Little Chute Elementary School

I met a person at the Irish Fest who was interested in writing.  She also wanted to buy both my books but didn’t have the money.  I asked her to fill out an order form and then mail me a check.  Weeks went by and I didn’t receive the order form back and forgot about the experience.

About six weeks later I received the order form and a check.  She apologized because the form was folded in her jacket pocket and she forgot about it.  The next day I mailed her my books and included hand written notes that if she ever wanted help to contact me at my e-mail address.  Again, I thought that experience was ended.

Several weeks later I received a draft book review for Murphy’s Troubles.  It was a well written, thorough review and invited her to post it on Amazon.  Within a few days I received another e-mail explaining she was a 4th grade teacher in Little Chute Wisconsin.  She was planning on teaching a unit on writing and wanted to know if I would be willing to meet with her class through Skype.

WOW!  There is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I jumped at the chance.  She and another teacher co-teach and she said she wanted approval from her teaching partner.  The partner was in favor of the experiment.

We set up a time to agree on curriculum and spent about 30 minutes on Skype planning our first class.  The objective for the first class was to teach students to think of a small moment from recent experiences and use that to begin a story.  Before our Skype planning session I met with a friend who is a retired 5th grade teacher.  He gave me a lot of pointers and suggested that I ask for samples of other writing the class had completed and ask what books they were reading.  In the Skype planning session the teachers were impressed with my questions and I confessed I had a little help from a friend.  

A week ago Monday we had our first 40 minute lesson via Skype.  The class includes 23 students with a wide range of abilities and talents.  The camera was set up so that I could view the whole class.  I don’t know for sure but I’m guessing I looked like a talking head.  To talk with me each student had to come to the front of the room and use a hand held microphone.  When the camera clicked on there was pandemonium with waving hands, laughing, smiling and screaming “Hello Mr. Owens”. 

I had the students share with me their single moments.  The teachers then had the students write about their moments in two or three sentences.  Students then volunteered to read to me what they wrote.  The final step was to take what they had written and turn it into fiction.  I suggested they think of their moment and then ask: “what if”.  I went down the water slide, what if I plunged into the pool and couldn’t swim to the surface?  As the class ended the students were transforming their single moment into a story.

What a thrill it was to watch the students learn the basics of writing fiction, one small step at a time.  That afternoon the teachers sent me an e-mail saying the class was AWESOME!  They gave me their schedule for the rest of the writing unit and invited to me come to any or all of the classes.  Several of the classes were just for review so I skipped those.  I’ll be helping out with the lessons on creating characters and on plot.

Once again, the writing life has provided me with opportunities and experiences I never could have imagined.  Next week I’ll share with you how the class on creating characters.