Gifts for Writers

Christmas Book Tree!

Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift to give a writer or artist friend?

Check out these suggestions.

These gifts work at all other times of the year - not just on holidays :)

Congratulations Brenda Tadych!

by digitalart @freedigitalphotos.net

This fall I taught a creative writing workshop through a Mechanicsburg Area Parks & Recreation program and had the pleasure of meeting Brenda Tadych, one of the workshop participants. 

The day after the last class, Brenda sent me an e-mail that said Tina, another workshop participant, inspired her with her idea to write Christmas letters to her family.  Brenda went home that evening and wrote a Christmas letter, too, which she submitted to the Patriot News.

And guess what? The Patriot News published her very creative, inspiring letter to Santa Claus!

Congratulations, Brenda!

Video: Obvious to You. Amazing to Others

The Power of Freewriting

photo by healingdream @ freedigitalphotos.net

What I've learned this month as a writer...
Never underestimate the power of freewriting.

Read about it on the WOW! Blog.

Working Backwards

The illustrious Group #3 is planning a very fun and enriching experience for you all on November 30!  As Becky said in an earlier blog post, we don’t want to give anything away, but we are having fun planning it, we hope you all enjoy it and learn from it, and we’ll be looking forward to your feedback. 

Our group met before class on Wednesday to hash out some details.  We had a lot of good ideas but they were unfocused and raised a lot of questions.  We kept asking each other things like, but how is that going to work? Where does that fit in? When we realized we had problems fitting our ideas together and having them make sense, we decided to work backwards.

“What do we want everyone to get out of this?” we asked ourselves. “When our lesson is over, what should they know or should have accomplished?”

We began to make a list of potential essential questions.  When we had three solid questions, Melissa said, “I wish there was a way to turn these into one question.”

So we threw out more potential sentence that combined the ideas, and I think we came up with a winner. 

It’s exciting to plan lessons – it allows us to put all the skills we’ve been learning to use in a practical way, and allows us freedom for creativity.  Having the freedom to create is one of the main reasons I'm enjoying being a teacher. 

I'm also excited to see what the other groups have come up with.  I have started Group #1’s homework and have secured a digital copy of The Importance of Being Earnest. 

Dystopian Immersion

Our dystopian group already has some great ideas for our group teach project!  We developed a rough outline in class on Wednesday night and divvied out some responsibilities.  We’re trying to create ways to immerse the class in a dystopian world. 

Usually, I dread group projects because most people do not take their school work as seriously as I do, and if I want my group project to reflect the quality of work I'm used to producing, I end up doing the majority of the work.  It’s not going to be like that for this project because my lovely dystopia group-mates are as enthusiastic as I am about it.  As we brainstormed ideas, we took each other’s ideas and made them stronger.  I can see how collaborative teaching could be a rewarding and refreshing experience. 

We’re planning to have all of our dystopian books read by next Wednesday, when we will meet again before class for more planning. 

Web 2.0 in the Classroom and the Reading Gender Gap

Web 2.0 in the Classroom

I would love to move my class to the computer lab, but the reality is that not every school has computers for each student.  Most schools have shared computer labs, or just a few computers per classroom, making extensive computer use difficult.  

I have been learning ways to implement Web 2.0 technologies in my HACC classroom, but half of my students do not have computers and Internet access at home so they frequently do not complete their online assignments.  We only have two and a half hours of class time per week, and if I want them to use computers, I have to book the computer lab weeks in advance.  

Although my students’ lack of computer access and lack of knowledge of the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies, I still want to continue using computers and other technologies to assist in learning process.  I've asked them to complete in-class assignments on properly punctuating dialogue and quotations using text messages from their cell phones, which they did enjoy.  I am actively trying to learn/create lessons like this.

photo by stuart miles

You Read Like a Girl

I also read “Why Johnny Won’t Read” by Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky about the gender gap in reading. As they succinctly put it: “Girls read; boys don’t.”  If I relate this article to the “Moving my English Class to the Computer Lab” article, I wonder if more boys would be more interested in reading if it more closely related to their generation’s interest in information and communication technology.  I know there are books like Lauren Myracle’s series (TTYL, L8R G8R, etc) that use discuss technology and text speak.  Would boys be interested in these types of books but with male characters discuss male topics?  Or would regular old books with more masculine topics be enough to generate more interest in reading?

Because I am a writer, I often read blog posts from literary agents, and there are increasingly more literary agents seeking “young adult books for boys,” so I believe that the publishing industry is well aware of the downward trend of boys’ book reading habits and are seeking to remedy this.