Founder Sondra Hall sat down with Carol Miller of Rarebird Radio to talk creative writing, processing trauma, and fostering a regular writing practice. Bonus poetry readings included - have a listen!
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Sondra Hall
At “Take My Word For It!” our goal is to introduce kids to writing as an adventure, a chance to try on different personas, and as an outlet for their feelings, thoughts and ideas (even those they don’t want to share with anyone).
There are a lot of other folks out there who share our philosophy and so if you are looking for a way to keep your child inspired to write this summer, there are some websites and blogs you should know about. (Please keep in mind, this is just the tip of the writing-resource iceberg!)
Karen Benke is a Bay area teacher and author who is always up for a Word Party! Her two books, Rip the Page! and Leap Write In! are designed to give young authors lots of novel ideas to get them writing. Her website has an activity page that’s a great place to look for ideas to ignite the creative spark.
Creative Everyday Challenge. Leah Piken Kolidas’ website isn’t just for writers, but young writers can visit to find fertile soil for their creativity. Each month she posts a themed creative challenge, and, in her words, invites creative acts in “cooking, taking pictures, knitting, doodling, writing, dancing, decorating, singing, playing with your kids, brainstorming ideas, gardening, or making art in the form of collage, paint, or clay...”.
Scholasticfeatures a fun Story Starter page on their website – it functions sort of like a roulette wheel for story ideas that come up at the click of a button. You can choose prompts by genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure, Fantasy and Scrambler (a hodgepodge of all three).
Imagination Soup is a super-cool website with the tagline, “bite-sized wisdom for thinking parents”. Put together by Melissa Taylor, a Mom, teacher and freelance education blogger, it covers a wealth of topics including writing, reading, toys & games and tech. Her writing activities for kids page is chocked full of wonderful ideas that also include art and other DIY projects.
Magnetic Poetry words appear on many of our refrigerators and they make starting a poem or a story oh-so-easy. I own set of giant magnetic words that I often pull out to use in our writing workshops. Magnetic Poetry’s website has a page where kids can play around with an online set of “magnetic” words to create stories and poems.
Or visit ReadWriteThink, a website sponsored by the International Reading Association, where a community of educators working to improve literacy for every student post their innovative lesson plans, to learn how to make a kit of your own.
We have these, and other writing resources, posted on our website. If you know of one that we haven’t included, please let us know! We love to spread the word about like-minded folks doing outstanding work with kids and literary creativity.
-Sondra Hall Founder & Director, "Take My Word For It!"
Since it’s the month dedicated to declarations of love, allow us to profess our undying love for words. What would we do without them?
Words can be delicious for the mouth to say, mellifluous for the ear to hear and spark powerful memories, flights of fancy and wild imaginings.
There are so many reasons why we want kids to love words, but we tried to narrow it down to an important few:
- No matter how old you are it’s a thrill to look up the meaning of a word.- Words can be whispered or shouted to the hilltops.- Words can heal.- Words are inspirational.- The truth is made out of words.
And we thought we’d include a few from some beloved writers too:
“Poetry: the best words in the best order.” ― Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“A word is dead when it's been said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.” ― Emily Dickinson
“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.” ― Henry Ward Beecher
“But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.” ― George Gordon Byron
“If you say a word, it leaps out and becomes the truth. I love you. I believe it. I believe I am loveable. How can something as fragile as a word build a whole world?” ― Franny Billingsley, Chime
Our goal at “Take My Word For It!” is to encourage kids to become life-long lovers of words. Happy Falling in Love with Words month!
Many of the students who enroll in our classes start out the session with big doubts. They doubt they will ever like what comes out of their pencils, that they will ever want anyone else to hear what they’ve written and that they will ever, ever like writing.
We’re happy to say that we specialize in converting reluctant writers into enthusiastic ones. When parents contact us wondering if their kid, the one who runs away screaming whenever he has to write, will survive our class, we can point to our impressive track record of converts and encourage them to sign up and see what happens. We promise we’ll refund them their money if their child is miserable and in 8 years we’ve never had to make good on that promise!
How do we do it?
- It’s our philosophy that when their imaginations are engaged, kids are more enthusiastic about learning.
- It’s our belief that every child deserves to be heard and at the beginning of each session we tell them that. Once they’re convinced we mean it, they take us up on our offer and dive into creating stories and poems, trying new techniques, learning new terms and sharing what they’ve learned and written with the rest of the class.
- Writing is a bold, creative act. It’s fun and there are no wrong answers. Kids are inherently imaginative creatures and with a little encouragement and guidance, they can tap into a well-spring of ideas in no time!
Even kids who cannot sit down long enough to write a paragraph, or are English language learners can feel successful in our classes. We encourage them to tell us their stories verbally and we write them down. Just seeing their words on the paper works wonders for their self-esteem.
If there’s a young (would-be) writer in your life who’s dead set against doing writing assignments and complains they can’t think of anything to write, don’t give up on them! Hiding beneath her negative attitude and recalcitrance is an expressive, original voice that with a little coaxing will come roaring out!
-Sondra HallFounder and Director, "Take My Word For It!"
The Art Edition:
On Wednesday, students created wire "characters" to sketch in different poses to aid in drawing their book characters. We learned about perspective to create backgrounds and different points of view. We discussed "visual flow" to make our book and story look interesting with recognizable characters throughout.
Today we had a busy and productive afternoon- it zipped by! All the students created their book cover and began pasting in the art they created and adding illustrations. I worked with each camper individually so they felt confident about pulling their book together. Tomorrow everyone will paste or write their story into the book. WOW!
Take a look at preview photos of some of their book covers and illustrations.
-Laurie Croft, Art Teacher
The Writing Edition:
We started off the morning talking about kids who don't have access to books and don't have a bookshelf crammed with their own favorite books at home. Campers brought in some of the books they're ready to part with to donate to The East Bay Children's Book Project. Founded and run by retired librarians and teachers, the EBCBP get books to kids who would otherswise not have them. www.eastbaychildrensbookproject.org.
To get the creative juices flowing, our first writing activity today was a free-write prompt: "What I hate about being a kid is..." Here are some of the sentiments expressed:
"What I hate about being a kid is I can't go to the moon, I can't drive, I can't stay up all night, and I don't got dat ca$h..."
- Adrian
Adrian and Claire (Instructor)
Amira
Milagro
Fatima
Diego, Lucas, and Dante
Emily and Simone
Tyler
What I hate about being a kid is that grown-ups never understand you when you are explaining something."
-Arielle
Arielle
Sophie
Elizabeth (Instructor), LyLy, and Alicia
"I hate that I have to live with my family. (Actually I don't hate living with my family, it's just that I want to live by myself!)"
- Alicia
We spent the rest of the morning finishing, editing and proofreading our children's books which are shaping up to be quite impressive.
The Art Edition:
The students are excited about writing and illustrating their Children's books and so am I!
On Monday we looked at books and different illustration styles, tecniques and mediums artists use. We experimented with different tecniques and materials exploring pencil, sharpies, and watercolors. Students learned how to incorporate illustration into letters by creating their name as flowers, animals and patterns. The campers all received newsprint sketchpads and spent the end of the day sketching ideas for their book characters. On Tuesday we continued exploring different art mediums so each individual can choose a material they enjoy using the most. We got tempera paints out, learned how to mix colors and created paintings. We also made bold oil pastel drawings on black paper. Students pulled out their sketchbooks and we practiced drawing faces that show different emotions. I've been talking to the campers individually and working with them to develop their character and background art and some of them are already sketching illustrations for their book.
-Laurie Croft, art teacher
The Writing Edition: Bedtime Story Excerpts
Tyler- My character’s name is Bob, and he lives on a farm.
Adrian- My character is fat kid named Poncho and his challenge is the Super Taco Grande Mucho Gigante.
Arielle-My character’s name is Saddy, and he is a blue sphere.
Diego- My character’s name is Bob-John-Joe-Jack and he can fly.
Simone- My character is a little boy named Tommy and he gets lost from his family.
Amira- Mine is about a boy named Carmu who dreams of being a farmer.
Jiana-My character’s name is Cleo and she lives in a cave.
Dante- My character is a kid named Jimmy Bean who lives in Mexico and his parents work at Mexicano McDonalds.
Milagro- My main character is named Shirley and whoever makes her mad in the story falls into mud.
Fatima- My character is named Speedy-Deee and he is a dinosaur who can outdrive the police, in a sports car.
Sophie- My character is a pig named Scooey that goes to Piglet High School.
Alicia- My character’s name is Payson. She is a swimmer and she is an Olympic gold medalist.
Grace- My character’s name is Graffiti Can Sam, and he is a can of spray paint who goes out and paints stuff.
Emily- My character’s name is Amanda Bobbleton, who does not want her baby sister to be born.
Lucas- My character is a kid named Freddy, and he lives in a casino in Las Vegas.
LyLy- My character’s name is Emily Roberts and she has a magic teddy bear that takes her to different places in her dreams.
Aaron- My characters is Mader and I am still deciding what he’s going to do but it has to do with movies.
Sophia and Milagro
Diego and Adrian
Simone and Emily
Tyler
Arielle
Giana, Alicia, and Amira
Lucas, Grace, and Dante