A Sweet Escape
An article in my subscription talks about a writer’s club at West Salem High School in Oregon. This article caught my attention because I was involved in a writing club at my high school in my senior year. The club really helped me find a comfort level in sharing my work and writing on a whim that I hadn’t developed in my classes. We also did a lot of neat exercises that I felt helped me in my writing. The writer’s club at West Salem High appears to be no different as in the article the author, Megan Emery, talks about how the students use prompts. She says,
They take a simplistic prompt and make magnificent pieces. A prompt could be a simple as “suddenly she sat up in bed” or “looking into the rearview mirror.” The writers are able to write stories that are so diverse from one another and even sometimes from what others may expect from themselves.
Prompts are a great exercise in writing because it is extremely rare that a student isn’t able to to generate a piece of writing from the prompt. While the writer’s club is tailored more towards those who have a true passion for the craft I feel as if this exercise could be successfully used in any writing classroom.
A prompt doesn’t have to be a sentence that gets students writing a story. Instead it can be a thematic question from a text. For instance, in my Shakespeare class the professor always starts off discussions of a play with a quiz featuring questions that are designed as writing prompts. This works out quite well it gets all our minds going and after doing the quiz we are quite ready to discuss the play. From a critical pedagogy standpoint, one could also use a movie addressing an issue such as Bowling for Columbine or Super Size Me as prompts as we have looked at in our classroom. Prompts are another creative writing exercise that with a little imagination can be adapted into a great exercise for all sorts of writing.
“Writers escape into the words of imagination“
Megan Emery
StatesmanJournal.com
October 15, 2008
I agree that that a writing club can provide a place to develop writing that one may not get in school. Its a pretty neat idea for those who are interested in it and its a nice thing to offer. I like the idea of prompts quite a bit. Ive never really used them but it seems that they can be very effective, as we talked about in class. It gives writers a starting point and that is often the most difficult part to begin with. Prompts are a great balancing point between giving students choice in what they write about and having a more controlled assignment. It means that students can also compare works and see how others developed their story differently. I like using prompts from things like the videos we watched. I think you could also use music prompts. You could ask students to listen to a song and take a line, or continue to write in the tone of the song. This could be pretty interesting. nice post.
I agree totally with what you had to say about writing prompts. I think that high school or any students will benefit from teachers providing writing prompts. I can remember when I was in school and some of the teachers would give us our journals during a period and tell us to write in them. I recall sitting there several times unable to focus my mind around a particular area to write about. I believe if a teacher had given a writing prompt I would have had something to trigger an emotion or theme and my writings could have been a lot better.
I recently started substitute teaching and many lesson plans instruct me to have the students write in their journals, no prompt or focus. I learned from some of my education classes about the benefits of writing prompts. So when it is time for the students to write in their journals I always put a writing prompt or question on the board to give the students a focus and purpose for their journal entry. I really empathize with the students and their writings because I have been down that road and it is not an easy task to write something satisfactory at a moments notice without any guidance.
Dustin,
I think that the idea of a writing club is really interesting; I’ve never heard of anything like that before. My school had everything from Progressive Club to Conservative Club and yet nothing for students to write. It seems like a way for students who are skilled or even ones who aren’t to practice the craft outside of the confines of a potentially bad English curriculum. I had a couple of English teachers in high school who were less than enlightening. You know, the ones who take the “meaning” of the work straight out of the teacher’s guide, and no other interpretation had any merit. I think that this kind of club could provide an outside place to be creative with writing. I know from personal experience that prompts can be very effective to help break out of a creative rut. I would like to start a club like that in my future school, or maybe even a “reading and writing club”, where students can read works and discuss them without being judged, and can write about them from their own perspectives. I think something like that could really promote the love of literature and writing, instead of stifling it like some English classrooms (unfortunately) can do.
–
Kelly
Angela – I think that’s your name for your username at least! I think it’s great that you are giving prompts to students when they do the journal entries, as we agree it is a great way to help students when they can’t find an idea for their writing. However, (I’m not sure if you’re doing this or not) I feel as if you shouldn’t make the prompt be what the students have to write about for their entries. If the students have a good idea on their own, they should definitely be allowed to use that instead of the prompt. For the assignment you mentioned, I feel as if the prompt should be for those struggling for a topic.
Kelly – I agree with you entirely. A reading and writing club is a great way to encourage all of the great things about English and literature in a more relaxed and fun environment. I hope to establish a similar club when I’m a teacher.
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