About a month before the school year ended Milee was presented with the opportunity to attend a "young authors" writing workshop. The title of this post was the workshop theme. The goal was to help the kids realize the possibilities that writing has to offer, and to help excite and inspire them to become young authors. Since each student was allowed to bring an adult guest along, Milee asked me to attend.
This was quite an experience. Prior to the workshop, each kid was given a list of classes and visiting authors that they could sign up for. I had never heard of any of the authors that visited, but many of the kids, including Milee, knew a few of them from books they had been reading in school. Each author was apparently well known and had more than a single book in publication. So Milee made her activity selections, which consisted of two writing classes and two talks hosted by a couple of the guest authors. This was basically an all day event. We spent an hour in each class with an hour for lunch.
The first author we spent time with was born in India and immigrated to the united states when she was very young. She talked about her childhood and the struggles she had growing up as a minority in her school. She used an overhead projector and gave a presentation with lots of pictures. I am not sure the kids found it very inspiring (or entertaining), as I think they may have been a little too young to grasp the concept of how hard it was for her to face rejection as she did, especially considering all her other struggles growing up. At least I didn't get the impression that Milee enjoyed that particular class.
The second class was my favorite. It was a writing exercise and was taught by AnnRené Joseph, the current Arts Program Supervisor for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) here in the state of Washington. To translate, she is in charge of all the dance, music, theatre, and visual arts (curriculum, instruction, and assessment) for grades K-12 here in Washington. I absolutely loved this class. The theme was "Your Life is an Artwork in Progress" and she spent nearly the entire hour performing poetry and song - it was great. Right off she introduced herself (in song) and then went around the room having every student (and parent) sing "My name is ___" and give your name. I expected a least one or two kids to refuse, but they all sang out their name, even if it was pretty quiet for some. It was actually the parents that held back the most, but I made sure to give it my best and AnnRené gave me an "A". :)
Overall, AnnRené was such a personality, and I just had to capture some of it to share with you later. Unfortunately all I had was Jody's little point-n-shoot Elph camera that could take video - so I captured what I could.
Isn't she fun? Milee was right there in front if you didn't notice. While she won't admit it now, I think she really liked her as well.
I don't recall much of the 3rd class. It was another writing exercise that had the students practice writing something from the perspective on an inanimate object. The kids all seemed to enjoy the class and the teacher was pretty good.
The last class/talk was with author Paul Owen Lewis and he was such a good speaker. He really did a great job of describing his journey to become an author, which didn't really start for him until he was over 30 years old. In fact it was inspired when he himself attended a writing workshop with one of his kids. He talked about his childhood and the desire he always had as a kid to write and illustrate, he just never fully realized it and wasn't ever pushed or inspired to pursue it back then. The way he spoke, and the energy he brought to the presentation he gave was really awesome. I haven't ever considered writing on any serious level, but he sure made a compelling case to consider it. Any kid that may have had a goal or dream to pursue it should have really loved hearing him.
By the end of the day I'd had a blast. I was inspired most by AnnRené, and when I arrived home I announced to the kids the new request rule. Essentially, if they want something from me, they have to ask me in song. Isn't it brilliant?! The more effort they put into it, the more likely I am to give them the answer they want. Milee isn't a fan, but the other two kids have played along. Tanner will do anything to get game cube time - even sing his head off. And Cailyn just loves being cute and enjoys singing anyway so it was no big deal for her.
We haven't stuck to the rule or enforced it much, but on occasion, especially when they want to really improve their odds, the two younger kids will sneak up to me and let loose their harmonic request. I have to say, it works more often than not...