Thoughts from Writers Club

So we held our first meeting of the Writers Club this afternoon. Had only four kids, three of them from my regular classes.

It was marvelous.

Hands down, it was the highlight of my work day. I got to spend an entire hour (albeit with a few random interruptions from co-teachers about boring report card stuff) doing what I love: writing workshop. The way it's supposed to be done. The way we should do it in school each day, but we can't thanks to standards, policies, and the soon-to-be-defunct (I pray) No Child Left Behind act.

We started with a prompt, and my foursome took off. No prodding necessary, no need to push or cajole. All I had to do was place a notebook on their desk, and they were away like a shot. I even had to duck out of the room for several minutes to sign off on a handful of student letters. When I came back, they were still plugging away. I could get used to this.

I let them share and used their entries to talk about some basic insights on writing. We read the Writer's Oath (see previous post), talked about each others' expectations for the club. I kept it very straight-forward. Standards don't matter in this club. No pressure to conform to the rigid expectations of grammar, mechanics, or obligation. Here, we write because we want to. Because we must. It's what we do. It's the life we live. Our life-blood.

I think they came away impressed. I did urge them to spread the word and tell others about the club; we could always use more members. They even wanted to take their new notebooks home with them so they could come back to what they started.

Off to a promising start. :)