Working with Young Writers Richmond VA

Children don't really care if you are an extensively published writer. (You also don't have to be an expert children's book writer.) What children really care about is satisfying their curiosity about the exciting world of books and writing:

1. Have a passion to share with children how interesting writing can be. This can require a lot of patience and persistence, especially if you are working with a group of young writers. When you're in a class, there's always someone skeptical about what you're doing--and young skeptics are great at adding extra nuisance. You can encourage them first by taking out the ‘boring' in writing. Make everything enjoyable. But...
2. Offer sufficient direction. You still need to direct them, really, so that you help your bunch of aspiring writers to focus on what they need to be doing. For instance, when you ask young writers to write a descriptive story, some could mix it up too much with the cause-and-effect side of their story (Your goal must be to narrow down each of your lessons into the distinct areas of writing.) Because children are naturally creative, they could easily get lost in a ramble of ideas. Remember that writing follows certain rules so make sure that the kids are always guided. Let them experiment, have room for ingenuity, but don't let too much play ruin their writing.
3. Prepare several demonstrative or illustrative activities. You won't have problems with young writers having mental blocks--they always have a lot of ideas, but sometimes they have so many ideas that they don't know which topic to pick or how to start or how to stay with their subject.
   • Here's a good exercise: Bring a bag with several items from home. Ask the children to form a small circle. Let one of them pick just one item from the bag (no peeking). Ask him to make up a one-line story involving that item. Have the second child pick another item from the bag. Have him tell a story about that item, but making sure to connect it to the previous story. And so on and so forth... You just taught a bunch of young writers how to pursue one trail of thought in storytelling!...

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Author: Ae Dechavez