In a book-filled classroom on the sixth floor, Middle School Humanities teacher Noreen Keller began to count backwards from 10. At the sound of her voice, her Class 4 students jumped up from the rug and hurried to collect their notebooks and folders. Before she reached one, they were seated at their desks, ready to dive into an immersive activity that was both creative and challenging.
With a click of Ms. Keller’s laptop, the words “The Writing Process” appeared on the white board. Below, embellished with an oversized cartoon pencil, were “pre-write,” “write” and “re-write.” These terms referred to the steps, the students learned, that aspiring writers needed to complete to grow into accomplished, credible storytellers.
This group was also discovering that crafting captivating prose takes time, patience and perseverance. Although creativity is an essential ingredient, a successful wordsmith must also be adept at organizing their ideas and motivated to improve their drafts through several rounds of revisions.
On this November morning, the writers were at various stages in their open-ended short fiction stories, having started the assignment during an earlier class. “Please pull out your planning sheets,” Ms. Keller instructed from the front. Chatting excitedly, the students unfolded long pieces of paper and examined their notes.
To help structure their thinking and stay on task, Ms. Keller had asked them to respond to guiding questions like, “Where is your main character?”; “What are they doing/feeling/thinking?” and “How is the problem getting bigger?” In a series of columns, they mapped out the required five scenes in their funny, silly, sad and suspenseful stories, which would end up being about 2-3 single-spaced pages.
“You’re ready to draft only when all the questions have been answered,” Ms. Keller reminded the writers, who were welcome to work where they felt most comfortable. While many remained at their desks, a handful of others sat cross-legged on the rug or on one of the padded benches at the back.
For the rest of the period, the students picked up where they had left off last time. Some were still working out the details of their narratives in pencil; others had advanced to the writing stage, using Google docs on their laptops. Speaking in low voices, a few pairs teamed up to give and receive feedback on their respective stories.
To provide further encouragement, Ms. Keller switched to a second slide that listed statements like “put your main character in action”; “make some parts go quickly, make some parts go slowly” and “get to the end!”
As the class settled into quiet concentration, Ms. Keller and Associate Teacher Inés de Bracamonte checked in with each person to help troubleshoot, offer suggestions and give praise. The mood was decidedly upbeat with the writers seeming to enjoy the inventive exercise.
Without a doubt, the students’ works-in-progress were far-reaching and unique. One wrote about a girl who loved to prank her brother. Another described a family with 10 cats and what happened when an 11th showed up uninvited. Other stories detailed a child’s fear of rollercoasters; painful episodes of bullying; and resourceful siblings who had to fend for themselves.
At the end of this productive lesson, many students were eager to keep going. “Writers, we’ll have more writing time tomorrow,” Ms. Keller reassured them. “Say ‘good job’ to somebody nearby.” After complimenting their classmates, Class 4’s creative writers put away their papers and laptops and rushed off to their next classes, imaginations still ablaze.
