Improv-ing The Teaching of Writing One Cohort At a Time. The 10-Minute Play Workshop

 I will never grow tired of running a 60-Minute workshop on ten-minute play script writing and it thrills me to death that a tradition I began at the J. Graham Brown School in Louisville, Kentucky in 2002 continues in 2018 (in 3 states).

I was in massive need for 'play,' yesterday, so the night before I resurrected a workshop and used it to as a writing lesson model to go with the on-coming language of EdTPA. My point with the students is that, above all else, writing should be a tremendous amount of fun. One of the students said, "We so need a selfie of this," and I responded, "Um, I incorporated that in the script I composed for our classroom performance."

It was part of the show.

The skinny is that today's lesson was to learn the EdTPA language for lesson planning, and I paired it with vocabulary activities, readings, Gallagher's chapter that The Wizard of Oz Would Be a Lousy Writing Teacher, and an in-class writing workshop where students could tap dialogue from their own lives to design a script of their own.

It has to be the best workshop I have up my sleeve and, kindergarten through Ph.D programs, it never fails. Everyone writes and has a fantastic time (Phew! I need to publish on this - it's too much fun).

My students and I share that we are absolutely exhausted at this time of the semester, so today was designed to bring Joy back to the classroom - the same Joy presented to us by Ralph Fletcher who helped me to kick off the semester with his book.

100% writing. 100% laughter. 100% happiness. 100% lightbulbs. In my dream life this is how I live my life everyday.

The National Writing Project helped me to come to this.

Okay, it's Thursday, and my day consists of an international conversation, a Fall spectacular (to be announced very soon), and 2 hours of PD with CWP teachers this evening. Sadly, there's a funeral in the mix, too (that I'm not looking forward to, but that I am....because he was a tremendous inspiration and he gave me hope for what I am trying to do. He saw me and appreciated the work).

Phew. This job. I tell ya'.