When school started last year, I got the crazy idea that the students at my daughter’s elementary school might like a forum in which to do creative writing. Although they get some in the classroom, I was thinking of a completely non-judgmental environment where I guide them but they ultimately do what they want, where there are no wrong answers or points off for misspelling a word. 
Really, I wanted for them the kind of club I would have loved myself as a child.
I pitched the idea to a friend of mine, a professor of creative writing, who very graciously shared with me exercises she does with her grad students. It took some work but I brought them down to a level I thought would work with 4th-6th graders.
Next I had to get buy in from the school principal to run an after school club and use the library. She loved the idea but reminded me I needed a ‘baby sitter’ because I’m not a credentialed teacher. The librarian agreed to keep me on the straight and narrow and I promised to keep his library in good working order.
From there, I got myself invited to a PTA meeting to see if they would throw me some funds to run the club. Really all I wanted were notebooks, pencils and a few other little things here and there to help with the writing exercises. They said yes and I was off.
We meet once a month for an hour. We have two rules for Writing Club. The first is we are respectful of everyone’s ideas; if a fellow student is reading his/her work aloud, we are quiet and listen closely. The second is no one has to read if they don’t want to. No pressure. I also give away middle grade books I’m done reading. Winners beam like they’ve just won the lottery.
September’s giveaway books
At our first meeting this year fifty students showed up! I ran out of everything – notebooks, pencils, seats, table space – but seeing these kids, scribbling away, giving voice to the stories in their heads, gave me hope for the future.
(for specifics on the writing exercises, please visit my website)
At twenty-two months old, CJ began speech therapy. One hour three times a week for three straight years. (Therapy continued until he was in third grade.) You might be thinking that was a lot for such a little guy. It was. But he was absolutely resilient. Why? Because his therapist used letters and words that he recognized from his numerous hours of story hunting through books. Each and every time we went to speech therapy, his therapist and I could see him hunger for more and more single sounds and consonant blends. Remember his way of pointing at images in his books to get what he wanted? Well, what I didn’t know was that this is an actual form of therapy given to young kids until they can verbalize on their own. The little bugger had figured this out all by himself.
