UNITY
Young bards club
  
By CRAIG CROSBY
Staff Writer
 
12/10/2007

UNITY -- The youngest authors in central Maine are in Irene Woodford's third grade class at Unity Elementary School.

With help from Unity College students, the youngsters in Woodford's class went through the process familiar to every published author, from brainstorming the plot to countless, painstaking revisions.

The students even celebrated their accomplishment during Tuesday's book release party.

"It's just been a great experience for them," said Woodford.

Kathryn Miles, associate professor and director of writing at Unity College, believes a finished book can be a powerful motivator to keep young writers interested. Miles still recalls her book-writing project in elementary school.

"It's still something I think about a lot," she said. "It's probably the reason I decided to become a writer."

So last summer Miles and Woodford combined forces to develop the Young Author and Writer Project, or Y.A.W.P.

"We took the name from Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself,'" Miles said. "Whitman was legendary for shouting his barbaric yawp across the rooftops. We believe grade school students should have the same opportunity to share their vision of with the world."

The project filled a need for both teachers. For the third graders, it was a chance to work one-on-one with aspiring writers to develop their own books.

For Miles' senior seminar students, working with the third graders provided a chance to put the theories of learning and child development discussed in the class to use.

"The rapport between the college students and my students was awesome," Woodford said. "The college students encouraged my students to think about their stories and showed them what it will be like to be an author."

The students, young and old, met once a week for about 45 minutes since October. The sessions became the highlight of the students' week, Woodford said.

"It was the most wonderful feeling watching the children's faces light up when we walked in," said Heather Johnston, a senior ecology major from Scarborough.

The college and elementary students worked through the five stages of composition, from brainstorming characters and organizations, a series of drafts, to the final draft.

"I enjoyed watching the children write as fast as they could because their imagination was running wild and they didn't want to forget any details," Johnston said.

That richness of imagination shows up in the final versions, Woodford said.

"One interesting fact I noticed as a third grade teacher is that the student's writing shifted from a simple short story to one that had more depth and complexities," Woodford said. "Being encouraged by the Unity College students gave my students the opportunity to think and write more deeply about their stories."

The college students typed the final version of the stories into Bare Books, hard-covered, fully-bound books, and the children drew in illustrations. Each of the books is about 19 pages.

Elizabeth Kellogg, a junior environmental writing major from Massachusetts, said teaching the writing process has helped her understand it better.

"Watching a story line thought up by someone else go from beginning to end gave me a clear example that hope to use in any stories I might write," Kellogg said.

"Everybody left a little more excited about their writing than they were before," Miles added. "Including me."