Elementary School Kids Rock

About an hour ago, I finished my second of two speaking appearances at elementary schools.  Yesterday, I spoke to a group of fourth graders and today to a group of third graders.  First, I spoke to them about the writing process (Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Proofreading, and Publishing) and engaging them in an activity that I called Worldbuilding with Jeremy Rodden.

The first day, I was very nervous because I wasn’t sure how receptive the students would be.  I was astounded by how many questions they asked about the process: everything from “where do you get your ideas?” to “do you make any money writing?”  Throughout both days, I was bombarded with questions from these eager minds.  I couldn’t believe that they were that into the process.

When we moved onto the Worldbuilding activity, wherein I asked them to create their own world like I did with Toonopolis, then try to convince others to want to live there, I was even more blown away.  While 20-30% of the worlds involved food of some kind (usually candy), some of them came up with amazingly original ideas.  I met a few future fantasy writers, that is for certain!  One little girl was already working on her novel and I can’t wait to read it.  She has some phenomenal original ideas that even adult fantasy writers wish they came up with (like me!).

I can’t wait to start contacting more schools where I can do appearances.  I think I was just as energized by conversing with these youngsters as they were by having a published author talk to them.  Maybe I convinced a few of them how great writing is.  At the very least, I know I was able to keep them engaged for an hour or two and get their minds working at creative worldbuilding.  I want to talk to more kids.  I hope some of them got something good out of it… but I know I did.

Comments

comments

2 comments

    • Bob Gilbert on June 14, 2011 at 5:06 pm
    • Reply

    Thanks again, Jeremy. You really engaged the students, which is quite a feat considering there are three days of school left!

    1. I’m happy to hear that, Bob! I am glad the kids seemed to have a good time and I look forward to coming back next year if I can make it work with my schedule.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.