The Junior Writers program kicked off on September 10th and I couldn’t be more pleased with the program thus far. My library promoted this program for their “Back to School” lineup.

If you’re going to run this program – MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE YOUR SELF PLENTY OF TIME. The exercises took me FOREVER to come up with. With our busy, busy, busy summer – I found myself working a lot from home to get the booklet completed. Each person who attends the Junior Writers program gets a booklet and an activity guide

Program Outline

Introductions: I made the kids go around in a circle and tell me what they like most about writing. This was a great ice breaker – but the kids were SO SHY.

Lesson: I took out the giant easel pad. I asked the question: “What do you need to write a story?”  I gave the kids markers and away they went. Some of their responses were as follows:

• Imagination
• Plot
• Events
• Illustrations
• Characters

Group Activity – Character Development

Their first task as a Junior Writer was to imagine a character who lives far, far, far away. I asked them to fill out some information about the character. What is your character’s name? Where does your character live? How old are they? How did you meet them? Is there anything else we need to know about your character?

After everyone completed the task, I asked them to describe their character in a group.

Writing Activity – A New Pen Pal

Their solo writing activity was to write a letter to their character!