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| One of the Schools |
I spent the week with ninth graders. Lots of them. I was in a couple of schools that don't often get any outside funding for visiting artists or artists in residence. We spent the week working with kinetic writing.
Kinetic writing is the act of engaging the body and the brain in writing activities before you put pen to paper. I am a huge fan of this type of work with children.
For starters, writing is a different language. You don't write exactly as you speak. When we are speaking, we have the advantage of the pitch of our voices, the intensity of our movement, our expressions, our energy, and how emphatically we express ourselves. The majority of our person to person contact is not with words. Writing is nothing but words.
I start by asking the kids if anyone likes writing. If they hate it. If they are ambivilent about it. Most kids said they hated it. A few said they didn't mind it. Only one or two in each class said they liked to write.
I found out that in NC, they stopped administering the writing test in fourth grade, and so some elementary schools stopped teaching writing. That sounds odd, but schools have so many assessments, they teach to the tests, and if they are not testing something, they don't teach it. I found out that the eleventh graders were learning what nouns were.
I told them why I write books. I explained that when I was a kid, I didn'thave many books where the kids in them looked like me or my family. Several of the kids nodded and one of them - a black girl - folded her arms and just nodded emphatically. I love magical realiism, and most books with black girls in them didn't get to go on those kinds of adventures. They didn't get the magic or entry into fantastic worlds, and that was what I wanted for myself. So, I am determined to write books where girls and boys who look like me get to have that kind of magic when they read.
I explained that we need their stories as well. They will be in charge of our country in the coming years, and we need them to be ready for that. Some of them look stunned that this was their job!
I also explained that if you really want to control people, you control what they read, and what they have access to. Banning and Burning books isn't necessary if people never even bother to write their stories or share their experiences.
Their voices are powerful. Their experiences are important. Most of them were surprised by that.
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| Playing the Story Game |
https://donnawashingtonstoryteller.blogspot.com/2016/11/play-is-best-way-using-language-games.html
We had a wonderful time, and when we were done, we had a writing exercise.
We did compound writing. Compound writing is a low stress way to get kids to write something.
1. First, before anything - They put their names at the top of the page!!!
2. Each person writes the first few lines of a story. They need a character, setting, and a problem. They can use the same process we employed during the circle story creation. We have been talking about launching stories for a bit, and they have had a chance to create at least one in group.
Once there was a _______________. The good thing was _____________________. But, ___________________.
They aren't required to follow that format, but if they can't think of anything, they are welcome to do it that way. They only need a few sentences, but they can write as much as they want as long as they stay in the parameters of what is in the beginning of the story. (5 minutes)
3. The papers are then passed in to the facilitators, and everyone gets someone else's paper.
4. The next person skips two lines, and moves into the middle of the story. They write the next part. (5 Minutes)
5. After they finish writing, the person folds down the beginning of the story so that the only thing showing is what they wrote. The papers are passed to the facilitator.
6. The next person reads the middle without looking at how the story started, and write what they think comes next based on what they read. They do not end the story. (5 min)
7. The person folds the paper so what they just wrote is at the top. Papers are passed in to facilitator.
8. When they finish writing, they turn the paper over to the back (blank) side of the page. The draw two lines to divide the paper into three parts. They pass the papers in to the facilitator.
9. The next person reads the last thing that was written, flips the paper over and at the bottom on the back in the last third of the page, they write what they think happened at the end of the story. (5 minutes)
11. The next person who gets the paper reads the end of the story and writes what they think would belong in the middle of the story that would fit with the ending. (5 minutes)
12. Papers are collected.
13. The last person reads the middle and the end and tries to figure out how this whole thing began. They write the beginning of the story. (5 minutes)
14. After this, they turn the paper over, read the name of the original writer and return their paper.
Now, the original writer has two complete stories. They can read what was written, but they don't necessarily have any idea who wrote what!
I have some rules -
1. You can't kill your character - That is the easiest thing to do. I call that lazy writing with the kids. They must figure out some way to deal with the chaos they write into these character's lives.
2. Don't put anyone in this class or anyone you know in these stories - This is to prevent bullying or embarrassing someone.
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| They got down to it! |
When I told them at the beginning of class that we were going to write, they groaned. I expected that I might get one or two kids who absolutely refused to write anything.
The teacher was expecting that some of the kids would not write anything.
All of them wrote. They wrote with enthusiasm! They wrote with gusto!
Some of them kept writing even after the five minutes ended. There was absolutely no way to tell that any of those kids hated writing.
One of the kids, a tall, athletic boy, started his story by writing only one sentence. He dropped his pencil like a mic drop, folded his arms and stared at me in defiance. When I collected the papers and redistributed them, he was surprised.
"Man, I feel sorry for whoever got my paper," he muttered.
Half way through the exercise he said aloud, "Come on, people! Try to be creative! I hope whoever has my paper is trying to come up with something good!"
One of the boys who had come in with his hood up and tried to actively look like he didn't care what was happening said, "I can't wait to get my paper back."
Everybody wrote.
When the kids got their papers back, they loved reading them.
Some were annoyed at what people had done to their characters.
All of them were amazed at the way people saw their characters.
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| On a lecture in one of the classrooms |
All of them loved it.
The teacher was amazed everyone wrote.
Some of the students didn't speak English, and they had interpreters, and they wrote their stories in Spanish and traded papers with others writing in Spanish.
It was quite a week.
I don't have the patience to be a teacher.
I salute teachers. Their job is difficult, they don't get paid enough, and they are under appreciated!
I do like helping kids realize they might actually enjoy writing.
That I can do!
Happy Writing!
