Like many women of my generation, I am an incredibly busy person trying to juggle the demands of a family, a career, and my own personal development.  I have two daughters, Lindsay (who is 11 and just completed the fifth grade) and Selby (who is 8 and just completed the second grade), who attend our local public school and who have been blessed with caring and gifted teachers.

Time after time, we have been reminded by these teachers to read to our children daily to help them become better readers.  We have read to our children since the time they were born—in fact, that is my favorite hour of the day.  But rarely if ever have we been reminded to write with our children to help them become better writers.  I began to wonder why.

In my college classroom, I noticed a dramatic difference between students who feel comfortable with writing and those who have been conditioned to see writing as a dangerous, no-win challenge.  At the beginning of each semester, I began to survey my students to find out how many of them (a) had been read to as children, (b) had seen their parents reading for pleasure on a regular basis, and (c) had seen their parents engage in personal writing (journals, letters, poems, short stories, etc.) as they were growing up.  The results were predictable:  those students who had grown up surrounded by people who read and write simply do better in the college writing classroom.

I don't think these students are innately more gifted or talented than some of my other students.  But they feel much more comfortable writing down their thoughts, and they see writing as a natural and enjoyable activity.  That's what gives them an edge.

Then I heard about the national Family Math program.  Once a month, schools invite parents and children to come to school for an evening of fun math games and activities that promote math skills and family togetherness at the same time.  The great success of the Family Math program demonstrates that parents really do want to take an active role in the education of their children—they just need some guidance to get started.

That’s when I put two and two together, and I thought, “Someone really ought to design a program to encourage families to write together.”  And my next nagging thought was, “Why not me?”  The answer was easy:  I am so busy teaching college writing courses, raising my children, and pursuing my hobbies of quilting and reading that I don’t have a spare moment.  Still, the idea rolled around in the back of my mind.

As I shared the idea  with colleagues, they all encouraged me to pursue it.  When I discussed the idea with elementary school teachers they asserted the need for a project such as this, and some even expressed interest in integrating into their classroom language arts programs.  I knew I had to find a way to do this.  Then one day a colleague suggested that I apply for a sabbatical in order to work on my family writing project.

Thankfully, my sabbatical was funded, and I have had the luxury of watching the project develop from an idea into something concrete that parents, teachers, and homeschoolers can use to encourage families to write together.  Once I began working on the project, I realized that it is much larger than I had first envisioned.  My sabbatical experience even grew to include teaching language arts in a local elementary school.  We did an extended project that integrates personal narrative writing, storytelling, and quilting.  (That project is documented here as  The Story Quilt Project for teachers who would like to try it out with their own students.)

I have learned a great deal as I worked on this project, much of which I can apply in my own college classroom.  I hope that others will also find value in the activities that are presented here and that the project will continue to grow as people bring their own creative ideas to the Family Room.  Please feel free to use, print, and share any of the activities that you find here.  The more useful others find my ideas, the more worthwhile I will consider the time I have spent on this project.

I am very grateful for the support of the Maricopa County Community College District in funding this sabbatical project.  Without their support, I could not have found the time to undertake such a massive project.