Girl Power

Post 10 of 20

November 18, 2014Katerina ManousakisUncategorized

Thursday and Saturday this week marked the end of the first of my Short Story classes at Inkreadable Kids. I have mixed feelings about the closure of my first session. I am glad that, contrary to a few opinions, I started the sessions in January, instead of waiting until the spring. If I had waited for the perfect time to start this project, I wouldn’t have. There is no perfect time. Or rather, it’s always the perfect time. I am sad that I am losing, temporarily, I hope, two of my girls, but it’s the start of Spring sports. I am ecstatic that my WIS girls are coming back on Thursday afternoons to take my Scene Stealers class. I have decided to make this a bit more focused on the tools of the craft. So while the kids will be writing scenes from well known stories, I am going to ask them to write the scene while concentrating on a particular writing concept. I was excited that everyone’s parents showed up to hear their children read the stories. I am sorry that the one person’s story got cut off in the scanning process. Luckily, they and their parents are so laid back it ended up being alright.

I learned several things about myself as well. I read the girls bits of my novel and it was empowering. They were on the edge of their seats wanting to know what happens next. It was gratifying to me that I write with enough panache that kids like it. Since that’s the age range I am targeting, it galvanized me to write more. It also put to rest all the mental nay saying that I do with regard to both teaching and writing. I know that I can write. I now know that I can instill love of writing in children. I am amazed at the power of the girl writer. And I know that yes, i can do this.

In the Thursday class, we saved a mom who was a genie, we dealt with the stress of being a girl who loves science and vanquished that stress, plus we won the science fair, and we got a humble musician to take three risks, and avoid his critical wife, to go to a masquerade. On Saturday, in true WIS style, we wrote a story about a cheerful Captain and two young women, who find a secret waterfall, and in the process rebuild earthquake ravaged Haiti. The power of these young girls’ imaginations was astounding. Their intellects are big, their imaginations are bigger, and their hearts contain immense courage to stand up and bare their souls, to their parents, to me, and most importantly, to each other. I am in awe.

The next Short Story module holds its own appeal. It takes place on Fridays at 5:15, and is “About a boy”. Actually, it’s about three. Stay tuned for the next inkreadable installment.

Source:: Inkreadablekids

This article was written by Tina

"Tina made it fun and helped me to come up with lots of ideas. She made me want to write more!! I love the book I wrote and will keep it in a super, safe place." “This class is very fun. We do fun writing prompts. I also really liked my writing prompt. It was “A genie gives you three wishes. What do you wish for and why?” I want to do this class again!” “This was Inkreadable. Once my pencil touched the paper, I couldn’t stop writing. And once I was I was done, I wanted to write more.” “I liked that we got to write our own stories, but we helped each other and read Ms. Tina’s story too.”

The Students

“Tina inspired my daughter to write more and helped her to gradually come to understand the formal structure of a story. My husband and I really appreciated both of these aspects, as writing, like any activity for young children, requires nurturing that is a combination of solid guidance and age-appropriate motivation to sustain interest! We highly recommend Inkreadable Kids, and will return for another session!” “My daughter learned a lot from Tina about the process of creative writing, and most importantly, had fun doing it!” “My daughter enjoyed the writing class very much. It motivated her to create stories in a non-judgmental, safe atmosphere. She loved it! Tina told her the first class, “Words are magic” and she was hooked.”

The Parents

I got to read it to my parents. I got my own book to keep forever. I got to feel what it was like in the story. I think I would recommend this writing class because it’s fun. You get to learn about the beginning, rising action, the climax, the descending action and the end. It is a great class, interesting and helpful on how to organize a story. I had fun with writing for my story, and thinking up a story to make. I liked learning about the climax. I think other kids should come!

The Students

When I announced to my boys that I registered them for creative writing workshops, they were not so excited. But once they started, they were very happy and found the classes very interesting and exciting. I am really happy to see how Tina made the classes interesting, and that I did not have to drag them to come to class.

The Parents