A Pirate's Resources

When the Work is its Own Reward

Another unique aspect of A Pirate’s Guide is that there is a story woven through out the workbook. There’s the story, and then exercise, and then more story. For some kids, the story acts like a reward.

And while we are on the subject of rewards … One parent shared how, as a 42 year old, she had grown up without rewards , but today she feels that all things need rewards. Every activity and book, every app, is about earning something - stars, points, leveling up. She’s found that it is too much for her autistic son. (It’s too much for me, too.) He gets focused, but the focus is solely based on getting the prize, not the work itself - he’ll work just enough to get to the prize. Then this parent described how, in
Pirate’s Guide, because the prize in this curriculum is the story woven in and out of the exercises - the rewards are integrated into the very work itself.

And the other unique thing about this reward is that it is in their mind - for other than the cover of the book, there are no illustrations or drawings inside the book at all. Most curriculum has characters and stars and doodles and drawings … and as a parent told me - their kids are overstimulated as it is. Our kids are inundated with stuff on their phones, computers, and television screens; it can be a challenge just going into a store, because there is just so much stimulation for them. So in a curriculum, anything extra can be too much. So many moms have found it valuable that their students are able to visualize the characters in the story out of the written words (not through images) and the whole process is streamlined and simple.


Parents need curriculum that is something that their kids can do that is not overlong, or overwhelming, or overly taxing them. They need something that their student can accomplish, finish bite size pieces and build their confidence, and that doesn’t resort to bribes or rewards or meaningless things like stars or points. The reward should be the thing itself - and one of the rewards of stories is being transported to a different world, meeting new characters, going and experiencing things that you yourself would never do in your own real life. We get to experience this when we watch a movie or read a book. And we can connect this for our kids when they are writing a story. We want them, as they are creating a story, to have the same experience of traveling to a different world, but this time, it is a world they are interacting with, they are creating. This is one thing that makes video games so attractive to kids, and why so many boys, particularly on the autistic scale, gravitate towards them. There is a huge desire to be creative, to act and function in a world, without the limitations that they experience in this world. Writing stories can be the same thing, but it is much more work. It’s easier to pick up a game console and play within an existing world. It’s more difficult to do this with pen and paper and something they get to create. Hopefully, this pirate story and the exercises help bridge that gap between passive (playing a video game) and proactive (writing their own story from scratch), by making it easier for kids to enter into a world, and begin to enjoy creative writing.
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