Teacher Training at Youth Communication This 9-workshop series, first offered in spring 2000, is one example of the kinds of teacher development activities we offer.

Getting Good Writing
Out of Your Students
Student-Centered Techniques from the
Editors at Youth Communication

A SERIES OF 9 TWO HOUR WORKSHOPS OFFERED BY THE STAFF OF YOUTH COMMUNICATION
(Andrea Estepa, Rachel Blustain, Kendra Hurley, Keith Hefner)

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#1-How to Choose a Story Topic
Sometimes when you ask students to write about themselves, they write about their lives in generalities. Often, though, it's the details of day-to-day life that reveal the most about them and their values.

In this lesson, we will read a story by a teen writer about getting her hair cut short for the first time. Then we will discuss how this story about one seemingly trivial event is also an exploration of family and what it means to be female. We will come up with useful writing prompts to help students focus on the small events in their own lives that hold the most meaning.

#2-Writing the Personal Essay: Focusing, Finding Themes and Getting Started
When many beginning writers first attempt to write a personal essay, they become overwhelmed. Their challenge is large: to take the messiness of a life and impose order on it so it makes sense to a reader. It's important, then, to help students focus their essays quickly. In this workshop, you'll learn how to help students choose a specific part and/or time of their life to write about. Lessons on Showing/Telling will be used to get them started writing their essay.

#3-Vivid Writing with Active Verbs, Metaphors and Similes
You will learn several lessons to help students learn about and practice using interesting verbs, metaphors and similes in their writing. We will read examples in teen and adult writing, discuss their effect on the reader, and then do a series of short exercises designed to give teens practice writing with each of these techniques.

#4-Describing People and Places
We will discuss how to use reading, discussion and writing prompts to inspire your students to make their own descriptions of people and places more vivid and multi-dimensional.

#5-Writing Dialogue
Though dialogue is difficult to write, it's an excellent way to introduce students to writing scenes. This lesson uses Hemingway's sparsely-written "Hills Like White Elephants" as a model for teaching dialogue, including tags (he said, she said); scenes; and clear writing.

#6-How to Write with Balance
Often when students are asked to write an opinion piece, they offer a rant that ignores the complexities of the topic they are addressing. Students need to be taught that their pieces will be more convincing if they address opposing points of view.

We will begin by writing "the untold story" of our favorite fairy tale. This exercise encourages students to question whether there is more to a story than meets the eye. Then we will explore a social issue, keeping in mind the same questions of balance and point of view. We will map out the different voices in the debate and talk about how to translate this into an effective opinion piece.

#7-Structuring a Story
Whether they are working on a personal or academic essay, teens and adults alike often have the most trouble figuring out how to structure their writing once it becomes complex. In this workshop you will learn several outlining techniques you can use once the student has either gathered information for a piece or written early drafts. These outlines are designed to re-focus the writer, help her make sense of her information, bring out the theme in a story, or help develop plot in a personal story.

#8-Reviewing Movies or TV Shows
You will learn how to teach students to write a review of a movie or television show (along with a broader discussion of how underrepresented groups, such as teens, African-Americans, et. al. are depicted).

#9-Using Youth Communication Books in the Classroom
Using The Struggle to Be Strong (our new book on resilience), we'll look at how the stories can be used to foster reflection and strength in your students, while also reinforcing reading, writing and vocabulary. We will also briefly review several other YC books. (Participants will get books and teacher manuals.)