Everyone is an author

 

When students visited the Book and Gift Fair this week, they brought clipboards and pencils. 

 

 

 

The same thing will happen at the winter art show in a few weeks.

 

 

 

Students attend to these events not just as consumers, but also as participants, ready to respond to what they find.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But they also had him in their classrooms, critiquing their short stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The students told him theirs.

 

 

 

Gordon students are authors and storytellers, and they can find models throughout the school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Preschool parent had a new book out this week, as well, and two Lower School parents contributed to the just-published Girls Rock! RI coloring book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, the entire seventh grade, teachers and students alike, has been participating in National Novel Writing Month, which ends this week.

 

 

 

By Saturday, fifty new novels will be complete.

 

 

 

It all began with first sentences, titles, outlines and ambitious word counts.

 

 

 

Each day, students have been reporting in their progress: their word counts, and their progress through their plot 'rollercoasters'.

 

 

 

As of November 29th, some had achieved their word count goals, but not hadn't finished telling their stories. 

 

 

 

Others were in a situation that is perhaps trickier: they had hit all of their plot points, but hadn't reached their word count.

 

 

 

Would they add a prologue? An author's note? Acknowledgements?

 

 

 

Their final decisions will be revealed next week, when the fifty novels are given to fifty adult volunteers from throughout the school, who will read the novels before sitting down with the authors at a reception scheduled for December 20th.