Vision Blog # 1: Website for Starting a Student Creative Writing Club

 For the final project of this course, I will create a 5-page website that any teacher or teacher-librarian can access. In my previous blogs, I have discussed often about hosting a creative writing club for students in my future learning commons. I have led such a club in the past, but it was on a small scale and in a classroom rather than a library environment. I see a learning commons as the perfect space for hosting a writing club. It has the space, materials, resources, and technology that students can use to write their creations. I’m a passionate writer and reader, and would love to share my enthusiasm with students so they can hopefully write for pleasure and creativity. Therefore, for my Future Vision artifact, I plan to have a website with 5 lesson plan, resources, and information for teacher-librarians to start a student writing club. 

 

As an on-call teacher, I have visited a few schools where literacy is the school’s goal. I’ve heard from teachers that they have these goals due to concerns that students are losing interest in writing and not practicing as often as they should. In the article, “The Effect of Creative Writing Activities on Elementary School Students' Creative Writing Achievement, Writing Attitude and Motivation,” Gokcen Gocen states, “Nowadays, writing skills have started to be used less due to developing technologies. It is necessary to emphasize writing skills, so it will not be forgotten but improved” (1032). I have witnessed teacher-librarians develop wonderful programs and events to promote a reading culture throughout their school community. 

Image from “ Putting the Joy Back in Writing” : https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2021/10/27/putting-the-joy-back-in-writing

I have been inspired by these literacy goals and thought of a writing workshop where students can write anything that interests them with a variety of tools provided. I have led a writing club in an elementary school before and have seen its positive results. Students were excited to come in to write anything, whether it be a short story, poem, comic, novel, journal, notes, etc. My students have told me they like this setting, rather than being told what to write by their teachers. According to Gocen, “Writing activities done in a traditional way cause writing skills to be out of favour, to be regarded as rare skills that few people can acquire and to bore and disincline students” (1033). I hope to help students gain more confidence in writing by providing a creative space where they are free to think and write anything, have familiar modern technology as writing tools, and learn 21^st century skills in digital and media literacy. Here is a video of a writing workshop in one of Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia: 

  After researching different platforms, I will make a website with Wix as it seems easy to use and accessible for many. I will use it to use create five pages of lesson plans, advice, and information to help teacher-librarians start a creative writing club. I have found many resources and materials while researching different aspects of a writing club. It is fantastic to see blogs and articles by educators who have also led a creative writing club in different forms. Though, I wish there were more laid-out instructions (such as lesson plans) for teacher-librarians. There are many ideas, activities, tools, and formats to consider. I may have to review my list of sources and include ones that will be most impactful. I’m also looking for digital programs and tools that will help elementary students create stories and other forms of writing. There are thankfully lots of programs and apps to consider. For instance, I found Edublogs, NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program, Book Creator, Storybird, etc. There are great resources for educators on the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program’s website: https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/pages/educator-resources. 

Image from “ NANOWRIMO’S YOUNG WRITER’S PROGRAM (YWP)“ : https://blog.tcea.org/nanowrimos-young-writers-program-ywp/

I have an idea of what the structure of the web pages will look like. I have begun organizing information for the website into a defined outline. After gathering enough information and ideas, I will begin to write the lesson plans and create the website. 

 

  The key elements that I want to apply to a creative writing club are digital and media literacy, inquiry-based learning, and modern technology use. After learning more about digital literacy and its importance through this course, I would like to implement it into the writing club. Gocen claims, “[I]t is important to follow current trends in writing, to apply innovations in the classroom…and to enable students to acquire writing skills they can use throughout their lives” (1033). For example, students could learn both digital and social literacy by creating Edublogs blogs, Facebook pages, Instagram profiles of their favourtie book character, or student-friendly wiki pages.

Image from “ Revamping Writing for a Digital Age” : https://knilt.arcc.albany.edu/Revamping_Writing_for_a_Digital_Age

 I would like to include such activities in the writing club so students can display their work to the school community. This aligns with one of the ISTE standards for educators, which is 2.5.a Accommodate Learner Differences: 

 

Use technology to create, adapt, and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs. 

 

 For educational structure of the writing club, I wish to apply inquiry-based learning where students create whatever they are passionate about with some guidance provided. I have done this structure with my last writing club and the students loved it while creating fantastic material. Gocen claims, “There are creative writing activities that offer students opportunities like dreaming up, preparing content, expressing ideas and dreams freely, being active in the writing process, having fun while writing and producing authentic content” (1033).I will further explore more of Trevor Mackenzie’s articles and materials in inquiry-based learning from his website: https://www.trevormackenzie.com/sketchnotes. Lastly, I would love to give students the opportunity to use a variety of devices, such as Ipads, Chromebooks, audio, computers, etc., for their writing pieces. Through these devices, I hope to obtain various programs and apps that students from K-5 can use to for their creations. 

 

  One day, I hope to host a creative writing club in a school library to promote more reading and writing in students. By creating a website with the tools and lesson plans to start a club, I will use it once I have my own school library. I also intend to make this website available to everyone, especially educators. I’ll make certain the website is open to comments so I can learn from critiques and adapt the writing club to be more effective. For now, I will continue to research and build my lesson plans for the website. Hopefully, everything will begin to develop by the time I post the next blog for the Future Vision project. 

 

 

 

                                                        

 

 

 

 

                                                                         Works Cited 

 “2. Educators.” ISTE, iste.org/standards/educators. Accessed 10 Nov. 2023. 

Göçen, Gökçen. “The effect of creative writing activities on elementary school students’ creative writing achievement, writing attitude and motivation.” Dil ve Dilbilimi Çalışmaları Dergisi, vol. 15, no. 3, 2019, pp. 1032–1044, https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.631547.