One of the first things I loved about school as a child was the clubs. Not the clubs that teachers led, although those were fun, but the clubs my friends and I created on the playground, electing president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. We were hazy on the point of any of these groups, but clear leadership was always established early and solemnly respected.
When I decided to start Writers’ Club with the freshman class, the memories of those old clubs were in the back of my mind. I had many students that year who were passionate about writing but lacked confidence and direction. In writing workshop, they wrote eagerly but struggled to give and accept feedback, and no matter what I tried, the looming specter of a grade shadowed everything they did and kept them from taking risks.
Writers’ Club, I hoped, would give students a place to play with words and a place to practice skills we discussed in class, but I was also thinking about strong club leadership. I planned to work with the group to develop feedback protocols that worked for students and then ask club members to take what they had learned back to class and teach it to their classmates.
What It Was
I explained to my classes that club members would meet after school and write together, keeping the club description vague because I wanted to let them design the specifics of what we would be doing. Six girls came to the first meeting. We passed around notebooks and chocolate and decided that these were our goals:
- To write every week
- To share our writing and work through processes of giving feedback
- To share what we learned with other students
- To publish our writing
I wanted students to explore writing and have fun, but I also hoped that this group would be able to function like a leadership team, bringing the ideas they tested about writing and feedback to their classmates.
What We Did
The club meetings began with sharing writing that students brought to the group. Occasionally they brought something they needed to write for another class, but usually they brought something more personal. They also wrote together, from either a prompt or a minilesson generated by their questions and interests. At the end of each meeting, they decided what they wanted to study for next time—ways to establish setting, how to use effective transitions, and so on—and I created a minilesson or a prompt based on what they wanted to learn.
After sharing their writing, they practiced feedback protocol: letting the writer tell what she needed, asking good questions, praising things they liked, and making suggestions. They chose how much feedback they wanted on their writing and what kind of feedback. Club members worked on learning to articulate what they needed as writers, and on listening to each other and reading drafts with a sense of purpose.
Finally, the club took their leadership back to their classes. We introduced the feedback protocol they had practiced to whole classes, and during writing workshop, they met with different groups of students and guided them through their feedback strategies. It allowed me to step back and facilitate while these students brought their personal experiences to small groups.
Publication
At the end of the year, Writers’ Club created an artistic anthology. They invited the entire grade to contribute writing and artwork, and many of their classmates who had been shy about sharing writing submitted pieces when encouraged by Writers’ Club members—often pieces they wrote and revised with the help of classmates. The club designed the cover, organized the writing and artwork within, and published and distributed the books to their classmates, the school library, and the local community.
Writers’ Club has existed for years now, and each year the focus shifts, based on the needs of the students in the club and the goals they make for sharing their writing and their learning. At the end of the year, we celebrate with a field trip to a local writing conference for teens, pizza, and a movie (based on a book, of course). Student ownership both in what they write and how they share has been key, as well as building trust among group members through their feedback protocol, and an excess of chocolate.
