#06142020

Our second writing jam was with the IAWW Youth Council, consisting of 8th-10th graders from the Western Washington area.

Working with the high schoolers was a blast. I was impressed by how quickly they picked up on our unorthodox prompts and by their interest in learning specific creative writing tips. Many of them showed skill in writing stories and dialogue.

Our session followed this format:

Split into groups and discuss the prompt.

Have kids write responses for ~5-10 minutes.

Share what we wrote for the last ~5-10 minutes.

Mix up groups and repeat 2 more times.

These were our prompts--click the links to see what kids wrote in response!

How’ve you been recently?

Write a stream-of-consciousness monologue.

[6/14/2020] IAWW Youth Council: 8th-10th graders.

Back to IAWW Youth Council.

With this prompt, we wanted to encourage kids to share more about themselves. Looking at disagreements are a chance to reflect on what was important to us during that conversation, and we wanted to see what the kids had to say.

[6/14/2020] IAWW Youth Council: 8th-10th graders.

Back to IAWW Youth Council.

We wanted to introduce stream of consciousness to show the kids to write without overthinking, and it ended up being the most fun exercise to do.

To make things interesting, we primed them with 3 words, then said an additional word every 10-15 seconds to incorporate into their dreamlike monologue. These were the words most of us used (with slight variations depending on the group):

Majesty, Wand, Cabinet, Caterpillar, Friendship, Flying, Samosa, Rap Music, Pokémon.

See what the kids wrote below!