Friday, April 4, 2014

Bossy By Nature and Other News

Last week, was a week like any other at Inkreadable. By which I mean that I not only taught, but learned as well. I am sorry for the long radio silence, I've been a bit busy. Last Thursday, 27 March, marked the second to last of my classes. In my second penultimate position, I found myself wondering whether I would get any new students in the session that starts on 10 April. Not to worry, I did. I am also hopeful that I will get some returns from the current session. Anyhoo, back to last week's  classes.

Over at Scene Stealers we focused on writing a description of a location in our chosen series that the original author doesn't give the reader.  I told my student that I wanted it to be as wordy as possible. She was having a hard time and then started telling me about her nemesis. Apparently, a boy in her class is treating her with shameful disrespect. Far from being torn down by this foolish young man she's taken the high road. They happen to be in a group project together and he is "bossy by nature". It seems he has taken over the whole project and the other kids are not sure how to deal with it. He's a bit of a silly head as she politely put it. The righteous anger she displayed when talking about this boy was fantastic to behold. Machiavalian person that I am, I decided to tap that emotion. I told her to forget describing a room. I asked her to invent a new character in her favorite series that resembled the bane of her 5th grade existence. She did. With great success and much venom. Next time I see her, I am going to have her write a scene incorporating Bossy into the story.

Meanwhile, Thursday's short story module proceeded with adventure, and just a little bit of danger. We followed two cousins as they went to Mexico, rented a canoe, and got caught in a tidal wave. They found a hidden Aztec temple, met a village king (named Arturo, of course, because well, what else is a king to be named?), and were finally reunited with their parents. The fun didn't stop there however, the cousins got a free plane ride home, and scholarships. In Archaeology. At Harvard. Talk about thinking big.

Last Friday, was mysterious. The boys kept their stories to themselves. That was ok, however. One of them brought in a fable that they are working on at school and we critiqued that instead. It remains to be seen whether he uses our suggestions in his school assignment. I am hoping that he will let us know tonight when we have our last class. On Saturday, we finished up our second Emma and Annabeth Adventure, where we learned about oil spills and how to clean them up. I hope that student will stay with me and write another couple of stories. We talked about the idea of publishing an omnibus and where to find book covers online. We looked around and found on that published bulk for hundreds of dollars but we also found a website that could do a book cover for $3.99. A much better deal.

The 19 April Inkreadable Kids is going to be at the Washington Convention Center at the Tots to Teens expo from 10-4 pm. If you are in the DC area, come by and say hi.

That's all the news that's fit to print for this inkreadable installment. At least, until next week.

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