Our first week of implementing story workshop in the classroom has been filled with discovery about the processes of authors. The kids were introduced to three different materials during free choice times and encouraged to explore and experiment. Later, during Story Workshop time, the kids were asked to see if they could use the same materials to enhance their own writing and search for a process that worked for them as an author. Do they prefer to write first, then illustrate with materials? Do they prefer to work on painting a picture with watercolors for several days and then write? Do they like to write, illustrate, write, illustrate, and so on? These are the things we hoped the kids would work through as we delved into this journey.
Today, Aidan decided he was done with his story. He had worked all of Monday’s Story Workshop on an intricate watercolor of magical color changing flowers and taken the two following days to write the corresponding story into a book. After some together, Aidan announced he wanted to publish his story.
We began by Aidan reading his words from the story and myself transcribing onto a word document. Upon typing, I wondered how Aidan would prefer his writing to be typed. Should I follow his lead of invented spelling or type the known “adult” spellings instead? Aidan read me his title, All About Plants. As I began to type the title of his book, instinctively, my hands typed the adult spelling “all” instead of Aidan’s “ol”. Aidan watched the screen and corrected my typing.
“Mrs. Argus? I actually spelled it “O” “L” for “all”.”
“Oops! I made a mistake Aidan. Can you repeat that to me?”
“Sure, “O” “L”. All!”
We continued this process of Aidan reading his story and me observing his written words as he read, being as careful as possible to honor his writing. We stopped several times to make sure all words were represented exactly the way Aidan had written.
After printing and looking at the final piece, Aidan noticed something.
“Hmm…”
“What’s that Aidan? Do you want to change something?”
“Well, no. I can’t change it now.”
“Of course you can. That’s what authors do. They revise and edit.”
“Revise and edit? Like make it different?”
“Authors go back and change things they want to make better.”
“I want to edit this. Right here. I have an exclamation mark for this sentence but not for this one. Or this other one. Lets add those.”
At this point, Lucas walked over to the computer screen and crouched down beside us.
“What’s this all about?” Lucas said, motioning to the screen.
Aidan explained he was publishing his story.
“You know, Aidan, you could do two or three exclamation marks if you are really excited, instead of just one.”
“I think I want to do that. Can I do that?”
“Of course you can! You’re the author! Add them in.”
While Aidan, Lucas and I added in punctuation for each sentence, Zek came over to the screen.
“Wow! Its official now.”
“It’s published!” said Lucas.
“Mrs. Argus, I would really like to share this. I wrote like an author.”
Tags: collaboration, creativity, story workshop, writing
