On Editing

Our 9th Graders are working on fractured fairy tales for their benchmark. Last night's homework was to complete their rough drafts. Because these will be incorporated into children's picture books, there's a word limit of 500. It does an English teacher's heart good to have students complaining they absolutely cannot write anything under 596 words.
In an effort to stem the onset of AEP (Adolescent Editing Phobia), I'm turning back to my roots - my college roots.
There were a few things I garnered from my formal college education, truly a few. One of them was comparative adverbial forms such as, "He slowed down more slowly than she did." The other was from Professor Bob Broad - The Writer's Memo.
I remember writing my first memo in Broad's class. I remember thinking it was a complete waste of time. I remember getting my draft back with memo and comments and realizing I had just learned something about editing.
Today, my 9th graders will be turning in their rough drafts, writing their memos and trading papers. I'm hoping for goodness. I realize not every student is going to get as much out of the writers memo as I did. Still, I'm hoping it will be a start to a larger conversation over what it takes to truly get worthwhile peer review happening on a draft.
If not, I'll move on to comparative adverbial phrases.
More later.

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Image credit: http://flickr.com/photos/skylover/455669442/

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Freedom Writers Weekend Take 2

What a day.
I'm not entirely sure where to begin. I'm successfully in Long Beach, CA. I got in two nights ago and haven't stopped moving yet. Yesterday was spent mainly catching up with Freedom Writers Teachers I met when I was here in October. Each has such exciting stories to tell about his or her students.
I also spent a sizeable portion of yesterday in iMovie cutting and pasting a short video from last Monday night when my six students who participated in the Young Screenwriters Program through the Sarasota Film Festival were honored and got to watch a staged reading of their screenplays.
How fitting that last night's event here in Cali. was to go to Paramount Pictures for a private screening of Freedom Writers.
We also ate dinner in the studio cafeteria where the famous Taco Cart from the last Freedom Writers Weekend made a triumphant return.
What was best about the screening, though, was having a chance to watch the movie with an actual Freedom Writer on my left and one of the guidance counselors from Wilson High School who worked with the FW on my right. This was their truth, told on film and I got to share in experiencing it with them. Brilliant.
Today, we'll be on the Cal State, Long Beach campus workshopping how to teach the film with the book and getting our hands dirty helping to revise the teacher's guide due out this fall.
I cannot wait to collaborate with this dynamic group of teachers once again.
This trip is different because groups 1 and 2 of the pilot FWT are here.
Before meeting the members of Group 1, some of the other Group 2 members and I discussed our wonder at how the two would mesh. Ours was such a tight group that achieved cohesiveness so quickly, what if we didn't have the same chemistry with this other group?
I'm due to meet some of them in a few minutes for breakfast if that answers any questions.
I'll be sure to post again tonight with a more thoughtful reflection.
I'll also be starting a Flickr feed with the tag FWW0407 along with posting the screenwriters movie to Revver.