Second night, and feeling all right.

I love teaching! Tonight at College Track was just amazing. I was blown away at how comfortable the kids are becoming sharing their work--and at what beautiful work it is.

Tonight, I focused the readings and in-class writing exercises on Setting/Imagery and then Point of View. The class moved along swiftly and we were able to complete both exercises with time for students to read aloud. There was a big improvement in volunteered participation tonight, as compared to the first class. Some students volunteered more than once to either read aloud from a story or to read their own writing aloud to the class. As I'm learning the students' names, it's also much easier to call on folks when needed.

The program director came in about half way through class to sit in, observe, and participate in one of our writing exercises. Having worked with him for the past few weeks now, I remained comfortable with his presence in class. The kids stayed on topic, and didn't seem distracted or inhibited when they read their stunning work! I was so impressed and told them so, especially considering these are mostly freshmen and sophomores in high school. One new student joined the class tonight, a junior, and I can already tell what a difference even a year can make in an adolescent's maturity level in the classroom and on the page. She is a great addition to the class, writes beautiful prose, and might sharpen the rest of the class.

I also engage in the writing exercises along with the kids, which I think helps set the kids at ease. While I didn't share my work the first night, tonight the kids asked me to read at the end of class and I did. I think they liked knowing I was participating right along with them.

For anyone else's benefit, I found that the kids responded very well to the two exercises I did tonight, so I'll share them here:

1. An imagery/setting exercise:
- Give every student an index card. Ask them to use an image to write the first sentence of a story. Perhaps it introduces a fantastical world or one like our own.
- Shuffle the cards and pass them back out, asking the students to write a scene beginning with that first sentence, paying particular attention to description, imagery, and setting. DESCRIBE IN DETAIL.

2. A POV exercise:
- Describe a landscape seen by a bird. Use any point of view, but do not mention the bird.

I was amazed because both exercises got students writing in character. Last week I focused on memory exercises and personal experience, to illustrate how ripe our everyday lives are for material. And while that went well, I was blown away that the students so fluidly moved into exercises where they had to write from another point of view. Even in the image exercise, students involved one or even two characters in their scene. I love that!!

There was one student who wasn't starting to write as quickly as the others. I certainly understand that it can be intimidating to just have a prompt thrown at you and start like that. I wasn't sure if I should give him a little nudge in front of the class, but I just reminded everyone what Stri told us CTPers last semester about free-writing: to just keep writing, even if you have to repeat some lines, to try not to cross anything out, that there are no wrong answers, etc. Then I told him he could just write his image down again and again and go from there and that seemed to get him going. Any other tips on how to get kids started if they look hesitant?

Onward,
Jennifer