First I want to apologize to anyone who’s been looking for some updates to this page since Thursday. You haven’t gotten them, have you? That’s my fault. Last week was incredibly busy. My husband’s parents have been ill, so I’ve been helping out with them; his aunt came in from Florida, and we needed some family time with her, and to handle family issues. My mom’s birthday was this past weekend, so on that side of the family we did celebrations, and i had to get ready to attend a WV department of Education Teacher Leadership Institute that started Sunday afternoon. It turns out we’re working pretty hard here at this institute, and I don’t have a lot of extra time. So . . . I’ll keep putting stuff up, and I’m sorry I haven’t gotten to this blog sooner!
Friday, June 22, was the final day of camp for the summer of 2007. Friday’s are always half day sessions, and we had a good one. The teacher facilitators asked the students to do a writing that was sort of like a combination of list poems and poetry poker. They used different colored balloons to help the campers get into groups. Then they did a final publishing craft in which they put poems written on Thursday onto rocks. They looked super cool. Campers also got to finish their tissue box covers, if they hadn’t done that completely. By the end of the morning campers helped us get everything cleaned up and put away. That was a lot of work since we were in my personal classroom and we had to get most of the furniture and fixtures moved to the center of the room since LHS will be painted this summer.
Overall camp this year went really well. Kudos to Karen Dillon, Linda McKnight and Pam Roeher for putting on a fabulous program for the students. What was wonderful is they were already having conversations that involved phrases like: NEXT YEAR . . .
One thing I definately learned is that next year if we’re going to continue blogging camp we need to have a dedicated person whose job it is to do the blogging. It turned out to be a terrific idea, but more than I could handle on my own! As evidenced by how slow I’ve been getting the last stuff put up. I promise everyone — I WILL get stuff put up this week some time! I have not forgotten!
As day 4 of camp winds down I’m blown away by how much these kids have written and how much they’ve published. Our teacher leaders are fabulous!
Today in the morning at camp the campers read “When I was Young in the Mountains” and had a lesson about word choice. Following that they created family crest shields. Campers used poems from the past days on their shields, and they used symbols to represent them and their families. In the morning campers also wrote some feedback for the teachers about what they’ve enjoyed and what they would keep for next year, and what kind of revisions they would have for camp if they were to attend next year. One of my favorite comments was from a student who wrote ” next year have more activity and crafts and a lot less writing!” Isn’t that wonderful?
During lunch students decided to get the games down that I keep in my classroom and play board games while they ate. There were 4 or 5 groups in the room sitting in the floor playing Monopoly, Scrabble, Checkers, and Life Stories. It took me back to my 4th and 5th grade classroom at Mill Creek Grade School where I was a student in Mr. Ronnie Chaffin’s class. His students could earn credits for free minutes, and several of us would bank our free minutes credits until we had a half day or whole day of time in the bank, then spend the entire day playing board games. As we played math and word games we had NO IDEA how much we were learning. Today as I watched the kids in the floor I know I have the next section of my journal to write tonight.
In the afternoon the campers went outside to the baseball field to do some writing, where they created “I Am” poems. On their way back to school they passed the LES playground and spent a few minutes burning off some excess energy. After all, who can pass a playground and NOT swing for a few minutes? They wrote “Bio Poems” and “I Remember” poems in the afternoon, and published by decorating tissue box holders with their wonderful wizardly words.
Tomorrow is the last day of camp, and we’ll be leaving at noon. I can’t believe 4 days have passed so quickly!
Ingredients:
A gallon of sweetness
A sprinkle winkle of sass
A gallon of good health
One tan colored, blue-eyed, sandy blond haired little girl
Directions:
- Poor in a gallon of sweetness
- Mix with a sprinkle winkle of sass
- Blend with gallons of good health
- Then poor on top of one tan colored do whatever I say blue yed sandy blonde haired little girl
First, I want to apologize that I didn’t get info about day 3 posted yesterday, actually on day 3. It was such a busy day that I didn’t have time to get the update done, and when I went home I was so tired I just didn’t do it. So I apologize. Day 3 was filled with writing about family and food. The morning session involved a prose writing in which students focused a memory or memories of their past that involved food. We had lots of great writing about holidays, picnics, Sunday dinners, and other special events inolving foods and family. The next writing activitiy involved a group collaboration on an “unusual” recipe. We brainstormed ideas about the parts needed for a good recipe. We brainstormed word lists for the kinds of words needed to construct recipes, then together collaborated on a group “unusual” recipe for “A Perfect Athlete”. Then students worked individually or in pairs to write their own unusual recipes. Those are the ones I’ll be posting for day 3 writing.
The afternoon was “family day” at camp. Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and aunts and uncles attended to support their students. Mrs. Roeher and Mrs. McKnight provided a wonderful “country” lunch, with fried chicken, cornbreak, macaroni salad, cake cupcakes, and sodas. Lunch was enjoyed by all, then the leaders lead parents and students in writing activities. The first was a pre-writing activity in which participants drew a map of their community they most remember from their childhood. Parents learned about the importance of pre-writing in the process of writing, and they learned that prewriting can happen in many forms. The second part was to do a draft of a piece of writing. In this case everyone was asked to model the George Ella Lyons Poem “Where I’m From”. As they wrote parents learned something about modeling as an inspiration for writing. Students were willing to share their writing with the entire group, and even a few adults were willing to share their pieces. Parents briefly talked about revision, but we didn’t practice that part of the process. Finally families published their pieces by creating lamp shades that had their blended writing on them. They were truly works of art that will be cherised for years. A few parents and students were willing to share their pieces with me, and those will go up on the blog sometime today, as well.
Today is the second day of Creative Writing Camp. We continued our theme of “family” today. Activities were a letter writing project, that Coalfield Writers Teacher Consultant Judy Southard lead. Another activity they did was create “mail boxes” of their own design, and students used them today, and will use them all week to send “positive” postcards to each other when they hear a good piece of writing. We read When the Relatives Came and did a writing, and we also read My Rotten Read Headed Brother and did a piece of writing from that. There were mini lessons on adjectives, parts of speech, and letter writing. We’ve reviewed the camp songs and closed out the afternoon by playing a LIFE STORIES game. In this game the object is to land on a space, draw a card from the pile that matches the space, and tell the kind of story that the card calls for. We had a couple students absent today, and one who was absent yesterday came today. Our counselor, Brittany B was absent today because she’s sick and we missed her. Overall it is a TERRIFIC day at camp.
June 19, 2007
Dear Papaw,
I can’t believe how long you have been in my life. Believe it or not you have truely changed my life. I don’t think I would be the person I am today if it wasn’t for you.
I can remember when I was little, you would take me outside to watch the fireworks. I would sit on your lap, and we would just be sitting watching the wonderful bursts of light. When I would look at you, you always had a smile on your face.
I can also remember when mom and mamaw would be watching T.V. You would take me outside and we would watch the stars. I would sit in my swing and you would sit in your chair. You would always tell me Adam and Eve tales. I always loved hearing them. You have changed my life a great deal, and for that I’m thankful. I love you!
Love, Rebecca
Today was the first day of creative writing camp 2007. We had 26 students enroll, and today 19 attended. We have three facilitators: Karen Dillon, Lynda McKnight, and Pam Roeher. They are a fabulous teaching team from Holden Elementary. We also have one camp counselor here today, Brittany Balentine. She was a student in my Creative Writing Class this year.
The theme for camp this year is “Family”. We started out the morning by talking about all the various forms families take. Lynda shared the story of her son, Phillip’s family, and how Phillip was adopted by his grandparents. Karen and Pam talked about their extended families, and their grandchildren. I talked about my dog, who I call “the baby” , probably too much. The point was for all of us to realize that no matter what form our family takes there is no such thing as a “normal” family – we all have differences.
The first writing of the day was a prose piece in which the students wrote about the form their families take. The second piece of writing as to use the theme song lyrics and music from the Addam’s Family show and transform it into a song about families. Students worked in small groups for that one. The third writing of the day was an acrostic poem for the word family. We didn’t get many of those published on the blog, but they are published on the front sidewalks at Logan High, where sudents wrote them. That was the student’s major publishing event of the day. We’ll also be working on book marks at the end of the day today.
We’ve had some breakfast and lunch, and some snacks, and we’ll be working hard the rest of the week. I invite you to click on the camper’s names on the right side of the blog to find pieces written by specific campers. We hope all who read our camp blog will enjoy it!
Welcome to the web log for Coalfield Writers Creative Writing Camps. I hope that you’ll find many interesting student generated pieces of writing in this space. Future Fantastic Writers of America, the summer creative writing camp for students in grades 5 – 8, will run June 18 – 22, 2007. There are 26 students currently registered. You can find their names under categories. As camp moves through the week we’ll be adding pieces under each student’s name.
