Creative Writing Workshop: The Five Senses

For a creative writing workshop on the five senses, I wanted to focus on how using our senses as writers can help with our descriptive writing. This was a program for ages 8 to 12. 

I had a Power Point to present what the five senses are and it showed examples of excellent descriptive writing taken from children books and examples that we as a group could write about and share. 

I also had worksheets available that went along with the Power Point examples so everyone would have a spot to write their descriptive writing and follow along.

Some of the examples were a busy city street, a beach, a carnival, old socks, cupcakes, and a rainstorm. Going over each of the fives senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, brief descriptions of the examples would be made. Pictures, objects, and sound clips were provided during the writing activity. 

I also pulled aside some other examples in case we needed more objects/scenarios to practice our writing and planned on using cupcakes and tangerines for our taste senses.  

The books I used for descriptive writing examples varied from picture books to chapter books, but the point was to show how different levels of writing still need descriptors and that a good description is a thorough description that takes you there and utilizes your imagination.

Below is a list of the books I've used for examples.
Cupcake by Charise Mericle Harper
Carnival Magic by Amy Ephron
Come On, Rain! by Karen Hesse
Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Pena
Secret Sisters of the Salty Sea by Lynne Rae Perkins
A Family of Poems compiled by Caroline Kennedy (Ode to Socks poem) 

Creative Writing Workshop: Roll-a-Story

I started off the program by introducing Rory's Story Cubes and explained how they inspire writers and give writers ideas and that there are many ways to use and play with these story cubes.

Once we talked a little bit about the dice, we rolled our dice and started writing. The group had no problem writing and it was great that they took most of the program to write out their stories. I could really see how these cubes helped them come up with what was going to happen in their writing and we all wrote stories together.

We also did some sharing on our stories and rolled our dice a few more times.

About half way through the program, we stopped writing to make our dice. First we made a standard 1 through 6 dice for our roll-a-story blank worksheets and then we made our own story cubes using stickers, diecut pieces, and colored pencils. I think they liked the variety of writing and an art related project.

I told them when the next writing program will be and what that will be about and then I book-talked Brave the Page by Rebecca Stern and Grant Faulkner because this is a great book that will help any young writer.

Creative Writing Workshop: Mythical Creatures

This was a fun writing program to present and it was all inspired by Myth Match: A Fantastical Flipbook of Extraordinary Beasts and Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods: 20 Chilling Tales from the Wilderness. 

I started off our discussion on mythical creatures by asking if anyone knew what mythical creatures meant and if they could give me some examples. The group was a little shy at first, but once we got our creative energies flowing the group was able to come up with each of their characters.

I presented a short Powerpoint presentation on mythical creatures, explaining what a mythical creature was and giving some examples. The rest of the Powerpoint was questions they could ask about their character to come up with ideas. This was nice prompt time because it encouraged the group to think deeper on how their characters will be and why.

Once we talked a little bit about these creatures, I read an excerpt from Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods that was a great example of a mythical beast with lots of descriptive language and a storyline. We discussed what was read a bit, pointed out the variety of books we had available for inspiration and reference, and put the Powerpoint back on so the group could look at the questions they could answer when writing their character descriptions.

The rest of the time was given for designing and decorating their characters and writing their character descriptions. I gave each of the kids a long piece of construction paper that had drawing paper and lined paper pre-glued on so they had a space to draw their mythical creature and a space to write their descriptions. I also showed them my example. Colored pencils, markers, jewels, feathers, and glue were put on the tables.

It took a while for the group to get going, but it was hard for them to stop at the end of the program and we ended up using the room for an additional 15 minutes. The kids came up with a magical mermaid, an astronaut beast, a wolf with great powers, and a cat that had the ability to read minds.

I asked the group if they had any ideas for future writing programs and let them know that I would be happy to read any stories they might have. In the group, Emily decided to use the computer in the library to work more on her mythical creature and Donovan's mother asked if we had any more writing programs coming up.

It's always a nice challenge to come up with writing program ideas that are different and have that "cool" element to it.

Creative Writing Workshop: Reading Takes You Everywhere

This was a successful writing program for kids 8-12 that tied in with the Summer Reading Club's theme of Reading Takes You Everywhere. We explored settings in writing using audiobook clips of setting descriptions and then took time to start writing our own settings.

I put together a Powerpoint that introduced how to write a setting using the 6 "w" questions and setting writing tips. We sampled a variety of story settings using certain audiobook clips describing different settings and different styles each author used. I took audio of books that this age group, ages 8-12, should be familiar with. I made sure I had a variety of examples in case we ran long on time, so we didn't go through every example, but we went through most of them and had some discussion on each one.

About half way through the program, we started writing. It's typical that the group had a harder time getting started, but quickly pulled through. Everyone pretty much had some writing down and some in the group are more advanced than others, but that is to be expected with the age range. It is also to be expected that some of those in the group have a harder time focusing, but everyone was able to write a setting idea.

I was surprised to hear that some of the group hadn't read a lot of these classics, so I think it was a good opportunity for them to get introduced and interested in the stories. In the future, I think I won't just focus on the classics, but pick more books that the kids are currently reading. I had a few of them in there, such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Wonder, which were well received. 

The settings I used were from a variety of classic children's books for this age:

Bridge of Terabithia

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

One and Only Ivan

Holes

James and the Giant Peach

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlotte's Web

Esperanza Rising

Tuck Everlasting

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Walk Two Moons

Bud, Not Buddy

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Wonder 

If anyone would be interested in having the Powerpoint presentation or my "teacher notes" on each slide, contact me.

Overall, I think the group enjoyed listening to the audio and learned a little bit more about writing settings.

April is National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month and since I do all of the youth writing programs at my library currently and have been hearing that our patrons want more children's writing programs, I wanted to do a poetry program.

I have always been passionate about writing and wanted to encourage young writers to write about anything their heart desires so I'm thankful I get the chance to teach and inspire future authors. 

I kept monitoring my registration stats for this program since despite hearing comments that they want more writing programs, the attendance hasn't been exactly great for them. I think this is partly because for some, school hasn't made writing fun. Also, the older age kids are harder to pull into the library for programs. Some kids want these programs during the school year and some want these programs during the summer. Unfortunately, no one attended today's program. 

I can save the lesson plan for another time, another April, but I'll be re-evaluating whether or not to have writing programs during the school year.

For our would-be poetry workshop, we were going to go over a variety of poems using examples and analyze their structure and meaning. I had prepared a short and sweet powerpoint on the poems I wanted to cover. 

Next, I had plans to read a two-voice poem with help from the group and show a few more poetry examples to focus on how poems can have all different subject matters. 

We were going to come up with our own concrete poem using a flower template shape (or other shape) and then come up with our own acrostic poem using any word we choose. 

I also was going to let them know that we currently have a poetry contest going on at the library and encourage them to enter. 

The types of poems we were going to go over were concrete, simile, metaphor, cinquain, haiku, onomatopoeia, acrostic, imagery, and two-voice. 

Some of the poetry examples to be used were "My Family" by Stacy Zeiger, "The Rollercoaster" by Kelly Roper, "A Graduation Poem for Two" by Stephanie Klose, "Sick" by Shel Silverstein, "Bed in Summer" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "There Was an Old Man with a Beard" by Edward Lear, and "A Bird, Came Down the Walk" by Emily Dickinson. 

Good news is I have a ready-made poetry lesson. 

The nice weather we have been having also played a role I'm sure, since it's pretty quiet in throughout the library.

Creative Writing Workshop: Power of the Pencil

A Creative Writing for Kids Introduction

I've done more than a few creative writing programs (ages 8-12) for my library and always love doing them. It allows me to use what I learned in my English and journalism courses in college and apply it to the next generation of young writers. 

After experimenting with scheduling and having a demand from patrons, I will be doing a writing program for kids every newsletter period, equivalent to four a year. It's tough because despite the comments to keep these programs around and have more of them coming up, attendance always seems to be lagging. I do notice that attendance seems to be better during the summer with my suspicion being because they don't feel overwhelmed with having writing in school. 

To give you an idea, the library had a number of requests for creative writing programs for kids, but I had five registered and two show up for yesterday's workshop. I love putting on these programs for so many reasons and I suspect that I will keep offering up these programs because helping two kids discover their love in writing is better than not being able to help any if these programs were cancelled. I also suspect that the library will continue to support my writing programs because the requests keep coming in and because these programs hardly take anything away from the budget. I literally just need pencils and paper.  

I wanted to write a little about how I prepare for these programs. I have to have my writing topic chosen much earlier than the actual date for newsletter production. I have a list of potential writing topics, conduct internet searches, and see if there's anything special that might tie-in with that particular month I'm looking at scheduling it in. 

Once I submit my topic after making sure I have enough ideas to administer the program, I do numerous searches on the subject and often times word my searches differently to get different results. Two particular sources I always seem to find helpful is ReadWriteThink.org and Novelist. ReadWriteThink.org has good lesson plan ideas and often interactive writing resources. Novelist is great for booklists. 

Once I'm satisfied with the amount of searching I've done, I gather my notes and type them up as a list. Eventually, this becomes a cleaner outline and helps me weed out what I don't want to use while reassuring me I have numerous possibilities on how I want to instruct this workshop. 

I become so engrossed in the subject of writing, I usually lose myself in more ideas that can be used for future writing workshops. It's at this point I go over my outline and make sure that my lesson plan didn't veer off course and it rings true to my description on my program flyers. 

I've seen a consistent pattern with helpful YouTube videos and clean-cut handouts being effective in both providing information and having fun with writing and the encouragement to write. 

I've found that the biggest challenge in putting on these programs is the ability to teach without making it feel like it's school, as well as the broad learning abilities among the attendees. Despite these concerns, each lesson plan has been a success in that it helped at least one child to learn more about writing at his or her own pace. 

A Persuasive Lesson Plan: Program Review

I started off this persuasive writing workshop by showing some Youtube videos on the topic. The first video, 2 minutes long, was a brief introduction/refresher to persuasive writing. (This is part of a video series that could be added to a future lesson). I asked both in the group if they had any questions on persuasion and then we moved onto the next Youtube video.

I pointed out that the first video mentioned a few different ways that persuasion writing can be used, with one of them being commercials. Our second video was on different type of persuasive commercials and what they used to persuade us…which included emotion, exaggeration, the bandwagon technique, and loaded words. They seemed to have enjoyed watching the commercials and relating them to writing. We talked about each commercial and their persuasiveness and how it would get us to use their product.

Since I didn't want all of our persuasive examples to be online and wanted to make a point on how books use persuasive writing, I showed a variety of six examples and book-talked in the process. Persuasive paragraphs were read using the introductions in Chew on This, Gaia Warriors, I Have a Dream, Fabulous!, and I Dissent. I pointed out some of the words that were persuasive and what each book was trying to persuade us on and how. 

They were most passionate about MLK's I Have a Dream speech and I liked how I could use his speech as an example during the month of January. They had to be introduced to Andy Warhol and Ruth Ginsburg but it was nice to be able to inform them of two new people they should know. 

I also wanted to show them an example of a persuasive conclusion, so we read the end paragraph of Can We Save the Tiger?. I pointed out how the writer wanted us to think about what we could do to save tigers from extinction and how he used his wording to be powerful. 

I would like to mention that there are a variety of picture books that could be used as examples of persuasion in a story. Picture books can be an excellent tool in teaching both younger and older children, but this time around I felt that the books I chose were more appropriate for the age group and wouldn't get them discouraged compared to using books that they might feel is too "babyish" for them.  

Next, I wanted us, as a group, to pick a persuasive prompt to use with the online Persuasion Map tool. I handed out a worksheet with persuasive prompts and both of them agreed to persuade teachers that they should be graded too. They had fun reading through the different prompts and were quickly reminded that they need facts and examples to back up their persuasion. I think this tool was very helpful in getting them to come up with a introduction or thesis, have three reasons, three examples for each reason, and a conclusion. It setup the format easily for them.

Once we were done working together, I had them use their persuasive letter worksheet to pick another prompt to persuade each of us on. Tim chose why playing sports is important and Katie chose why video games should be played in class.

I gave them a few handouts to take home, along with the prompts in case they wanted some more writing ideas. They received a "12 Great Tips on Writing to Persuade" sheet, a persuasion map planning sheet, a list of persuasive words and phrases, writing a persuasive letter chart, a printout of the persuasion map that can be found online, and information about a creative writing contest for kids.

I mentioned to them that I would love to read some of their writing and give them any writing help when they visit the library. I also promoted the library's Tumblr page and the possibility of them writing for Youth Services.

Below you'll find some additional resources on persuasive writing, including explanation on the subject itself geared towards the 8-12 age group, additional examples of persuasion in text, and even a fictional series that uses persuasion as it's plot. For a list of persuasive picture books, search Novelist or send me a request. 

*Persuasion Informational Text Additional Sources:

Writing to Persuade Chris Nolan and Lauren Spencer

Writing to Persuade Jill Jarnow

Present What You Know: Sharing Information Christopher Forest

Writing for Children: Types of Writing (DVD)

*Additional Examples of Persuasion in Text:

Almost Astronauts Tanya Lee Stone

Citizen Scientists Loree Griffin Burns

Sit-In Andrea Davis Pinkney

The Most Amazing Creature in the Sea Brenda Z. Guiberson

Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea Robert Burleigh

Wheels of Change Sue Macy

Alex the Parrot: No Ordinary Bird Stephanie Spinner

We Will Not Be Silent Russell Freedman

A Place for Bats Melissa Stewart

Tiny Stitches Gwendolyn Hooks

*Fiction Persuasion Series

The Nora Notebooks: The Trouble with Ants, The Trouble with Babies, The Trouble with Friends by Claudia Mills