correct his spelling.

For a practical idea on teaching your child how his school subjects may impact his life in the professional world, read How Would I Ever Use This?

How do you share practical uses of school subjects with your child?

Journaling: Tips to Get Started

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I wrote my first journal entry when I was ten years old. It wasn’t particularly interesting. Life as a ten-year-old was pretty mundane, and at that time I was not very skilled at expressing my inward thoughts and emotions. But it was a start, and I was excited about the prospect of filling up all the blank pages in the lovely green journal that I had received just days earlier as a birthday gift.

person writing in a journal

I filled up all the pages of that green journal, as well as the pages of many other journals over the years. Sometimes I wrote fairly regularly, but sometimes hardly at all. Now, when I occasionally thumb through the pages of those old journals, I can see the benefits of them. I am a better writer because of all the practice. I learned how to express the emotions, dreams, and innermost thoughts inside me. Best of all, I have a record of many answers to prayer, many unexpected blessings, and many dark hours. I can clearly see the faithfulness of God.

If you want to encourage your children or students to journal in this new year, here are some tips.

  • Buy each of them a nice, lined journal.

Journals themselves can inspire writing. I always got excited whenever I received or had the opportunity to buy a new one. Look for one with a spiral binding or one that will lie flat when opened.

  • Assure them that you won’t read what they have written without their permission.

Resist the temptation to grade their writing. If you do evaluate it, they will never feel free to express themselves.

  • Set aside times to write.

Your children or students should be free to journal whenever they wish, but at the beginning it is helpful to have them set aside a dedicated time once a week.

  • Let them write about whatever they want to.

Don’t assign topics. If your novice journalers don’t know what to write about, you can offer suggestions, but you should encourage them as much as possible to just start writing. The ideas will come.

Do you keep a journal? If so, how has it benefited you?

Little House and the Big Omission (Part 2)

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black and white drawing of Hiram Bell Farmstead in the 19th century
Hiram Bell Farmstead/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

In Part 1, we made the case for how the Little House series portrays a cultural Christianity that contains moral teaching, positive character traits, a good work ethic, and traditional family values yet is bankrupt of the saving gospel of Christ. It portrays a religion of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. We must train our children to be discerning, always doubting man’s word and comparing it to God’s inspired, perfect Word. Now we will continue our survey of relevant Little House passages that give us the opportunity to teach our children how to recognize cultural Christianity—which still exists in America, though weaker and more secular than ever—and combat it with biblical truth.

Response to Trials

In By the Shores of Silver Lake (217–19), Ma recounted the illness that took Mary’s sight and how she patiently endured the trial. Reverend Alden responded, “We must remember that whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and a brave spirit will turn all our afflictions to good.” Later he prayed, beseeching God, “Who knew their hearts and their secret thoughts, to look down on them there, and to forgive their sins and help them to do right.” After the pastor prayed, Laura felt a peace and resolve about giving up her own desires so that Mary could go to the college for the blind.

Discussion Questions

  • Do we know for certain that Mary’s blindness was a result of God’s chastening? (Luke 13:1–5; John 9:3; Hebrews 12:5–11)
  • For whom does God work all things together for good? (Romans 8:28)
  • Whose likeness are Christians to be conformed to? (Romans 8:29)
  • When the reverend prayed for forgiveness, how was it disconnected from the gospel? (Acts 4:12; Ephesians 1:7)

Mary and the Goodness of God

In Little Town on the Prairie (11–13), Laura was relishing her friendship with her sister now that they were grown up. But she confided that when they were little, she’d often want to slap Mary for being so good all the time. Mary explained that a lot of her “goodness” was showing off, and she referred to the Bible’s teaching about people’s wicked hearts. Then Mary said, “I don’t believe we ought to think so much about ourselves, about whether we are bad or good. . . . It isn’t so much thinking, as—as just knowing. Just being sure of the goodness of God.”

Discussion Questions

  • Is being sure of the goodness of God enough to save a person? (Romans 2:4; Titus 3:4–7)
  • When the rich young man called Jesus “good,” how did Christ respond to demonstrate He was God in the flesh? (Mark 10:17–18)
  • What did Jesus tell the religious leader Nicodemus must happen to a person before he can see the kingdom of God (John 3:1–8)?

Raucous Revival Meeting

In Little Town on the Prairie (276–79), the Ingalls family listened quietly while fiery Reverend Brown worked up the rest of the crowd into an emotional frenzy, crying, “Repent ye, repent ye while yet there is time, time to be saved from damnation!”

Discussion Questions

  • How can emotional altar calls manipulate an audience to short-lived responses? (Joel 2:13; Luke 8:11–15; 14:25–33)
  • What was missing from Laura’s description of Reverend Brown’s altar call? (Acts 20:21; 1 Corinthians 2:2)
  • How can a person know that he has eternal life? (1 John 5:13)

Removing “Obey” from Wedding Vows

In These Happy Golden Years (269–70), Laura discussed wedding vows with her fiancé and said, “I am not going to say I will obey you.” She explained, “I do not think I could obey anybody against my better judgment.”

Discussion Questions

  • Whose judgment are we to trust? (Proverbs 3:5–7; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 8:7; 1 Corinthians 1:25; 2 Timothy 3:16)
  • Can you think of a Bible passage that speaks of a wife obeying her husband as an example for other wives to follow? (1 Peter 3:6; 1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22–24)
  • If a husband were to ask his wife to do something that involved disobeying God’s Word, whom should she obey? (Acts 5:29)
  • What “great mystery” is shown when a husband loves his wife as Christ loved the church and when a wife submits to her husband “just as the church is subject to Christ”? (Ephesians 5:22–33 )

Works Cited

Laura Ingalls Wilder. By the Shores of Silver Lake. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

———. Little Town on the Prairie. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

———. These Happy Golden Years. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Little House and the Big Omission (Part 1)

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The wolves howl hungrily in the Big Woods, but inside the little log cabin a cozy fire projects the lively shadows of Pa’s fiddle playing while Mary and Laura sing along. Scenes like this one from the Little House series are still etched in my mind. My mother read each of the Little House books to us children, and I recently began reading them with my daughter.

This beloved series captures the essence of pioneer life. We experience the nineteenth-century American frontier with the Ingalls family on long journeys plodding across the prairie in a covered wagon, through relentless Dakota blizzards that nearly brought a town to starvation, and against harsh farming realities such as grasshopper plagues and hailstorms. We learn perseverance, discipline, family harmony, and courage.

Yet as I’m reading through this series as an adult, I’ve noticed a big omission in the Little House series. We take for granted that Little House is a wholesome Christian series. After all, the Ingalls family prays, goes to church, and lives morally. However, the Christianity portrayed in the Little House series is merely cultural, from dull Sabbath-keeping and moral judgments to religious platitudes, such as “The Lord helps them that help themselves.”

The gospel is conspicuously absent from the Little House series and so the shell of Christianity that remains implies a works righteousness that cannot save.

So as I read the Little House series with my children, I want to point out the instances of cultural Christianity and contrast it with biblical truth. This may help them recognize cultural Christianity today, such as when we hear politicians say “God bless America” with never a mention of Christ or our need for repentance, or when we interact with that likable neighbor who believes his moral life and good deeds and occasional church attendance earn him a title deed to heaven. As we enjoy the story of American frontier life, here are some discussion questions you can use to help children distinguish between the shell of religion and real life in Christ.

Naughty Cousin Charley

In Little House in the Big Woods (210–11), Laura was astonished at how Charley disobeyed and distracted his father. She couldn’t imagine being so naughty, and she thought he got what he deserved in being stung by the yellow jackets.

Discussion Questions

  • Do you think you are better than Charley (Luke 5:32)?
  • When we compare ourselves with other people, we often think we’re relatively good and that God will accept us into heaven. But what does the Bible teach us about comparison and our true state before God (2 Corinthians 10:12; Isaiah 64:6; Romans 3:10–24)?

Clichés

The Little House series is full of practical proverbs and optimistic sayings, such as “All’s well that ends well” and “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” In Farmer Boy (146), Mother is frightened at the possibility of being robbed, but Father reminds her, “The Lord will take care of us.” She responds, “The Lord helps them that help themselves.”

Discussion Questions

  • Is “The Lord helps them that help themselves” a biblical proverb?
  • When it comes to salvation, is this proverb applicable (Romans 5:6-11; Ephesians 2:8-9)?

Getting Even with Snooty Nellie Olsen

In On the Banks of Plum Creek (168–76), Laura shows the normal human response of loving her friends and hating her enemies, seeking to get even with haughty Nellie Olsen by chasing her into the muddy creek area infested with bloodsucking leeches. Laura’s friend thought Nellie got what she deserved, and “deep down inside her Laura felt satisfied when she thought of Nellie dancing on the creek bank” (176).

Discussion Questions

  • How does Jesus say we should respond to our enemies (Matthew 5:43–48)?
  • What did Jesus do for those who were God’s enemies (Colossians 1:21–22)?

Ma and the Indians

Several times in the Little House series, the Ingalls family encounters Indians, much to Ma’s displeasure. In By the Shores of Silver Lake (82), she declares, “I always heard you can’t trust a half-breed.” The author observes, “Ma did not like Indians; she did not like even half-Indians.”

Discussion Questions

  • What are some reasons why Ma disliked Indians? Are there any people groups that you naturally fear or dislike?
  • Are there really different races of people or only one human race descended from Adam and Eve (Acts 17:26)?
  • How does faith in Christ break down ethnic barriers and give us a love for enemies (John 3:16; Colossians 3:11; Revelation 5:9)?
  • Contrast Ma’s attitude with the love and sacrifice of David Brainerd, who sought to bring the gospel to the Indians.

Stay tuned for Part 2  with more discussion questions to help us see the Little House series through a biblical worldview and gospel lens.

Works Cited

Laura Ingalls Wilder. Little House in the Big Woods. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

———. Farmer Boy. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

———. On the Banks of Plum Creek. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

———. By the Shores of Silver Lake. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Write a Novel in a Month?!

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Looking to inspire those budding novelists under your tutelage?

November is the perfect opportunity to get them to stretch those creative muscles. By introducing them to National Novel Writing Month, you just might see even timid and procrastinating writers start baby-stepping their way to literary greatness.

While the average novel is around 100,000 words, National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo as it is called) cuts that requirement in half, asking writers to produce a 50,000-word short novel in thirty days. By producing a shorter work, your writers are being trained to make it “meatier”—with no droning on about superfluous details or patience-testing fillers. This project calls for cutting to the chase, keeping things moving, and only letting in the important stuff. NaNoWriMo is all about getting a story on paper and worrying about fine-tuning it later.

Writers are also forced to map their strategy and organize their time. We all have other stuff to do, especially during the holiday season. Not many of us would choose to skip Thanksgiving dinner to write. So your writers will have to divide the number of words they need by the number of days they will actually be writing throughout November. A realistic goal would probably be a chapter a week.

Needless to say, having a firm grasp of the basics of fiction writing will go a long way toward your students’ success with this project. A review of plot, characterization, description,and so on before plunging forward will give added direction and confidence. Who knows where the journey will lead, once the first step is taken? NaNoWriMo mini-novel today, best-seller tomorrow.

NaNoWriMo Writing Project Tips

      1. Decide on the required number of words. Your students have other classes and projects, so you may need to make your minimum word count smaller than 50,000.
      2. Choose the start and end dates for the project. You can go with the traditional month of November time frame, or you can have it go shorter or longer if you need to. Whatever you decide, make sure it’s a reasonable period of time to meet your word-count requirements.
      3. Determine the grading criteria. Will you grade based on completion only or will you also check the quality of writing—sentence structure, spelling/grammar, and such? Be sure to let your students know this at the beginning of the project. (NaNoWriMo is typically focused on completing a rough draft.)
      4. Implement weekly (or other periodic) checks. If left alone, some of your students will fall behind in their writing. Help them out by giving occasional due dates and telling them what you will be looking for in those checks.

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Have you ever participated in NaNoWriMo or adapted it for your students? Tell us about your experience in a comment.