Writer Workshop: Dragons and Hobbits

Today the kids did freewrites on different kinds of evenings, and then went to work on their dragon/hobbit compositions. (I let Cornflower play in her room while we worked.) Triss is about finished with her dragon composition. She is going to write the final draft tomorrow, and then post it to her blog.

Mariel continued to add material to her composition on hobbits. I think it will turn out to be a general paper of information and anecdotes. I am going to have her write subtitles for each paragraph tomorrow, and see if we can narrow things down a bit. The part she added today was written in the person of a hobbit girl, so we also need to figure out if she wants to write the whole thing as a hobbit or as herself. :O)

I thought they would be tired of working on the same papers-- after all, it's been over a week since they began these. But they went to work with a will this morning. After the workshop, Triss did ask whether I ever wrote so much on a subject that I was ready to just give it a rest for awhile, and I told her I knew the feeling!

Writer Workshop: Morphing

Today, Triss and Mariel wrote freewrites and then worked on their hobbit/dragon compositions. Mariel's is kind of morphing into something different than what she started with-- she keeps adding details, and we are going to "narrow and expand" tomorrow. It looks like, rather than an expository piece on hobbits in general, she will have a narrative involving Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. Or it could go an entirely different direction-- she doesn't act like she is done generating material yet.

Triss is working on her conclusion and then I am going to have her edit her piece, using a list of things to watch for. I think her composition is funny.

Cornflower sat at the table with us and went through her library books, making notes on 3x5 cards for her science project. She discovered today that she can discard three of the library books as not containing information useful to her, and she collected four facts, carefully writing the book name, author and page number on each card.

Here is Triss' freewrite from today:

Outside, the rain looks like slim little arrows shooting down from a sky that doesn't look cloudy. It simply looks asa if a blue sky had turned a cool, pearly color with tinges of blue and pink-- very faint tinges. That sounds beautiful, but the sky really looks sad. Kind of expectant but hopeless, as though it's waiting for something that it truly doesn't think will come. It's the sky that looks sad, not the rain. The little silver arrows look happy and exuberant, with their points aimed at a certain spot and the rest shooting through the air at it. The raindrops don't look like tears at all, unless they hit the windows and become round and flat and shapeless. It's as if the sky is hurling its tiny darts in battle and waiting for an ally that it thinks will never arrive to help. The word for rain is "lanta"*. I don't know the Elvish for it, or the Spanish, or the Latin. At least, I can't thinnk of them just now. The word "lanta" is Leavan, and I like how slim and straight the word looks, like the little rain-arrows, and the gentle slanting flow it implies when the storm is in its last part. I can''t seem to spell today, but I like the word "lanta" and I like what it means, and I wish I was sitting out there to write, feeling the slim rain-arrows strike me and flatten, rolling gently down my face like my own tears, and watching them land on this paper, on one of the scribbles, and wash the ink into a little rain-pool with themselves.

*This is the word for rain in the language she has made up to go with one of her stories.

Writer Workshop: Revising

Update: I realized this morning that I haven't mentioned the resource I am using to guide the workshop. It is The Writer's Jungle by Julie Bogart.

Yesterday I gave the girls a choice of which freewrite they wanted to focus and expand.

We are getting into a regular habit of freewriting for ten minutes at the beginning of the hour, and using the rest of the hour to work on existing compositions they want to improve. I let them pick from a list they made at the beginning of the week, or give them the option of taking my suggestion. I think once we start back in the fall, I will have a day of freewriting for each of the subjects: History/Geography, Science/Nature, Fine Arts, Literature/Poetry, and Bible. They will have the option of journaling instead, and I'll have them make lists of things they know about in each subject, in order to have something to choose from. But they will have to write consistently in all the subjects as well as journaling. (I think I'll have to have a little chart to keep track of it. Oh joy! I get to make a little chart. I love little charts. They make you look so productive.)

Why am I spending time on writing in the summer, you ask? Well, I have really been a meanie about writing skills this year. I want to repair writer/instructor relationships and build an atmosphere of acceptance and goodwill around the writing workshop while I am in summer mode, so the kids will already be comfortable with it come fall.

And they are enjoying it, I think. Mariel is revising a report about hobbits, and Triss is working on a description of dragons. These are their own topics. I would be stressing out about them neglecting to write on historic figures or scientific processes if it were the school time. They have always resisted revisions, but they are now voluntarily researching and spending time every day rewriting compositions, and they look forward to the writing workshop every day. They are receptive to my ideas, and I think this will carry over into the writing on school subjects. I have got something here, I can feel it.

Writers are funny creatures. They have put some of themselves on paper and it hurts when you poke it wrong. I'm learning to poke properly, so my writers will come out and play with words and grow stronger.