Q:Jennifer, you started an after school program featuring NaNoWriMo in the school where you teach. How did it work? What did you do to convince the kids to stay after school and write?
A:Our program started three years ago, when I got the crazy idea of dragging my middle schoolers along with me for the ride. I'd been participating in NaNo for years, and I figured my kids were just about old enough to really get into it. Our first year was small. I got permission to speak in a few of our language arts classes and told the kids we'd be starting an after school challenge for anyone who'd ever dreamed of writing a book. I got ten students to join, and six of those wrote through the whole month. It was pretty low-key, but we had some amazing times and I was blown away by my students. It was all about interest, so I had kids of every level, from special-ed to gifted. I remember my heart just melting when I asked them why they wanted to participate, and one of my special-ed boys said, "Because I'm not very good at speaking, but writing gives me a chance to say things well." He ended up writing a 10,000 word mystery story. It was fantastic.
After all that, I was super excited for last year. In order to raise interest, I talked to more classes and I also added a new incentive: Any students who wrote the whole month and actually met their goal would get their story printed through CreateSpace.com (since they were being so kind to affiliate with NaNo). It wouldn't be free (parents would have to pay for the book itself) but it would mean having something they wrote in print. We ended up with 26 students. Even better, 23 wrote the whole month and 16 met their goals. I had two students pass 30,000 words (writing beautiful fantasy novels), and my other students showed a fantastic range of interests. One 8th grader wrote a historical fiction novel about an American CIA agent in Nazi Germany. Another 7th grader wrote the beginnings of a beautifully in-depth political intrigue mystery. And my special-ed boy from the year before? He came back and wrapped up 15,000 words with flying colors... in a romance novel! His reason? "I like trying new things and I'd never written a love story before."
After we finished writing on November 30, I gave the kids until January to wrap up loose ends and do some basic editing. Then they turned their word files in to me, I polished the grammar and sentence structure (only to make it easier to read, visually. The actual content remained exactly as they had it), and then put the finished novels through the CreateSpace process. We ended up with 12 beautiful novels that look like they could have been bought off the Barnes & Noble shelves, complete with divided chapters, page numbers, title pages and back cover blurbs. Words can't describe the looks on my kids' faces when they got to see their names on those novels.
I'm not sure how this year will go, but considering the number of students who have already asked me about the program, I'm looking forward to a fantastic turn out. We'll be making a few more changes to the program... editing 12 middle school novels takes an incredible amount of time, so I'm hoping to run the program a little longer and have the kids take a more active role in the polishing process. It'll be a great learning experience for them and take a bit of the weight off of my shoulders. I'm also hoping to get more teachers involved, since I'm anticipating our numbers will continue to grow. But, no matter what, I know it will exceed expectations. These kids always do.
Jennifer Justice, 24, is a middle school reading teacher at Troy Middle School in Illinois. An avid participant of NaNoWriMo since 2004, she enjoys spreading the insanity to any and all who will listen. She lives with two ex-college roommates and a crazy, loveable cat named Sam. While NaNo is her main outlet for writing, she keeps her motivation flowing by joining in the madcap chaos and genuine support of the DeKalb NaNo group throughout the rest of the year.
