So- I am a writer. But I haven’t always thought of myself that way.

During my own elementary years, I loved to read and write. As I aged into middle and high school, I still loved to read and write! I loved language. English & Spanish were my favorite classes. I didn’t even mind the summer reading lists and required essays for my Honors English classes. I enjoyed them!

I graduated high school, went to college to study Elementary Education & Spanish, graduated, got married, and entered the workforce. During my college years, most of my leisure reading dropped off. In my early teaching years, a lot of my hobbies got suspended! Then I started a wedding photography business, left the public school classroom when I had my oldest, and my literature-related hobbies just sort of went dormant.

Rediscovering passions & hobbies

You may have skimmed this earlier post I wrote about How To Be The Best Homeschool Mom You Can Be. In it, I talk a lot about remembering what makes you happy–very cliche, I realize, but sometimes cliches are cliches for a reason! 🙂

Anyway- it is important to remember our own passions and hobbies, as we grow in life and as we teach our children. After all, you know what they say–“more is caught, than is taught!” Our kids observe our every move. They can tell what subjects we favor, for better or for worse!

Ever since my son was born in 2016, I have been reading aloud to him. Reading aloud is one of my favorite pastimes. In 2020 is when I started reading again for myself, though. A dear friend invited me to join a book club, and the rest is history! I started flexing my “reading muscles” again, it took on a snowball effect, and two years ago I read the most books I have ever read, in one year, since probably elementary school: 75! Pretty good for a mom of four!

Another passion of mine is writing. I have written things intermittently over the years, usually on Google Docs, about topics that interest me. Typically it is sporadic writing, like an itch I need to scratch. I am also big on journaling, and have many floral journals filled with musings, prayers, and happenings from the past 16 years or so!

In 2024, I decided to tackle something new: a memoir. I had read a few dozen by this point, and became interested in the genre. I was fascinated by the difference between memoirs and autobiographies: the former focuses on a specific point in life and is often thematic, while the latter is more of a factual, chronological account of birth to death. I am a bit too young, and inconsequential, to write an autobiography yet–but, the idea of writing a memoir really intrigued me. So, I went for it!

My memoir is about 75% done, and I’m not sure how to end it. I’m in my late 30’s, so it’s not a “midlife crisis” or “end of life musings” type of memoir, of course. I more wrote it for myself; I wanted to record my memories and current life reflections, in a way that was artful and beautiful. We will see when the ending presents itself!

How To Make Your Writing More Interesting

With all that said, I’ll get to the point: in my own writing journey, I have heard the same advice over and over again. In order to make your writing more interesting, use specific detail. The more specific, the better!

I have heard this simple concept from teachers, wise friends, in books about writing, and other sources, so it is certainly nothing new or original. But, sometimes we all need gentle reminders about even basic concepts.

We have practiced this several times this year in homeschooling, especially when we do essays with a lot of sensory detail. We start with basic ideas, then use powerful adjectives, similes and specific nouns to try and beef up our sentences!

Here are a few examples from my kids’ Grandparent Essays:

Basic sentence: “Abuelo has brown eyes.”

Improved sentence: “Abuelo’s eyes are as brown as Hershey bars.”

Basic sentence: “Grandpa smells good.”

Improved sentence: “Grandpa smells clean like soap and also like the grass he cut outside.”

Basic sentence: “Abuelita is nice.”

Improved sentence: “Abuelita makes me feel calm, especially when she tells stories because her voice is so soothing.”

As you can see, we are simply taking simple sentences and giving them a bit more pizzazz. You can do this with juicy adjectives, powerful verbs, or gorgeous similes and metaphors. You can also use specific nouns to portray hyper-specificity.

Here is an example of what my daughter wrote about her Grandma. You can read more detail about their Grandparent Interviews + Essays, here.

Specific Detail in Compare/Contrast Essays

We just finished Where The Red Fern Grows, a beautifully heartbreaking book where a young boy in 1920’s Oklahoma saves up his meager pennies to buy two redbone coon dogs. After two years of painstaking work, he buys his dogs, naming them Old Dan and Little Ann. The story features tale after tale of their courage, grit, and otherworldly bond as they hunt racoons in the river bottoms of the Ozark Mountains.

As an extension for the project, I had my kids write Compare/Contrast essays as part of our piecemeal Creative Writing curriculum that I have been cultivating this year! I had them compare their life, living in the northern United States in 2026, to main character Billy’s life, living in Oklahoma in the 1920’s.

We started by brainstorming–I jotted the kids’ thoughts down and we worked together to create this Venn Diagram. I printed off these free Venn Diagrams from Teachers Pay Teachers so that they could have their own copy, as well.

I had them do a few versions–first, the one we completed together, above. Then, I had them compare/contrast their own life to Billy’s, more at the micro level.

A Humorous Example

When it was time to transfer their ideas to their Compare/Contrast Essay, we took it step by step. My son was trying to get through the project quickly, so he wrote more basic sentences than “juicy ones,” at first.

One of his main points of comparison between himself and Billy was that Billy has more freedom. Billy, even as a young kid, has the freedom to explore the river bottoms without supervision–even staying out all night long, hunting raccoons with his dogs. My son made the point in his essay that “my mom would never let me do that!”

While we were revising, I gave him an example of how to make that point pack even more punch, by including a hyper-specific example. I asked him to explain Billy’s freedom. He said, “Billy gets to hunt with his dogs and his ax, in miles and miles of wilderness, all night long with no grownups!” as compared to his own level of freedom. “I just get to bike around the block!” We laughed at the vast difference. We thought for a few minutes, and thought of something funny that happened the other day when we were in Target! Here was our final example:

“Billy is a raccoon hunter, and is allowed to run around the river bottoms with his dogs all night. I’m not even allowed to walk alone to the tortilla aisle in the Fernwood Target!”

This sentence, as you can see, is much more impactful than the simple “Billy has more freedom than me,” because of specific detail.

How do you encourage your own kids to spruce up their writing? Do you think of juicy adjectives, lovely similes, specific nouns or powerful verbs? Do you use posters like these ones, to help kids eliminate common words, and push their brains a bit further?

I’d love to hear! Happy writing!

Cait