I am now doing a weekly writing residency at the local grade school with the Grade 6/7 class. At the end of every class, I give them a writing prompt and they can do it on their own time, or not. If they do participate, they get to share it at the beginning of the next class. I thought it would be fun to post the weekly writing prompt here and invite all of you to join them. Also, I’m going to encourage them (hi kids!) to share theirs here too. Leave your story in the comments section.
This week’s writing prompt is this: What if all the cats in your neighbourhood suddenly started speaking to you, but only you (or your character) could understand them? Tell me a story….
This is such a wonderful prompt! I’m going to scribble away in a notebook and get back to you…
Hi Andrea, I developed a program where I go into one of the classes (Grade 6/7) at the local school once a week and teach them writing. The program is really up to me and each week we cover different parts of writing. Today we did character and last week we did point of view. I teach for an hour, and during that hour, we have some lecture, a big chunk of writing time, and some sharing of what we’ve written.
The Parent Advisory Committee applied for a grant from BC Artstarts which funded 60% and our local arts council funded 40%. The budget covers my fees, and a couple of guests’ fees, and some money for some supplies. The PAC also bought all the students a writing journal.
I will teach 15 classes over a 4 month period and coordinate the guest artists visits. The teacher and I are working together so the students will write a story for their language arts project and then I will guide them through turning it into a little book (with illustrations and binding and author bios and all that stuff). While they don’t get graded on any of the stuff we do in my class, the book will be part of their curriculum and they will be graded on that. We’re even getting one of the other classes involved, the ones who will be in this class next year. They are going to host a “book launch and reading” event so the kids can all read from their books for their families and friends to hear. We’re hoping the whole thing will continue year after year (in other words, get funded) either locally or through grants. Poetry Gabriola generously donated their time to help with the application process, which I think is one reason we were able to get funded (they know what they’re doing over at PG – http://www.poetrygabriola.com)
Thanks for asking! Maybe I should make this into a proper post instead of just a comment.
Your writing residency sounds interesting. How does it work?