The (K)indred Experiment Year Two has officially launched! We started yesterday, Friday the 13th and the end of "Spirit Week" before the Homecoming dance. Which, apparently, you can now attend as a 6th grader? I don't remember that being the case when I was their age, but I wasn't terribly social then either, and not … Continue reading Brave New Worldbuilding

The pilot year of The (K)indred Experiment came to a close with snacks, applause, and the students sharing the worlds they built with an audience. It was fantastic to see a room full of people who had come to hear their kids read the stories they'd worked on all year. From the beginning, it was … Continue reading Initial Experiment Conclusion

Revision is hard. I doubt there are many writers out there who would say that taking whatever they've just written and doing it all again is their favorite part. Most people hate it, myself included. It's equally hard to teach. There aren't many, or any, good lesson plans out there on how to teach revision … Continue reading Revise and Conquer

We've reached the mid-point of the pilot year of The (K)indred Experiment, and the end of 2016. At the risk of getting caught up in all the end of the year list-making and Auld Lang Syne-ing, this seemed like a good point to stop and take stock of the program and the progress the students … Continue reading Fill the Void: Mid-Point Debrief

Macaroni fantasy maps are the greatest thing. I'm not much of an artist, and using the dry macaroni to create the land mass outlines of a fantasy world made it so easy. The students liked it too, and they were amazingly agreeable about keeping the macaroni on the paper and not getting it all over … Continue reading Toxic Lava & Radioactive Cookies: Lesson Two Debrief

Sixth graders are an excellent age for Science Fiction. I might even go so far as to say the perfect age. My group for the first lesson contained four boys and two girls, which was a nice mix of enthusiasm and maturity, since the girls at that age are much better at following instructions. I … Continue reading So Much Imagination: Lesson One Debrief

All hoops have been jumped through, permission slips distributed, and schedules ironed out. The (K)indred Experiment is all set to have its first ever meeting on October 14th. This is fantastic, and I'm stoked, if a little nervous, but due to school schedules and my schedule only allowing me to easily skip work on Fridays, … Continue reading Only the Essential