Rainy Day Writing
by Dana Turner Thomson
After over 30 years of teaching – primarily gifted students in both pullout enrichment programs and in daily gifted language arts classes -- Carol Lee thought she might be ready to retire. But, as she told me last week, “I knew, when I retired from the classroom, that there was no way I could stop teaching.” And so it was that she began teaching the Online Writers’ Workshop (OWW) for CTD’s online Gifted LearningLinks program.
Ms. Lee
At first, she was a little uncertain about the online format. "Knowing my students well and enjoying their company had been very important to me in the classroom. I was worried that I could not experience that when teaching online, but I could not have been more wrong," "The process of writing, and of course the content of what is written, reveal much about the writer, but the online venue itself also offers multiple avenues for truly connecting with and supporting my young writers. Online chat discussions, for example, bring the entire group close together based on trust, because each student has to risk receiving feedback about their own creation – the story – and likewise comment on the stories of each of the other students. I’m also able to have discussions with each student and post individualized comments about their writing in their Work Area on the Discussions Board. And students and parents email me with questions and comments, so we share conversations that way as well," "The most important part of teaching for me is to connect with each student – everything else that we do depends upon the quality of that connection. The ways that I keep that connection real are different from what I did in the classroom, but they have the same effect," "I am honored to hear from students about how exciting and worthwhile it was to have this experience of being with a group of students of varying ages and a teacher who really care about THEIR writing and want to discuss it with them, and to hear what they think about the writing of others. And quite a few take the class more than once, which is a special treat for me, because I am able to watch their growth over semesters and even years. One of my students, an 8-year-old, wrote a delightful book over the course of two OWW sessions, and her family self-published it and it is selling quite successfully at Amazon.com," Ms. Lee has shared below one of the brainstorming techniques she does with students in her OWW courses. I’m very excited to try it with my extremely verbal and imaginative 6-year-old. She’s not word processing yet, so I am going to adapt Ms. Lee’s activity for her by using story dictation -- anyone want to place bets on whether my typing skills can keep up with her ideas?! (By the way, if you want to read more about story dictation, read Ann Gadzikowski’s fantastic post on early readers.) P.S. Don’t waste any time worrying about about Ms. Lee’s spoiled retirement plans. Teaching for CTD’s online Gifted LearningLinks program allows her to keep in constant contact with her students despite frequent travels across the nation.Brainstorms!
by Ms. Lee
Begin with storms from your brain about your story. You get to choose everything about the story you will write, from beginning to end. But first, do not sit down and write your story! Nope--try this instead: Into a word processing document, type every story detail your mind can hold. You do not have to use complete sentences or paragraphs; just type in your ideas as you have them. Separate each new idea from the next with a white space by hitting "Enter" twice, so that it is easy to follow when you start writing. If you are stuck, try brainstorming by answering: What? Where? When? Who? How? Why? In OWW, once the brainstorm is finished, we just rearrange the ideas into the order that they appear in the story. Voila! An instant outline! Now you are ready to sit down and write!