That’s actually not a question…it’s the title of a book by Carl Anderson. It’s a book on conferring with student writers. I found out about it in an e-mail from a teacher I’ve never met. She said she’d read about my short story “New Kid” in Anderson’s book and wanted to know where she could purchase a copy of the story.

“New Kid” was published in the August 1995 issue of Cricket Magazine (and has since been reprinted in numerous state assessments). Several of the short stories I sold to the Children’s Better Health Institute magazines are for sale ILLEGALLY on Amazon (that’s another story…I only sold “magazine rights” to those stories, but I cannot get Amazon or the company that thinks they own those stories to remove them from Amazon…OR pay me something if any actually sell), but I don’t know where one would purchase a copy of “New Kid.” No matter…I was so touched that this woman took the trouble to seek me out that I just sent her a copy of the story.

But I was curious about this book that mentioned my story, so I Interlibrary loaned it. It looks interesting…it’s kind of fun to see that I made the index! (Anderson talks about “New Kid” in the context of first lines…) But even more important, I’m getting some ideas for my Author! Author! class next summer (assuming the Belin-Blank Center at the U of I asks me to teach it again). I gave the kids strategies for critiquing EACH OTHER’S work, but I didn’t really critique them myself. (I wanted the emphasis to be on writing for FUN rather than on writing to somebody else’s expectations.) And this book doesn’t really talk about critiquing kids’ writing…but it talks a lot about conferencing, and how a conference should be a conversation. Even if I didn’t critique their work, I could’ve held individual conferences with each kid! Why didn’t I think of that before??? Ah well…after reading Anderson’s book, I have a much better idea HOW to conference with them than I did before…

How’s it Going?

9 thoughts on “How’s it Going?

  • August 24, 2006 at 3:10 pm
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    I teach an afterschool writing class. Thanks for mentioning this book, I’ll have to check it out…

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    • August 24, 2006 at 4:55 pm
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      I’d love to hear more about this if/when you ever have time. For example, what age/grade of kids? How did you start it? How does it work? (I’ve been curious about doing something like this, but don’t know where to start or how NOT to make it overwhelming. 🙂 )

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      • August 25, 2006 at 5:19 pm
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        I teach the class at two elementary schools (one is my daughter’s) in the area as part of the afterschool program that our PTOs started last year. The class goes for 6 week session and I have 12 students in 2nd to 5th grade.

        The class: I usually read something while they snack and then we talk about some writing craft stuff. Then we write. I do a warm-up or prompt for kids who need it, but most dive into their own stories. We do a art project at the end (for example, painting a setting if we’ve talked about setting that day.) And the kids can share their work during the art time.
        Let me know if you have any other questions or ideas. I love teaching it and love to chat about it too.

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        • August 28, 2006 at 3:15 pm
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          Me too (love to chat about it, I mean)! And that’s neat that you do an art project. You have a different age group than I have…I had 4th-7th graders this summer in my 2-week class…and I have 8th graders and up in the library group (there are junior high kids who want to do it, but this is one of very few things the library offers for high school only, so it was decided that junior high kids can submit to the Leaky Pen and get their work published on the site, but they can’t participate in the group until they’re in 8th grade).

          So, your writing prompt is a choice…they don’t have to do it if they’re in the middle of a story? With my summer class this year, I started out each day with 5-10 minutes of “free writing.” But as the class went on, there were kids who really didn’t want to free write…some had trouble with the concept of free writing…they wanted to be told what to write about, and others just wanted to get right to their stories. So I’m debating whether to keep the free writing next year or not…

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    • August 24, 2006 at 5:54 pm
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      I’d like to hear more about your class, too. How often do you meet? What ages are your students? What do you do? I facilitate a teen writer’s group at my local library (different from the class I taught last summer). That group started three summers ago when the library asked if I’d teach a 6-week writing class for teens. I did…and the kids didn’t want to stop meeting. So the group has continued, once a month since then. If you’re interested, they publish an online zine…it’s at http://www.coralvillepubliclibrary.org/leakypen/.

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      • August 24, 2006 at 5:58 pm
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        During that first summer, we talked about ideas, character, plot, setting, details, revision and how to critique manuscripts. And then at the end of the summer, we published an anthology of their best work.

        Since then, it’s worked like a critique group. They read their work and we discuss it. Now that we have the Leaky Pen, they publish the work they’re comfortable publishing (we don’t publish last names…in fact, most of them write under a pseudonym). And now that people are finding out about the Leaky Pen, they’re starting to get submissions. So a committee formed to read the submissions and respond to the authors. (i.e. if they don’t think the work is “publishable,” they’ll tell the author why not) It’s a great group…A LOT of talent!!!

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      • August 25, 2006 at 5:21 pm
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        Hoping that you see my comment above about my writing class. Yours sounds wonderful, I love how the kids didn’t want it to end.

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  • August 24, 2006 at 4:54 pm
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    sounds interesting, Dori. And so cool that they included your story. BUT not cool that others are selling them. What a pain! Have you talked to the Cricket/Children’s Better Health Institute people? That was nice of you to send the story (and for her to ask).

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    • August 24, 2006 at 5:51 pm
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      I have…I sent them a letter (per the Author’s Guild’s recommendation) and they responded with a “we had no idea” letter back (but no offer to do anything about it). I then let my Author’s Guild membership lapse…if I hadn’t, they would’ve had one of their lawyers send a letter…I don’t know if that would’ve made a difference or not. I really should renew that AG membership and find out…

      Reply

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