High School Writing

A few of my local high school writing teachers have asked me about videoconference options lately. So here's a list of options.

Writing/Author Related Content Provider Programs

• Schooner Christmas: Creative Writing with a Historical Perspective from Pier Wisconsin. Available in November & December.
• Unity & Diversity from the Cleveland Institute of Music addresses skills for writing.
• Author/Computer Illustrator Bill Davis is willing to tailor programs for schools. See two of his listed programs for an idea of what he can share with your students.
• Cooperating School Districts has a set of author programs.
• Rutgers Camden Center for the Arts has two programs for high school on Poetry and Prose.
• The Smithsonian American Art Museum has a program on Visual and Language Arts that can be used as a springboard for writing exercises.
  

Related to that, here are a few literature based high school level programs:

• Don Quixote, Faust, or A Midsummer Night's Dream and Edgar Allan Poe from the Center for Puppetry Arts.
• Harlem Renaissance from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
• Several programs are available on various Shakespeare related topics.
• The Indiana Repertory Theatre has a program on Bringing Dickens' Characters to Life.
• The Mid Atlantic Center for the Arts has a program on Victorian Literature that can be tailored to requested author/literature.

Classroom to Classroom Connections
Another option is to consider having your class connect to another class for a celebration of writing. Some ideas include:

• A poetry fest/poetry jam/coffee house event where students share poetry. This could be done point-to-point with another class, or multipoint and over a lunch period.
• A story starter session. Classes could present to each other a visual story starter: a picture, a still life pose, a skit or other visual. After sharing the story starters via videoconference, students could write stories and share them for feedback via email, a blog, or an online class discussion space in Moodle or a similar tool.
  
• Journalism Club/News Teams. Any writing related clubs or school news teams could meet with a similar club in another school. Students could share what activities their club is involved in, learn from the other club, and brainstorm new ideas together.

These are just a few possibilities. I'm sure you can think of more!