Seventh Grade Writers

To celebrate the National Day on Writing today, my seventh graders and I spent a good deal of time talking about writing (my students have absolutely no trouble when it comes to talking about anything!)

We started our day with a discussion about the two types of writing: narrative (telling a story) and expository (giving information). The discussion moved on, eventually, to the importance of writing in our lives. Why do we write?

• To express ourselves
• Because we can change minds with our ideas
• We write to remember; “paper can’t forget”
• For communication
• To help process our thoughts and feelings

I asked my students why it’s important to them that they express themselves.
I’m paraphrasing here, but Kate shared with us that if we don’t express ourselves we can’t change any minds with our ideas and we would deny the world the progress it could be making.

Have I mentioned how wise these young people are?

One of my favorite writing assignments is the six-word sentence. Students get so excited about what appears to be a simple assignment: one sentence, six words. Piece of cake, right? Perhaps you should try it before reading much further. No, no…really. Pick up a pen and a piece of paper and write me one six-word sentence that tells me about your life.

I’ll wait.

Finished?

Still thinking?

The teacher grows impatient. Write faster.

See what I did there with that last one? One sentence, six words. It didn’t describe my life, but it could.

My students are adding six 6-word sentences to their blogs this evening, and they’ve come up with quite a few good ones that I’m anxious to share with everyone. Here is just a sampling:

• Outgoing, loud, what’s not to love.
• Author-in-training, hope to publish.
• Small goals accomplished, next stop Whitehouse
• Big Life, Big goals, Big hair!
• Siblings, you fight, but love them.
• That’s annoying, brother. Can you stop?
• I eat, sleep, learn, and grow.
• A great past, even better future.
• Even though we love our sisters…..
• School to homework to sleeping restart.

And the new Seventh Grade philosophy:

Homework, not fun. Do it anyway.

Thanks, Luke!

All in all, it was a wonderful day spent with wonderful students. Well, except for the practical joke they played on the teacher. But that’s another story…

National Day on Writing

On October 8th of this year, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution declaring October 20th the National Day on Writing. The first celebration today coincides with the opening of the National Gallery of Writing, an online gallery where writers from all walks of life can contribute samples of their writing.

Celebrate With Us.

My seventh graders and I will be celebrating the National Day on Writing (although they don’t know it yet 🙂 ) by:

• talking about the importance of writing
• reviewing the use of the Step Up to Writing program
• writing, writing, writing

I started thinking that I would share with my students the reasons I feel writing is important and the different ways I write every day (from emails to blog posts to poetry). But they listen to me every day! I think it’s time for a new perspective. So I’m asking all of you, my gentle readers, to contribute to our conversation today. Please leave a comment here, send me an email (if you know it), tweet it, or Plurk it, but, most importantly, WRITE IT! Tell us why you think writing is important and how you use it in your daily life.

We can’t wait to hear from you! Thanks for contributing to the conversation!