It is time I paid homage to my awesome 1st period Creative Writing class. They come in quietly and ready to write. They are creative. Many of them shared openly right from the start. They are into storytelling big time.
We are working on drafting our first stories, and yesterday the Universe cooperated in the most perfect way.
It is often hard to get the kids to quiet down and work. It is sometimes hard to get them to do any hand writing since the Chromebook is so handy. But yesterday, right at the beginning of class, the internet went down in our school. This provided the perfect opportunity to have them use good old fashioned pen/pencil in hand.
Since I knew some of them were working diligently on stories on their devices, I gave them some alternative approaches. Outline your story in your notebook. Get a piece of plain paper and draw out your story -- the setting, the movements of the characters. I then took out the electric candles (including the brand new remote-control operated ones I just got at Costco), and we shut off the lights and wrote.
For a half hour -- blessed silence -- as they delved into their stories without the distraction of what else they can do online. They had to rely only on their own creative effort with no assistance. It was beautiful.
On Monday, the class created a character and I'm writing the story for this character. I was gifted with productive thinking time to organize the direction of the story, to think about how the various characters would interact.
The Universe cooperated so fully in this endeavor that right at the end of class an announcement came on that the internet was back up. Thank the Lord, since I definitely needed it for my 3rd period class!
Thank you, Mighty Universe, for perfect timing.
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