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Young authors show off their work
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Originally developed by a group of middle school teachers attending the ISWP Summer Institute in the summer of 1999, Subscribe to Writing gives participants a chance to work in groups to create their own “magazines.” The magazines contain a variety of fiction and non-fiction pieces written “by kids for kids.” Student and parent responses to the first workshop were strong enough to warrant the development of a second workshop, Page to Stage, during which young authors with a dramatic bent write performance pieces: skits, news broadcasts, commercials, dramatic monologues, and more. The workshop culminates with a lively performance for families and friends. Plans are underway to offer a Page to Stage workshop in the summer of 2005.
“I got into the program because my daughter, then a fifth grader, wanted to participate,” explained Assistant Instructional Professor of English Kathryn Kerr, who helps facilitate the workshops. “It has been a wonderful experience for both of us. Children who like to write often have no peers to share their writing with. And what child wants to show her mother every thing she writes? Kids need writing workshops and peer response just as we do.”
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Young authors share their writings
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These workshops are not all the Writing Project is offering the community this semester. On February 26, the ISWP and IATE: the Illinois Association of Teachers of English Central District are co-hosting a half-day workshop for Central District members, ISWP fellows, and their friends and colleagues (central Illinois teachers). "Come Into Our Parlor: Plain Talk about Rhetoric and the Teaching of Writing" will invite classroom teachers to experience a variety of teaching demonstrations which focus on the application of rhetorical concepts to the teaching of writing at the middle school and high school levels. The lessons were designed by students in Lamonica’s fall graduate class, “Applying Rhetoric to the Teaching of Writing,” which, like the Writing Project, is a requirement for the English Department’s Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in the Teaching of Writing.
Lamonica is excited about the growing number of ways the ISWP is reaching out into schools and the community. “Writing is empowering,” she said, “but students rarely get the chance to experience its power or its appeal when it’s relegated to the English classroom alone. The Writing Project offers teachers in every discipline and at every grade level an opportunity to experience the power and excitement of writing for themselves so they are eager to take it back into their classrooms. And when we reach out into the community through programs like the Young Writers Workshop, we can promote the kind of family involvement that’s so important to helping writers grow and develop. It’s also fun!”