By Matthew Jellison and the Instructors at Writopia Lab
Each spring we hold a series of professional developments for our instructors that expands our resources and punches in on a specific element of our teaching practice. Last year, we focused on the hard skills and how we can fold grammar and mechanics into workshop holistically. The year before, it was positive behavioral management, and the year before that, we explored meaningful ways to foster robust peer feedback sessions. Each spring, we take a central pillar of our educational practice and find new framing, investigate and research with new eyes, develop new language, and design new writing games. Over the course of the season, we share these with our network of instructors in thoughtful, intimate meetings.
This spring, we had a bold professional learning plan. We would break our instructors into small cohorts and guide them through a research-based months-long process of investigation on education-related topics that they articulated in their small groups, before convening with all instructors together to report back on their months-long exploration. It was going to deepen our instructors’ curiosity and allow them agency and leadership, defining some of our educational priorities as an organization. An ambitious season of professional learning was upon us.
And then it got really hard to do ambitious things.
The months that I sat to coordinate these professional developments coincided with the early days of the new administration. Trump 1.0 was defined by rage and resistance; a fight, a call to action. This newer version, however, with its blistering barrage of deeply troubling–no, heartbreaking–news, left me hopeless, sad, and too tired to do just about anything, including my job. One could argue that Writopia is simply an afterschool/summer enrichment program, and the political climate should not affect simple meetings with part time instructors. However, right now, in a society that deeply undervalues the learning and growth of children, and during a moment when the government is actively attacking education, any work to enrich the lives and literacy of young people in our country is an inherently political act of resistance. I didn’t have the energy to resist. The months went on, the planning prolonged, the big professional development fell through.
What emerged this Spring–however–was something quieter, warmer, and potentially more healing. We got the instructors together and we did the thing that, as a body of professional writers who also love to work with kids, comes most naturally to us: we simply exchanged stories and ideas.
We posed the question, “what can we give our kids right now to help them shine their light?” The question was in response to the notion that society often measures the success of a child’s upbringing by how successful an adult they become. We wanted to think more deeply about how we can nurture and celebrate them for the kids they are right now. As we articulated what we could give them (“affirmation of their ideas,” “inspiration to write or argue with abandon,” “grace in a rapidly changing world”), we wrote short memoirs about times in teaching we had seen kids actually receive those things. Those micro-memoirs written by our instructors are printed below (many of them are anonymous by choice).
What else is below are our notes. We opened up conversations about big educational topics that we couldn’t sweep under the rug. We had been dragging our heels to address the proliferation of AI and ChatGPT in the educational landscape. The topic felt big and ever-evolving, and so the idea of developing a static policy was overwhelming. And what’s the natural human thing to do when something feels overwhelming? Delay it, of course. However, we decided this time that we would approach it the way we approach any big topic. Through conversations. We went back to an adage that has served us time and again when approaching potentially charged topics with youth, the thought that “one-hundred one minute conversations is more effective than one one-hundred minute conversation.” Talking about charged topics is more effective in bite-sized chunks, over time, especially with the youth we serve. Why not employ that same thought when trying to promote critical thinking around AI? Below is our collective bullet point notes on a small series of conversations that we can slip into workshop, which we hope will help young people reconsider and think about ChatGPT (especially in relation to writing) deeply. None of this is meant to change a young person’s total worldview, and none of it is a definitive policy. We are simply adding points to an evolving conversation.
Finally, we talked about books. More and more is being written about how the literacy crisis in America is not so much centered around the thought that kids can’t write, as it is that kids don’t read. Especially books, especially for pleasure. As a literacy organization, whose staff is primarily made up of avid book lovers, we feel some responsibility to intervene. The intervention may be small, but we’ll do what we can. And so we articulated what it is we loved about books ourselves growing up, and listed small discussions we could lead in workshop to encourage kids to read more.
The conversations we had were holistic, warm, and–at least for me, I can’t speak for all–therapeutic. I’ll stop talking now and share the collective knowledge of our wise and passionate crew of adults. We didn’t have to solve every crisis in literacy and education. We didn’t have to embark on something deeply ambitious. Instead, we had to make some small gestures; to promote critical thinking and literacy, to articulate our intentions as educators, to help our kids be more themselves, to find community and healing together. These small gestures are collected below.
What Can We Give Our Kids In Workshop Right Now to Help Them Shine Their Own Light?
- self actualization
- Freedom
- Permission to write what they want
- Language
- Validation
- Permission to be themselves
- Attention and interest in what they’re doing and who they are
- kindness to themselves
- collaboration skills
- permission to be imperfect
- Patience
- permission to use all language
- Flexibility
- access to each other (people they might not meet otherwise)
- Time to be kids and have fun
- Opportunities to interact with other kids who love what they love
- Insight
- A writing space that isn’t school
- shared laughs
- ability to explore
- input on the days activities (autonomy)
- empathy and reflections on our own experiences for when we were kids
- learning to explore different perspectives
- writing that is not for any particular subject
- discovery new ways to tell a story
- honoring the things that they’re interested in
- set their goals (freedom to alter them)
- Independence
- Bravery
- Voice
- being in a space with adults who aren’t necessarily having authority over them or placing boundaries on how to be
- Fun
- seeing them fully and giving them better selves and resources than what we had and were offered
- finding their own process
- A goal to work toward (publishing, plays festival, whatever) that feels reachable in real time
- affirmation of their ideas
- inspiration to write or argue with abandon
- space to use their voice (literally!) during sharing even if they’re feeling uncertain
- confidence to take new risks
- dedication to stay with a project
- Give them grace in a rapidly changing world, understand that they are experiencing new difficulties many of us did not experience as children
- A break from the grind of school
- Self Actualization
- space to say no so they can protect their own voice
- Space to express themselves fully
- In-depth discussions about whatever most interests them
- An opportunity to out try silly ideas
- poetic license
- Time to themselves and their interests with no deadlines
- Collaboration
- a space to ask questions freely
- encouragement to experiment and try new genres and styles
- Play!
- Affirmations
- Taking them and their work seriously/giving real feedback
- Stress the importance of lack of rules in writing to nurture to freedom of expression
- Time to be silly
- Courage to pursue their own interests
- Permission to focus and use their discipline to pursue their interests
- Give them grace in a rapidly changing world, understand that they are experiencing new difficulties many of us did not experience as children
- I really try not to shame or punish computer use and I often encourage the games that involve mining content from the computer to use in a story.
- genuinely empathizing with their own experiences that informed their characters
Some Moments When We Were Able to Provide Them With Items Off this List…
- J had a story she wrote about a haunted house. She wanted it to be great. I wanted her to have an experience of serious editing, so that she would have that sense of moving from her initial personal project to something that would be for an audience. We dug into every aspect of her story. The characters, foreshadowing, tempo… How the words look on the page, how they feel when said in the voice of the mind, how the plot resonates… In looking at her work together she found places where readers might not have the experience she intended, faced that fact, and then rewrote and struggled so that the reader would have a rewarding journey through her haunted house. We talked about how the writing was for her, but the reading belonged to someone else. We explored the strange alchemy of avoiding over-describing. We picked nits in every strand. And all because I took her seriously as a writer, and told her that she was worth the work.
- It always starts without my notice, but often by mid-trimester the players all have each other’s phone numbers and are communicating outside of sessions. It always warms my heart to see those connections form between kids who wouldn’t have met each other outside of this space, especially when I think about the friends I made as a teenager outside of school at programs like Writopia. In line with the theme of this meeting, not all of those connections lasted me to adulthood, but they were still valuable connections for the time I had them.
- Permission to be imperfect: Some kids come in and don’t want to share early drafts with me or anyone else until every sentence is perfect. They’ll say things like “it isn’t good yet.” But games like hot laptop force writers (in a good way) to get over that inner critic and just write freely. Before they know it, they are swept up in the narrative and silliness and are having too much fun to self-edit.
- I have a writer who loves video games and often writes about them. In workshop, his interest in gaming becomes more than just a hobby. It becomes a gateway to the depths of his imagination. The more encouragement and freedom he gets, the more he pushes himself to break away from the confines of the games he loves so much and create new characters and worlds. Over time, he has developed a passion for creative writing and sees himself as a true “writer.” He has even been published! It has been wonderful to watch his confidence grow.
- Can I swear in my writing? Came up in one early workshop I taught, question scared me a little: what could they possibly write? But I trusted this student (group of 13-year-olds) and gave permission. They wrote a lunch room argument scene that was great, didn’t use that many swears after all, everyone in group cheered after reading. Great feeling.
- Collaboration skills: I had a really engaged and active teen workshop last summer, where five teens were all deep into their own longform projects in different fantasy worlds. They were all very passionate, and at the beginning, pretty quiet. But then if someone was feeling stuck, they slowly became more willing to talk through the problems they were having – at first with me, and then slowly with each other. They started to recognize their own passions in each other, and came to realize that if there was anyone who would understand what they were doing, it was these people. By the end of the workshop whenever someone was having an issue the others would kind of put down their own work and be like, “Ok, let’s talk about this. This is the definition of workshop. We’re your workshop, let’s work out the solution together.”
- Seeing them fully and giving them better selves and resources than we had and were offered: It just amazes me always to see what kids are capable of when their needs are met. I recently worked with a young writer writing a letter to their best friend about empathy, off of an off the cuff statement their friend said about a drunk homeless man on the subway. She said “that’s sad”, and her friend responded “it’s their fault”, and in her letter, she had written about being six sitting in the back of a church watching both her parents attending AA meetings. She talked about how her mom went from an addict to becoming a recovery coach, because her needs in fighting back against this disease were met. Her parents, in their recovery, gave so much grace and empathy and I keep seeing that in the writers we work with, whether that’s an 11-year old writing about why other parents should expose their kids through artists like Tyler the Creator, who’s vulnerability in their journey is such a good thing for kids to witness.
- Be in a space with an adult who’s not necessarily trying to have “authority” over them so if they turn to me to guide them it’s because they’ve chosen to trust me to do it: One of my ongoing workshops used to be bonkers rowdy as in there wasn’t an actual minute in workshop when they weren’t talking and I instituted a bunch of rules, including a “chill off” competition, which is silent writing time where the most silent writer wins, and trying to be funny and not too authoritarian, I also added “up your rizz level” to the rules and one kid was like “I can’t, I’m only 12!!” And I was like “wait, what does rizz mean??” Because I thought it meant charisma and they all burst out laughing and said it actually means something more flirty and I took it off the board they haven’t stopped making fun of me since—every workshop is “remember the time Di didn’t know what rizz was?” And I think letting them roast me a little has a lot to do with why so many of them now say a monday after school writing class of all places is their favorite part of the week. That and that I try to combine that sort of lateral personal relation to them with very serious and intensive feedback on their work makes them trust me to teach them while knowing that I’m not trying to rule them.
- Time to be silly: In one of the workshops I taught with Tasnim when we played the murder mystery game, it was lovely to see two writer friends pick their characters to be the domestic cat and dog of the party’s host and enact them throughout the game! It was beautiful to see how the “pets” liked each other.
- Space to say no so they can protect their voice: On the first day of one of the half-day workshops, I told writers they were welcome to reject my suggestions and tell me why they didn’t work. Multiple times throughout that workshop, writers engaged with what made sense to them and what was authentic to the story they were trying to tell, which solidified their narrative and deepened the world-building. There were many endearing moments, but one was especially when I told a writer how dialogues were usually formatted, and they decided to format it differently since it was an animal’s voice! That was a great stylistic choice and moment of learning for me.
- Courage to Pursue Their Own Interests: One of my writers is really into birds. He also arrives ten to fifteen minutes before my other writers typically do. Every week, we talk about birds until our other writers arrive. I am not an avid birder, so I let him do most of the talking, while periodically jumping in to ask questions that further the conversation.
- In-depth discussions of what interests them most: I try to give my middle school workshop of girls time to chat at the beginning of workshop because they are all fairly quiet and shy but also love talking once we get grooving and I remember a day recently where they were all very quiet when they came in and wanted to hop right on the computers but we got to talking about old technology and I showed them my first cellphone, a pink Motorola Razr (the it girl phone!) and told them how I bedazzled it and they exploded into a fury of conversations about cell-phones, old phones, parental controls on their current phones, phone games, on and on. I showed them pictures of the phone I wanted (a T-Mobile sidekick) and I am not kidding when I say it was one of the most engaging conversations I have had with them. It was a great reminder that something as silly as my old bedazzled cell phone could be something that got them fired up, and one of my girls even used it as a detail in her realistic fiction story.
- Get to use their voice: We started workshop with a game where writers were divided into small groups and tasked with creating/drawing distinct worlds. It was a challenge—not only because drawing can be vulnerable, but because working in groups can be tricky! I was particularly proud of one writer who doesn’t typically speak in bigger group settings. She worked with her team to come up with a really fun world and I could tell she was enjoying drawing and using her imagination to bounce ideas off of the other writers. When it came time to share the drawings with the bigger group, neither of her teammates were offering to share and so she took initiative but was clearly nervous to stand in front of the group. I embraced the chaos in the room (didn’t insist that everyone stop what they were doing) so that she’d feel less pressured and assured her I was listening. She was then more at ease and shared in front of the room for the first time. What a win for her!
- Affirmations: I have one writer in my CP workshop (with Lena!) who is such a strong writer but so down on herself throughout the process. Her project reads like a published novel and she, while she obviously loves the characters, needs a lot of confidence building. I think I am at the point where I’ve built enough trust with her that she values what I have to add about her story, and I remind myself that what she needs more than anything is affirmations and confidence boosts. After a recent workshop where she shared her project with the entire workshop for feedback, I talked to her after and she even admitted it “wasn’t as horrible as she expected” and I made sure to heap affirmations on her for pushing herself out of her comfort zone by sharing.
- Confidence to take New Risks: I currently have a player in one of my weekly D&D groups who is quite adamant about not wanting to run her own adventure because she thinks it won’t be that good. Luckily for me, the other players were really excited to write and run their own games, so I’m letting each of them take a crack at it in turn. I think all of the time we’re spending working on the adventures together and seeing the other kids run their own games is helping my reluctant player gain the confidence she needs to make progress on her project. I’m not sure if she’ll ultimately run it with us, but I have my fingers crossed!
- Taking them and their work seriously/giving real feedback: I had a kid writing a D&D adventure last summer and their first idea for it was an absolutely game-breaking, ridiculous idea of an invincible rat that hurled fireballs. That was as good of a starting point as any, so I took it seriously and it sparked a discussion about what makes an encounter in D&D fun and how the kid could keep their wacky idea while still allowing the other players to have fun.
- Play: H and J (best friends, 7 years old) absolutely loved playing with Mabel [Writopia mascot, a stuffed pink unicorn] the Upper West Side Unicorn, to the point that it was distracting from writing. It felt important, though, to follow the sheer delight that she was giving them, especially as I had noticed their interest in writing and writing games fluctuating over the course of the trimester. So I decided that we could play short rounds of “Mabel Hide and Seek” in which, once Mabel was found, the writers would collaborate on what was essentially a group story. I worried sometimes that they were still more excited about the hide-and-seek piece, but this game allowed for group bonding and some great short stories, often involving dragons, that I’m not sure they would’ve wanted to write otherwise.
- Taking them and their work seriously/giving real feedback: I am thinking now of a 7-year-old whose story is one of the most intricate and complicated I have ever read and whose plot I genuinely struggle to understand. (He has about 5 documents surrounding this story and has invented a unique system with dashes for continuing to write even when he has not yet figured out all the details). I think it would be easy to go one of two directions— affirmation of some of the simpler choices in the story without an overall understanding of the plot, or simply instructing him to make it clearer overall. However, I want to really continue staying with his work and giving it the kind of serious feedback I would give an older writer—making sure I understand the conceit, asking thoughtful questions about parts that may not be working rather than dismissing them outright, etc.
- Encouragement to experiment and try out new genres and styles: When Spotify Wrapped came out, I asked all the music lovers in my teen workshop to use their top songs or artists in some way for a piece, giving them some examples of how they might go about this—they could use the lyrics in a poem, write a scene in which one or more of the songs are played, or write something inspired by the feeling and/or words expressed in the music. In true creative form, one fiction writer decided to challenge himself to write a kind of found poem using one line from the lyrics of every song in his Your Top Songs 2024 list without skipping a single one, and from this created a series of poems. Another writer also chose to use lyrics scattered throughout her Top Songs list but added her own words in between to form a lyrical narrative. And another writer chose to write a memoir about the time a girl with whom she had a complicated relationship sang one of the songs during a school performance, using the lyrics as a poignant means of connection and emotion. During the process, and after sharing, each writer combined their love of music with their passion for writing in a new and unexpected way, opening new doors of communication, expression, and recreation.
- Encouragement to experiment and try new genres and styles: I had one 8 year old writer who, though prolific, took most of his ideas from pre-existing shows, movies and comic books. For weeks I tried to nudge him in the direction of coming up with his own characters, at first gently, by suggesting he kept a character’s same attributes –– like a superpower or a fighting style or even their enemy –– but change their names. Then I started suggesting new scenarios: What would happen if we took Godzilla out of Tokyo? We kept writing stories in this way for a few weeks, until one day, completely unprompted, he showed me a new idea he had thought up for an original character –– still a superhero, but now all his own. Since then, this writer has not used a character that already exists, not even once! All of his stories are brand new and he is very proud of them and I am very proud of him.
- Courage to pursue their own interests: I had a new writer come into a group that has already been together for over a year, with its social dynamics already long established. I spoke with him at length about his interests; though he’s an avid reader, he was a shy writer, and was stumped –– maybe even intimated, given that all the other writers in the group went straight into writing without as much as looking up –– trying to think of new ideas. After telling me all about a mystery series he’d been reading, we came up with a mystery together. We had a crime –– a disappearance –– a detective –– the missing girl’s best friend –– and one burning passion for the MTA’s train system. This writer’s two passions were mystery novels and trains, so voila: we concocted a mystery that took place on a train. When the writer left at the end of his first workshop he beamed that writing was so much fun. That filled up my well!
- Space to ask questions: My workshop got really obsessed with the idea of a BBL and one writer wanted to include it in their story. They spent a lot of time asking me about specifics and discussing it amongst themselves
- Taking them and their work seriously: Taking the time to read the entirety of an extremely long fantasy novel and giving precise, helpful feedback on the micro and macro scales.
- Play: Pulling the rug out from under the kids by making all of them the chameleon in a round of chameleon and watching their minds expand with what the world can be (and watching them laugh while arguing vehemently)
A Collection of Small Conversations/Snippets/Thoughts Around Kids Using AI in Workshop…
- Share the Poem, “For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper.” Discuss the meaning behind the poem. Why this? What’s the poet saying?
- Your voice is power! Don’t let AI take your power!
- AI can’t have the experiences that we have. Can’t stub its toe and understand the feeling and write about it. Humans are the only animals on the planet who get to enjoy experiences and feelings about the future. We get to have a process and reflect and AI takes that out of the equation. We understand that AI cuts through the noise and spits out something digestible but don’t let AI tell you who you are. Allow yourself to sit with your own thoughts, they have more power and interest than anything AI can spit out.
- People think it’s an alternative to “asking” for something. Instead of asking someone they know/trust
- Don’t discourage the curiosity
- Just don’t let it be a replacement for your original ideas (what makes you a person). What makes you YOU, what makes you unique.
- Pulls from a lot of different areas (not from just one source – not from you). A lot of “noise.” But presents as a “single, coherent answer.”
- Google search is a mess now.
- Let’s break it down into more manageable pieces. Jump around (what’s the scene you know? Figure out the bridge later – work backwards)
- When we see a writer using AI, we find it’s better to ask questions than accuse.
- Asking: Where did you get the inspiration for the story? You won’t be in trouble if you say it, I’m just curious. I know other writers who are using AI, but as prompts!
- Asking questions rather than giving a talk about not using AI at all.
- Most writers use AI when they lack confidence, or are hesitant about their own ideas. What can we do to help them build confidence?
- Reinforcing the idea that AI has a generic voice, but every writer has their own unique voice. AI works by using everything that has ever been written and mushing it together, but there is only one you—and your voice is so unique that it can’t be duplicated. Everything comes from somewhere, and inspiration has a ripple effect and your very specific combination of traits and experiences makes you write what you write.
- Talk about the tone/voice of ChatGPT. Your own voice is always stronger and better. The younger writers are often surprised to hear that its voice is boring.
- What are some of the environmental impacts of using ChatGPT?
- Was in workshop and the writers were trying to think of a name for their Imaginary Kingdom. They used AI to get a combination of all their names. The AI forgot to include one of the names. Became an instructive moment about the failures of the technology.
- We are concerned that the technology will produce more convincingly good writing.
- Talking about IP, telling students if they admire someone’s character, they still should not copy their voice. This is a good way to launch into discussion about emphasising use of their own voice.
- Write by hand. Microsoft Word has copilot feature and a lot of writers in this generation could feel that is the norm so having that discussion feels like a good idea.
- AI aggregates facts; you CAN check it if you want, but it will not improve your work
- Breaking down mechanisms of the tools
- Having an honest conversation about the hallucinations, etc
- It’s not about forbidding it outright but thinking about how to use it, and for what purpose: it can’t write your story but it can give you information. IE: you’re writing a story about a doctor and need information about how to do surgery, that’s not a totally bad use of the tool.
- Impatience → process over product. It’s not about having a finished story, but about writing it → goes hand in hand with critical thinking and learning how to think.
- Not demonizing it: it’s easy to understand the impulse → not taking a moral approach.
What Are Some Things That Excited Us About Reading Growing Up, Or About Reading Now?
- It’s a socially approved (by adults) and encouraged way to leave the current moment lol
- You get to co-create with the author – you use your imagination actively instead of passively
- You learn a bunch of stuff and that makes you awesome at Jeopardy
- Escapism!!
- 👆👆
- To learn how to be HUMAN – that it’s okay to have your feelings, that being angry isn’t going to kill you, to learn how to be a friend
- Socially sanctioned alone time
- Learning about other places/times
- Learning about yourself through other characters and plots
- Imagining your life as more exciting or important than it seems in real life
- Books smell nice
- Having a good cry
- It inspired my imagination
- That feeling of being deeply, deeply obsessed with something
- You can do it anywhere, inside, outside, in the car
- Knew I would always laugh at least once
- It created opportunities to connect with like-minded peers and make new friends— shared obsessions!
Conversations Around Reading that We Can Sneak Into Workshop
- recommending books/authors to kids when you notice similarities in their writing
- ice breaker: what’s something you’ve read (or watched, played, listened to, etc) lately that you enjoyed? Sometimes this flops (kids say “nothing”), but sometimes it generates excitement and connections between students!
- timeless stories/books that you can connect with kids about even if there’s a big generation gap
- kids often come into workshop with books in their hands (sometimes they even want to read them during workshop…) and I always ask them what they are reading!
- Recommended reading list (doc everyone adds to)
- Someone will always be a big reader who can inspire others
- Collecting ideas from the writers
- What are we reading right now
- Writers who are already more “invested” tend to already be big readers. (“Great writers read”)
- You can kind of tell based on their prose and craft if they read a lot
- Opening it up to graphic novels, shorter reads, reads on subjects they’re excited about
- Meeting them where they are
- Asking during snack or as an ice breaker what people are reading (or watching or listening to)
- When we are having conversations about stories—character or plot driven? Great opportunity to talk about stories and characters they like/dislike!
- When people feel stuck, we can talk about what books or stories the writer likes so we can use them as inspiration
- Leave comments on docs with authors who remind you of that student’s work
- Teenagers – all avid readers; most Writopians come to workshop with a book
- Asking kids what they are reading/what they’ve read as an icebreaker
- Asking kids what they like about books as a way to get un-stumped: can we write a story like a book you like? If you like mystery, can we write a mystery? If you like different perspectives, can we write in different perspectives? Bring that to movies and television as well: what do you like to watch?
- Book recommendations → make a lot of recs and hope they’ll stick
- Something that is hard for kids in high school is finding the time to read
- Writopians who ask to read in workshop – should we encourage or no? Are there games that are reading specific?
- Want writers to read more, especially poetry. When reading to more “rowdy” groups of writers, they are often more attentive and they do get quiet. Younger kids like being read to.
- Remember loving reading time in kindergarten, especially when there are different voices and more animated reading.
- Younger kids love being read to, and as they get older, they want to be the storytellers.
- First questions during introduction: what are your favorite books?
- Retellings of books you’ve read – make poetry into prose or vice versa
- Reading helps you find out what you like in a story – what are elements you use in your own?
- Kids reading books now that we also read in middle school – bridging a generation
- Reading Wikipedia articles about series that the kids are discussing so we can also jump in the conversation
- When kids write fan fiction – recognizing that it takes out the joy of chance and movement; don’t want them to feel limited
- Bringing up books that they might also enjoy that is similar to their own stories
- Promoting understanding how authors might connect to one another, maybe one was inspired by the other
- Make sure they understand that they have original ideas
- Not a cliche but helping improve an idea
- Let them know they have a unique voice
- Talk about literary devices in context and pointing them out, makes it almost like finding easter eggs
- Talking about tradition of storytelling, things reference each other and have
- Kids who get overwhelmed can take a break and read books for a little bit, some like to talk about books
- Kids talk about what they’re reading during snacktime
- Why are books beneficial, as opposed to other media like video games?
- Imagination
- Understimulating
- Cannot multitask
- Requires tactical and visual attention without giving anything back
