Full Pages!

Wow, I am so impressed with my students. They have really rocked the house and brought it to the game this first week of NaNoWriMo. To recap in case you didn't read the last couple of weeks' blog posts: I have three Creative Writing classes of 25-30 inner city 7th-graders. The class happened at the last minute, so none of them got to choose to be in there, they were just put in there because they needed electives. I am doing NaNoWriMo with all three classes, each class creating a themed anthology of stories equal to 2,000 words for every student. (I am also writing a 2k story for each class to help encourage them and be a part of it.) I'm also running the afterschool NaNoWriMo, whose kids are writing 10-15 thousand words each, and is voluntary particpation.

Well, alot of the kids in these classes don't want to be in the class, but this week, you'd never have known it.

My 1st period class, which met twice this week (Tues & Thurs), is writing a work titled "Won't Back Down" along the theme of "Evil vs Good." They logged 15,602 words this week.

My 6th period class got to meet three times, (Mon, Wed, & Fri) and their theme is "Never betray a friend." They are calling their novel BFNFL: Best Friend NOT For Life. This class turned out an amazing 27,239 words this week!

Finally, my 8th period class, which also met three times, chose "Don't pick a fight you can't win" as their theme and "Fighting with Demons" as their title. These students brought 28,427 words to the table this week! Outstanding!

I am so proud of all of them! Some on Friday had even hit their goal of 2,000 words! We gave them a big round of applause. Then I asked each of them one question: Are you done yet? *grin* Nope! They've still got pages of story to write!

In comparison, these are the same classes wherein earlier this year I asked them to write 500 words and they acted as though I had shot them and took two weeks to get it turned in. Now, they churn out 500 words in a class period without blinking twice, and go home promising to double their word count. I can't wait for Monday.


My afterschooler NaNoWriMos have also been hard at work, but many of them didn't get their word counts updated this week, so I don't have a total count for them. There are about 25 of them, though, and several have logged over 2-3 thousand words each.

This coming Friday night, November 12th is going to be really exciting, though. My students will be hosting a Write-In for the adult NaNoWriMo program here in Dallas-Ft. Worth. If you are in the area and doing NaNoWriMo, you're invited! If you haven't seen the information out there yet, send me a message and I'll get you what you need to know. There's going to be games, prizes, food, and drink. Hope to see you there!