I can't begin to say how proud I am of these amazing kids!!! These novels were written by the 12 homeschool kids in my Creative Writing class this semester. These kids range in age from 9-14 and they completed novels as long as 150 pages!
These students worked SO hard this semester, but all that sweat and angst has produced 12 exciting novels, including adventure tales, family sagas, science fiction stories, mystery and suspense, coming of age stories and revenge plots. We spent our semester focused on developing well-rounded characters and gripping tales. We focused on setting, mood/tone, details, villains/heroes, conflict, sub-plots and much more. They incorporated these lessons into the novels they were writing and came up with some spectacular ideas.
A long-term project like this takes grit and determination and these kids stuck with it all semester, meeting their word count deadlines and acting as another set of eyes for each other's writing. We worked together to encourage each other and I worked right along with them, writing my own novel during the course of the semester as well. Modeling what I taught really helped my students. They knew I was right there in the trenches with them and we were facing our various writing challenges as a group.
Wow! That IS impressive! Any chance you will be teaching in the peninsula area in a few years?
ReplyDeleteThey worked hard "JL" :)
ReplyDeleteI've been asked to put together an on-line writing course like this and am considering it. I'd have to gauge what kind of interest there might be in something like that.
This is fantastic. I have reposted this everywhere. Well done, kids.
ReplyDeleteThank you Kat! I'd love to see these kids get some recognition for their extraordinary accomplishment! :)
ReplyDeleteHolly this is amazing! You and I discussed this class and now that I see the results...it is absolutely incredible. I can imagine what a sense of accomplishment these children had when they saw what they the completed, especially grouped like this. I can hardly get my own journal writing done...or even a grocery list...let alone this incredible feat. Bravissimo!
ReplyDeleteThanks AtticusAcre -- I will pass along your praise to the kids! :)
ReplyDeletewow. that is just so cool. I am glad for your class that they were able to pull off something like this. Hats off to you for having been in the "trenches" with them :) You have really inspired this mom. :D
ReplyDeleteThis is such an impressive accomplishment. In addition to giving these kids a lot of confidence in future writing projects, it will look GREAT on their college applications. Makes me consider setting up a class like this for home schoolers in the Orange County area. Having published eight juvenile nonfiction books and with a couple of YA novels in progress in my desk drawer, I love writing groups.
ReplyDeleteHolly, how did you create those covers? They are beautiful and must be the icing on the cake for the kids. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteHi ProfessorB. - we published these on Lulu.com. Students were able to upload pictures or draw them, scan them and then upload them. I should have turned them all over and taken a picture of the back covers. They include author pictures, bios and book summaries. It cost about $8-10/book with shipping. Lulu.com also allows friends and family to purchase copies and the kids can set their own profit margins.
ReplyDeleteWow! This seems like a fantastic writing project. i think there would definitely be interest in an online course.
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