StoryTime Club #SOL19

Every Tuesday I write a slice of life and share it at Two Writing Teachers.

Meeting with my writing group is life giving for me and even as the end of the school year is upon us I am glad I am taking the time to do this project.

I had mentioned in my previous writing club post that the discussion process needed some work. I decided to pose a question to the group that they would have to answer individually and then we would popcorn after that to agree, disagree or pose a related question to what the rest of the group said. I will say that once the expectation of collaborative conversation was presented they did a much better job. My next step is to get them to talk more to each other rather than bouncing everything off me. I do not want to be the center of the conversation, only a part of it.

The question was “What is the perfect life?”

The story used for reading like a writer was Popular Mechanics by Raymond Carver.

Here is the list of craft moves/ideas for their own writing they gleaned from the text and discussion:

+Use the title

+Write sentences that conjure strong visualization in the reader

+Write about fighting over an object or a picture that represents a bigger idea

+Write a story with 2 characters

+Write the story about what happens before this story

+Write the story of what happens after this story

+Start with action – dive right in with a big moment

+ Open with a  paragraph and talks about the weather to se the mood for the story

+Use a last line that leads to more than one conclusion

Photo by picjumbo.com on Pexels.com

We then finished the session with a 4 minute freewrite. The pencils were feverishly writing on their paper at my tables.

–One was a flash piece full of strong emotion and sadness.

–One was the before story – what happened to explain why the couple was fighting

They noticed lines I glazed over and had specific reflections with text evidence.

I was gifted with 45 minutes of time with these students. It went by quick. I sent them a link to storyaday and the challenge I participate in every May and September.

I think I am going to use some of Sandra Cisneros stories from The House on Mango street next.

May 7, 2019 by TammyB Categories: Coaching, Mywriting, Slice of Life, storyaday, Writing Challenge, Writing Exercise, Writing Group, Writing Prompt, WritingLifeTags: solc19, storytimeclub 2 Comments

Storytime Club or the #SSC

Tuesday was the meeting of the Short Story Club of 7th graders.

Naming Ceremony

The first topic of discussion was the naming. They went to abbreviations and one student said it wrong and liked STC (we still don’t know what that stand might for) . The Anti Writers’ Block club was also thrown out. They decided on StoryTime Club for now. It makes me think of preschool time at the library. We can revisit the name but I think the kids will stick with STORYTIME.

Text Set Expansion

I gave them each a copy of Billy Collin’s On Turning Ten that is part of the text set we are creating with the short story Eleven. I had forgotten about it until an old copy with my notes fell out of the book I was copying a different poem from. It was Horoscopes for the Dead – talk about serendipity!

Discussion of Chuck Wendig’s story

• What makes a good story?
• What we learned from the first page?
• Personal connections to the concept of “Shadow People”
• Unusual elements
• how the setting confined the story to one building – then wonderings about what was beyond the building
• vocabulary
• the author’s use of numbers and how this changed the pacing and suspense of the story
• why big tables and glowing briefcases were used in the story

7 Minute Freewrite

The work here and after was great. Several students read aloud. There was one story that was supposed to be scary but ended up sounding like a cryptic description of the dysfunction of the hallway! It was worth a laugh – or 7.

Moving Forward

I have to do some nuts and bolts instruction on how to have a discussion. They were so excited they kept talking over each other to the point no one could hear or understand anyone’s words. I taught first graders to do it, I can do it for 7th too! In May…there is humor here…

No specific assignment was given for next week’s meeting. I met this morning with the teachers to work out the schedule and we are meeting Monday during their IMPACT time. I will also talk to them again about storyaday May and share some prompts.

May 2, 2019May 2, 2019 by TammyB Categories: School Life, Slice of Life, Writing Challenge, Writing Exercise, Writing Group, Writing Prompt, WritingLifeTags: amwriting, storytimeclub Leave a comment