Ezra, you'd better re-visit the comments of the Socratic Seminar post. Kenny's brought up some interesting stuff. I don't know if you subscribed to the comments on that one or not.
Today was the first meeting of the elementary school's writing club. I walked in with nothing more than a very vague outline from the presiding teacher regarding what she planned to do, and a few vague notes I'd written on what to say if I was required to say something about any given topic.
Fortunately, she came into the library a bit early and went over everything in greater detail. The club looks like it's going to be very group-centric, with lots of peer-revision and discussion like we have at ours. I was actually asked to describe one of our typical meetings. I showed my copy of Thoughts on Life, and passed it around for the kids to look at. One of them started reading one of the stories (the only one in there I wrote in elementary school, oddly enough), and pointed out a typo. Oops.
It looks like I'm pretty much in charge of the kids interested in the YWP (of which there are about 15 or so), since I'm definitely more comfortable with fiction and have experience with NaNo in particular, and Ms. Cornick is focusing on the kids entering the nonfiction contest.
Apparently I made quite an impression on the kids with my "published" book. The nonfiction ones were asking her about it.
I also read aloud Plot Chickens, which was fun.
The YWP has something called a "virtual classroom." Once Ms. Cornick figures out how to give me Educator Status as well, I can add students to my classroom, keep an eye on their stats, and send them NaNo Mail. Since we only meet every two weeks, this is very good. Each classroom comes equipped with a set of forums that only members can use.
I'm really excited. I hope the kids have the motivation for me to have a decent time interacting with them and helping them through their novels. Their homework was to start outlining. Our next meeting is November 3rd.
Speaking of writing clubs, tonight's meeting was awesome. We talked about The Hunger Games for a good twenty minutes before actually starting, and the stories and poems were fantastic. As in, more so than usual, I thought. It was interesting when we all started laughing at the most horrible, disturbing parts, though. Writers are strange.
We only stopped because an employee came in and told us there were impatient parents waiting outside (of which mine was not one. Dad likes sitting and reading for 1+ hours.)
I have a list of blog topics sitting next to my bed like the ones I had a lot of in August. Despite having stopped posting my English journals, I feel like I'm still posting an awful lot. Hopefully the quality is at least partially worth it. Of course, since you're all still subscribed, I assume you at least find it worthwhile to skim through my posts, which I don't mind in the slightest if you do.
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