About This Website

It's six o'clock on a Friday evening. The rest of the building has long since emptied, teachers and students alike preparing for weekend adventures. Outside my classroom door, however, parents wait and chat, moms somewhat playfully exasperated with their children's pleas:

"Not yet, Mom! A few more minutes! Let me finish this draft! Just a few more minutes! I'm almost through with my shape book!"

It's a regular Friday afternoon for the 3rd/4th grade writing club. Beginning at 3 pm, kids drop by for a snack, a hands-on mini-lesson, a challenging writing prompt, and an accompanying visual arts activity (usually a shape book, sometimes a painting).

When I began our club at the beginning of the school year, I wondered how successful this venture would be. Creative writing is not on most kids' "favorite activities" lists. Even I was surprised when anywhere between 10- 15 students regularly and happily gave up Friday afternoons to write and create, convincing their parents to let them complete a draft and a project, staying, "just a little bit longer."

I'd always enjoyed writing and teaching writing, but it was the success of the Friday writing club that inspired this website. Kids clamored for parents to extend their school day on Fridays (a day so sacred in North American culture!), that the seeds were sown to develop this website of ideas and activities. These lessons contributed to their growing enjoyment of writing.

I hope you find plenty in these articles and pages to inspire your own teaching,and consequently, the writing talent hidden in each of your kids, too!

For those with a biographical bent, here's a little bit about me:

I have undergraduate degrees in English, psychology, and education.
I was a classroom teacher for over two decades, and now I work as a private tutor.
My family and I live in the rolling farmland of North Carolina's piedmont region.
I love all things reading, writing, animals, and the great outdoors!

Best wishes to you and your students in your writing adventures!

Janet

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Helping You Write Across the Curriculum!