Creative Writing Kick Off
February 25, 2009
Yesterday was author Pat McKissack’s first meeting with Stacey Wilson, a 4th grade teacher at Wyland Elementary in the Ritenour School District. Pat will be meeting with Stacey’s class twice in March over interactive videoconference to discuss collaboration, creative writing, and publishing.
I had a wonderful meeting with Pat McKissack. We planed to create a publishing center in the classroom as a team. This is because all of the students work on their individual writing while going through each step of the writing process and have had a lot of practice on their own but not as a group in writing. She is going to talk to my students about using descriptive, “meaty” words in their writing. As mentioned in the conference, my Ohana (what my class is called, which is a Hawaiian word that means family) has read the book, “How a Book Is Made” by Aliki. Today they will be picking their individual jobs in the classroom. Tomorrow, my Ohana is going to be reading a book by Pat McKissack to show how each piece of their writing creates a wonderful piece of artwork together. My students and I are very excited about our videoconference March 3rd and 17th!