Creative Writing PLC

This afternoon, I got to meet with two other creative writing teachers--Ms. Genny Price from Bessemer City High School and Ms. Lia Smith from Highland School of Technology. It was delightful to talk with other professionals who are excited about engaging students in the writing process. I also feel like I learned a lot just from talking with them and sharing ideas. From Ms. Price, I feel like I learned how important it is to look at examples of good writing. I already knew (thanks to common sense, my teachers, and Stephen King) that good writers start by being good readers, but it's a practice I haven't always applied consistently, and it is one that I need to try to do more. From Ms. Smith, I learned how students can take a prompt in unexpected and wonderful directions.

We discussed a lot of ideas, starting with the practical, everyday running of our classrooms. We have similar formats (starting with writing prompts or journals such as those found here and ending with our meatier, more important writing assignments). Although we do different assignments, it sounds like most of us cover a variety of types of writing, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. We think it would be a great idea to create an online space for us to share resources and assignments. Celeste already has a website for GCS Secondary ELA, and we think that if we could send her resources that we use, she could create a subpage to house these items for sharing.

Even more important, we talked about ideas that we have for collaboration. We all agreed that we would like to see the talents of our students highlighted at the county level. We talked about the possibility of doing a Poetry Cafe or other similar event in which students could read/perform their works of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. (Anyone else interested? We think March would be the perfect time.) We also briefly discussed the idea of doing a countywide literary magazine or similar publication, either in print or digital format. We think that students are more motivated when they know that they have a real audience.

Finally, we talked about meeting again to continue our discussion. I hope we all can get together for a meeting soon (perhaps December). I'll let Celeste the date for the next one, as we feel it's important that she can be there to help guide us in the right direction for successful collaboration. In the meantime, I hope to see posts from you all about the amazing and exciting things you are doing in your classrooms!

What you are doing matters. Now go change lives. And WRITE SOMETHING AMAZING.