Last week I polled my creative writing class, asking how many came to write poetry. Two hands went up. Who came to write stories? All the rest of the hands went up.
At first I was a tad disappointed. I have loved the spontaneous nature of the writing class, often finding a poem in the morning and turning it into a lesson (instead of the one I had planned.) I thought that would be gone, but today I found out that doesn't have to be the case.
We had a fire drill early on in the class. We had only done our "crash and burn" writing, and were just going to get into looking at everyday poems and writing some of our own. I had told them I already had the lesson ready, and we'd start stories after that.
Then BEEP BEEP BEEP -- fire drill. I reminded them of the instructions, including stay together.
We got outside, and I did the headcount. 23. But there were 24 in class today. This never happens, so I was a bit discombobulated, stepping in a puddle while I counted and recounted. 23. Who was missing? Pretty quickly we realized it was a 6th grader, Kevin.
Andy Miller, my AP came by, and I told him we had a missing student. He went on down the line, and right after that Kevin joined us. We waited as the bell rang and rang, and then finally Andy came back. I told him Kevin had returned.
When we got back inside the kids started laughing about the situation. Before we got started today, Kevin was seeking a pencil, and I sent him to the pencil drawer. So they started saying, "He went looking for a pencil and never came back" and all other manner of silliness.
But I saw the opportunity. Hey -- why don't we get into small groups and collaborate on a story about what made Kevin go missing during the fire drill? The kids (for some reason) decided that the main character's name should be Kevin Potato. They gathered together, set up a google doc, and got writing. The room was awash in giggles and discussion. Kevin was grinning ear to ear being the center of attention. I absolutely loved it!
I wrote an email to Andy with the title "All is not lost," and told him we were now writing a story about missing Kevin. I thought it was a good way to show him that engaging them in the moment is numero uno in my class.
By the way, my partner Deb and I have been really getting into picture books (thank you, Pernille Ripp) and I had heard of this one called Also an Octopus. Deb has purchased a bunch of the recommended books, and I had read it this morning. Now I see where it fits in. On Monday when our class meets again, I'm going to read them the book. It is about the writing process, and we will pull out all the steps, and they will have to be sure they include all of them in their story.
Check it out:
Also an Octopus
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