CRWP Middle School Writing Camp: Day #4

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With the final day of middle school writing tech in the books as of yesterday, I can officially say it was a huge success.  I would have completed this post yesterday, but I needed to catch up on some much needed rest.  The very last day I did a video writing prompt with the kids. We watched the Duck Song which is easily accessible on Youtube. If you type in Duck Song in the search box, you won’t have a problem finding it!  Upon completion of viewing the video, I asked the campers how the video was related to writing and what made it so appealing.  We also discussed the idea of visual literacies.  The campers really wanted to make their own video that mirrored the Duck Song, but unfortunately we didn’t have the time.  It may be something to consider for next year.

Upon completing their writing into the day with the video prompt, we had our last guest speaker.  Our last speaker was an individual who was a head of some of the food services at CMU.  He actually runs the small bagel shop in the EHS building.  He discussed with the campers what someone in his position does on CMU and how the food service works at CMU.  I myself was really amazed at the processes that took place to meet the needs of all of the CMU students when they are all on campus.  Creating surveys and reports on student population were just a few of the items he discussed dealing with the writing world.

When our speaker was done speaking, he took us on a tour of one of the dining places on campus.  It was huge!  The kids really were able to understand better what has to take place to feed over 6000 students who attend CMU.  The students really enjoyed their free ice cream too.

After returning from our tour and eating a quick lunch, we talked to the students about fast food and doing research on some of their favorite fast food restaurants or foods.  The students learned about the research process and what to look for in a trustworthy source, especially when it comes to the internet.  Though the students didn’t have an enormous amount of time because it was the last day, the students were given more specific topics dealing with food and asked to research their topic online and then report back what they find.  Some students wrote a small blurb, others showed a short video.  This lesson/activity they did is great, but I would like to introduce it to them on the first day next year and then by the end of the week they can present their findings in a digital video, podcast, or a glog of some sorts.  They could even create a cartoon on toondoo.com to create some sort of venue to show what they have learned.  It was a lot for them to do in one day.

At the end of the day, the campers worked on their piece they were going to submit for our anthology.  Each student contributed one piece to our anthology and as co-directors we are putting together an anthology which will be mailed to them.  After they were done polishing their piece and sending it to me via Google Docs, they anxiously waited for their parents and guardians to arrive.  The participants then took some time to go over all of the work they completed throughout the week and showed them Youth Voices.  This lasted about a half hour and then we came back together as a whole group and volunteers shared with the whole group.

Overall, I feel the camp went really well.  The students seemed to have a really great experience using the Ipads, listening to various speakers talk about writing, and visiting different places to get inspired to write.  It was incredible how many of the campers came up to me to say thank-you for the week.  It meant a lot to me!  In addition, there were many parents who commented on the fact that they would be back next year.  With this being our first year, there are a lot of thing we can improve upon.  On the other hand, we are hoping this group can be a solid base and all of them return next year.  I definitely want to direct again next year and incorporate Youth Voices once again too.  Thanks to all who have followed our adventure this week!

Cheers!

CRWP Middle School Writing Camp: Day #1

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It is without a doubt a whole different world when you are talking to middle schoolers about writing when they actually care and want to be writing.  All in all, the first day of middle school tech writing camp was a success. I now understand what NWP directors go through with logistics on the first day. My co-director and myself spent a good portion of the morning getting a majority of our students signed up for their Google accounts so they can use google docs.  Unfortunately the Ipads were not ready today so the students had to use their composition notebooks, which isn’t a major set back, it was just frustrating when it is a middle school tech camp and they couldn’t use the technology.

After their writing into the day was completed, we focused on argumentative writing with the campers and we used George Hillock’s Teaching Argumentative Writing and Crime and Puzzlement by Lawrence Treat.  The campers looked at two different cartoon murder scenes and wrote down what evidence or facts they saw in the picture.  Then, they used that evidence to form a rule or warrant.  If the evidence did not answer all of the questions the campers had, they wrote down those questions.  The students worked in groups on this and eventually they wrote a police report.  Before the students wrote their reports we had a detective from the CMU police department come in and speak to the campers about his job and what police reports look like and why writing is important in police work.  The students asked great questions about his profession and they asked really smart questions about the reports they were writing.  In addition to the detective, we showed a model of an actual police report that was done on a car theft.  I also showed the campers a short youtube video on writing a quality police report.  The video had to be slowed down because it went to fast, but the students were able to understand what we were asking.  When the students were done with writing their reports, all four groups shared out their report.  Next year, I am hoping they will be put into a google doc and then be shared with the other groups so they can collaborate and get feedback from their peers.

The really fun part came in the afternoon when the students got to use the digital still cameras and the digital video cameras.  The campers were instructed to make their own murder scene and take digital still pictures of the staged murder scene similar to the ones that were given to them earlier.  In addition, the campers were to take the digital video cameras and record a narrative that would explain the scene for others to follow.  Before the students were allowed to wander the building and stage their murder scenes, they needed to develop and write out their plan for what they wanted to do.  Furthermore, they needed to write out a script for their narrative. Once their scripts and plans were approved, they were able to start staging their scene.  What I want to do is load their images and videos into youthvoice.net.  Then, I want the camp participants to go to youth voices and watch other groups videos and look at their pictures.  After viewing other groups work, I want them to comment on their work. I have to upload their work tomorrow morning to the youth voices website.

The last item I had participants complete today was write a short reflection on the days events and discuss what they might have learned about argumentative writing, visual literacies, writing as a whole, etc.  Reflecting on my own work today,  I want students to have more time to play with the digital cameras.  I would also like to bring them in props to use next year (if we go this route).  It would also be beneficial for the participants to have more time to plan for their murder scene and script.

Again, it was a very successful day. I feel that it went well and it extremely fast.  Tomorrow we are exploring poetry and we have a poet lined up to come in and speak to the students.  It should be a blast!

Cheers!