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Madison came into my gifted class when she was in second grade. On day one, she wrote 3 blog posts and was hooked on writing. Now in 4th grade, she came up with an idea for a story writing club. This was a result of problem solving. She loves writing stories, particularly fan fiction to Warrior Cats, but she didn’t think many people were reading her blog posts. She thought if we had a blog that was specific to writing stories, maybe those kids who are interested in writing as well as reading stories could join.
With a new subscription to Kidblog from my district’s gifted program, we teachers are able to have multiple sites with the same students. Story Writing Club was born. The day after I set up the blog was a Saturday, but Madison checked in and wrote this post.
Hello. This was originally my idea, so.. I guess I’ll make the Welcome – To – This – Blog – Post.
This is a blog where you make your stories- nonfiction, fiction, or any genre. Chapter by chapter, or just a normal picture book.
Word, by word, by word, we are changing ourselves into authors. Word. By word. By. Word.
Think of your ideas as silk or cotton. Weave them together- make cloth. Now it’s time to put the cloth together to make a wonderful story.
I hope you enjoy making wonderful stories out of many ideas.
Buh-bye!
I introduced the idea to all my classes (I teach 3 groups of gifted students at 3 different schools). To date, eleven kids have signed on. And they can’t wait to write. This is an highly motivating free time activity. Madison created a story about cats, of course. She is also very talented at digital art. This is an image of one of her story characters.
When students writing stories they want to write, they learn the stuff of writers that I could never teach them. Jacob was writing his second chapter today, and he exclaimed, “You know the berries from chapter one? Well, turns out he needed them in chapter two. I didn’t know that would happen.”
Jacob wrote, “He took out the berries that Triton saved in his booksack. The creature seemed to love them. Triton tossed the creature a berry, in a second it gobbled up the berry.”
Sometimes writers follow the story and find their way.
I love that my students are experiencing the joy of writing with little direction from me. We often talk about student-driven learning but rarely do we really have the opportunity to make it happen. I applaud Madison’s resourcefulness in building a community that would support her passion. These are lessons that don’t make it into the standards but will support my students in being the best they can be.
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