Stuck

Last Friday was more of a tutoring session than a class as I only have one student. She is nine, and as precocious as you can imagine. I taught her the same material as the two older kids the day before. She also was quick on the draw and understood the concepts for starting a story. She is an adventurous young lady, but really, I expected nothing less from a fellow WIS kid. When given the option for a prompt, she chose the Scrambler option from Story Starters. It was a learning experience for me as well, as I hadn't chosen the Scrambler option while I researched. So, we did it together. What emerged was so nonsensical, we looked at each other and simultaneously chorused "Next!".  So we spun the wheel again, so to speak, and we are now engaged in an adventure about a girl who sails on a ship with a cheerful captain, who discovers a secret waterfall. A bit complicated, no? But intrepid she is so she decided to stick with it. 

For this student, I became more involved in the writing process, as almost immediately, she said "I'm kinda stuck." So I started by asking her questions about her main character, who it turned out was named Annabeth. My young budding writer has a love of all things Rick Riordan, hence the character name. Since I do as well, we were off to a good start. Through question and answer, we gave her a best friend sidekick, a dad who was sailing for work to Haiti, and set up the problem. It turns out that our heroine is afraid of storms and losing her dad. Kids come up with some very grown up ideas.

The hardest thing about Friday's class was letting her write the story she wants to write. Not the one that I think she should. I hope I got around this successfully by giving her two or three different ideas for each question she asked. This week's lesson is rising action, but you'll just have to wait for my next blogpost to hear what fun I have planned for that class. 

The Hook

As you all know, last Thursday marked the beginning of the Inkreadable Kids writing workshops. I had two students for that particular session. I happened to have come down the stairs from my classroom and met them in the lobby. I was expecting three students for that time slot, but alas, it was not to be. The third student was a no-show. It's ok, because the two students I had more than compensated for the lack of the third thursday student. I came up with a small lesson plan for the beginning of a story, which I vetted with Maddie, who assured me that all the concepts made sense. I talked about introducing the characters and giving them a personality and a back story, setting up other characters in their world. Next up was introduction of the conflict, where I talked about the protagonist and the antagonist. Of course, kids aren't going to understand that concept, until you call them good guy and bad guy. That particular lesson caused a bit of incredulity on the students part, when I started talking about Harry Potter/Voldemort, and Percy Jackson and just about everyone. "You've read them? You're old." was the general consensus. I read them, and between you and me, they are way more fun than books for grown ups. I talked about point of view, and the general consensus was that third person was the easiest to write.  Next came how to start a story and we went through action, dialogue, narration, and description. The last concept was the Hook. That thing that grabs the reader, pulls them into your story, and makes them want to read more. It can be a question, use of descriptive words, or leaving the story a mystery. I asked if anything was confusing and whether there were questions. Apparently, I was pretty clear and all the kids were on the same page, because they piped up and said, "No questions, we got it.  You want us to write a hook to a story. What story?"

 Clearly, they are faster on the uptake than the grown-up.  The prompts were intriguing. I found an amazing website, www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/. The page offers the choice of adventure, fantasy, Sci-Fi and Scrambler. You are asked to pick a genre, then enter your name and grade, then directed to a slot machine. When you pull the arm, a random story is generated. One of my kids chose to use the scholastic prompt, and the story she is working on involves a confused plumber who sets fire to a science fair. The other student is writing a story based on the prompt:

Imagine you met a genie and he gave you three wishes. What do you wish for and why?

Both of them jumped in with action and dialogue.  They took their stories and ran. It was an amazing experience for me as well. What would have happened if someone had encouraged me at that age to translate my love of reading into a love of writing?  I can't wait to see what happens over the next few weeks.

The Four

Firstly, I am so sorry for the terribly long radio silence. It has been a busy month and a half with Nanowrimo (I didn't finish), the holidays (they are finished), and finalizing the classes for Inkreadable Kids (hopefully, they will never finish). It is the 23rd of January and it's here! That's right, I have my first class today. I have three students in this first class. It is going to be a riotous exercise in the power of the girl writer. I have been talking to the girls' parents through email and they are so excited to get started. They can't be as excited as I am. I have been looking at tons of online resources and gathering material to teach. Not only is it the beginning of the classes, I am teaching the beginning of a story. I am teaching several things today, among them what the beginning does, how to write a beginning, and the hook. What is a hook, you ask? Why it's that thing that you catch s fish, or a reader with. It that interesting question, that makes you go, hmm, I want to learn more. It can be a question, dialogue, or a great piece of action. My favorites always contain something noire to them:

He looked, rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.

That's from my favorite of all the hardboiled writers, Dashiel Hammett in The Maltese Falcon.

Literature has great lines too:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Mr. Dickens, I think you're sentences are a bit long, but I after I waded through the above, attempting not to edit, I agreed.

Writing that makes you go hmm.

Anyhoo, to back  Inkreadable. So I have three students today, and one tomorrow. One plus three equals four. Phew, I learned something in math. Thank you, Tom O'Mara and Sam Smith. 

Here they are, the four. They come from Murch and WIS and are in for a great time. They also made my life a bit easier because they've been bitten by the writing bug already. I can't wait to see what they come up with. 

Finally, before I go, major shout outs to my inspiration, you all know her as the Monkeybread Musings girl, Madeline, but to me, she is Maddie, without whom, I've have been more of a nervous wreck than I already am, and to my awesome sister Alex, whose support with marketing, and tips on art materials, made this project fun, even before it started. Lastly, thank you, Tina Thuermer, for making the WIS community supportive of its alumnae and our "make a difference".

Right, that's all she wrote. For now. Stay tuned, as I regale you with "It happened on Thursday".