Reluctant Writers Workshop
Come talk about helping young people love writing with me!
This is just a quick note to say I’m teaching two upcoming workshops through Washington State Literary Association. They are geared towards educators, but anyone is welcome to sign up. Details below:
Sparking Reluctant Writers: Using Poetry, Story-Writing, and Games to Break Through Writing Resistance
February 5 @ 9:30 am - 11:00 am
So many things can make children resist writing: fear, a sense it is boring, learning challenges, perfectionism, struggles with spelling and more. Creativity and humor can help break through that resistance. In this workshop we’ll discuss how to use creative writing and writing games to get children writing — and to help them become confident, skilled, and enthusiastic writers. We’ll cover how to separate expression and revision, how to get kids unstuck, and how to challenge kids to push their writing further. We’ll talk about strategies for helping children with dyslexia, ADHD, and other learning challenges write. And I will share a toolbox of tried-and-true poems, games, and writing prompts to explore with your students.
Finding the Words: Using Creative Writing to Help Students Put Words to Their Worlds
February 12 @ 9:30 am - 11:00 am
Teens are navigating tumultuous social, emotional, physical, and intellectual waters. This workshop will explore the power creative writing has to let teens find their voices and process their experiences, as well as ways to help them write with confidence, eloquence, and skill. We’ll cover ways to use journaling, poetry, observational writing, and fiction with teens, including specific writing prompts. We will also discuss how to helpfully respond to student work, and ways to make the class a safe space for sharing personal work. Whether you want to incorporate creative writing into other subjects or are covering it in depth, you will come away from this workshop with ideas on helping teens put their thoughts into words, and how to support their gaining confidence in their own voices as writers and as people.
