Art of Consciousness & Consciousness as Art

Creative Volunteers Needed for Writing Project!

Hello all you wonderfully creative people! My 9th grade students are in the process of writing short stories, and I am looking for people who would be willing to lend a creative hand, inspiration, word of encouragement, or critique to some budding authors.

The students are going through the process methodically, posting characterizations for their protagonaists and antagonists, using sensory imagery to create settings/moods/atmosphere, and analyzing conflicts between their characters. They are using The Hero's Journey as a guide to help them write, and they are giving feedback to one another.

It would be wonderful for them to hear from authors or aspiring authors from Conscious Artistry! I'm hoping that this could be sort of a mentoring experience for them. Their writing is going to be posted on my Sharing the Journey of the Hero site (http://herosjourney.ning.com) under the Forum discussion marked "Creative Writing".

We are just beginning, so there are very few posts by the kids as of right now. I'll post a schedule of due dates for certain portions of the stories for those who are interested in participating.

Thank you so much in advance!!

Susan Woodward
Webster Schroeder High School

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Patti on February 17, 2009 at 4:24pm: Susan,
I would be happy to lend whatever insight I can. Just let me know what you would like to have and I will gladly do my best.

Patti; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Susan Woodward on February 17, 2009 at 6:47pm: Thank you!

My 9th graders are writing short stories at my on-line community (http://herosjourney.ning.com). If you go to the Forum, you'll find "Creative Writing" as a category. From there, you'll discover various discussions taking place for the outline of the project. Because Ning does not have the capability to put the discussions in any order I wish, it's best to click "Sort by" and select "Newest Discussions" to at least get them in reverse order. Most of these are one to two sentences outlining the portion of the stories according to the Hero's Journey Pattern according to Joseph Campbell. Under Groups, you will discover three classes (labeled 4 Odd, 1 Even and 2 Even). Their partial drafts are there. That's where I'd really appreciate outside feedback for the kids. If you just look at a couple of stories and provide them with some constructive criticism, that would be wonderful!

Thank you so much!!
Susan Woodward; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by fiddlersinmyhouse on February 20, 2009 at 10:06pm: Hi Susan,

I am going to load a video of my book "Echoes from the Square" into the video area of this Conscious Artistry site. I think it may be of interest to you and your class (I also have a Ning site for interactions about the book
http://echoesfromthesquare.ning.com )

The book is based on the true actions of Mr. Vedran Smailovic, the cellist of Sarajevo, who played in the street during the siege of that city in 1992, amidst shellings and sniper fire. In the video I read the story aloud (the transcript is on the Ning site) accompanied by music performed by Smailovic (and violinist, Tasmin Little) and the artwork that was created by Deryk Houston for the book.

Please do let me know what you think.

I'm new to this site, but it looks really interesting!; ▶ Reply to This