Thursday, August 19, 2010

What you need to know

My classes are held in Oakland. (They are on zoom while we are in this pandemic)

Elementary Class Description: Personal Narrative, Poetry, Fiction, Literary Essays, Persuasive Essays, Non-Fiction Books, Humor and Memoir.  
I teach three sessions in a school year.  I charge $30 per student, with a 3 person minimum for that price. Private lessons are $70 per hour, but I can do smaller chunks of time. 

The above topics will be covered in the course of a year, in approximately that order.  You may sign up for each of the three sessions separately.

My elementary classes (see below for teens) are geared toward children from grades 2-5, but can be flexible depending on the child's level. I generally mix grades and ages in a single class, since I don't have enough classes to separate them all out. Since my classes are small, I can effectively work with varying ages.

I believe in making writing fun and engaging, otherwise children will not want to participate in the act of writing at all! In the classes, I always start with reading a book or a poem. I choose books that may demonstrate a particular aspect of writing that I plan to discuss that day. In order to be good writers, children need to see lots of good published examples!

After I've read a book or excerpt, I teach a "mini-lesson." The mini lessons are short informational bits about poetry, narrative writing, mechanics, etc.. The rest of the hour I leave to a quiet writing session during which I confer with individual students about their writing. At the end, we may do some sharing, but the format may change a little from class to class.
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Teen Class Description:  Poetry, Memoir (Personal Essay), Fiction, Literary Essays, Persuasive Essays, Non-Fiction Books and Humor.
I teach three sessions in a school year.  The above topics will be covered in the course of a year, in approximately that order.  You may sign up for each of the three sessions separately.

My teen classes are generally for ages 12 and up. In these classes, we explore many aspects of writing.  I start off every class by reading a poem, either written by a published poet or a student. Past experience shows me that the students love this part of the class. The poems are carefully selected to appeal to teens.

After that, I teach a "mini-lesson" where I may read other things to the students. We talk about ways to make your writing better as well as discuss mechanics in writing. I keep this relatively short so that students will have time to work on their own writing.  In this website I have an outline that shows in more detail what I plan to cover through this school year.


Class Location
Writing classes are held in either my home in Oakland, and possibly another location as well. I have a non-smoking home. I have two cats. During Covid, I am going to try teaching outside in the yard. I also can teach Zoom classes. 

Payment

I am a vendor with Visions.  I also accept personal checks/cash if you are not using purchase orders.