Enriched Language Arts

On November 16, 2010, Mrs. Renkly’s Enriched Language Arts class attended the Writers in the Middle Conference in Lamoni, Iowa, at Graceland University. Its purpose was to enhance the writing skills of young writers. Some of the sessions that students could attend were; Concrete Poetry, Writing Secrets, Digital Story Writing, Authors chairs, Sing it Out, Writing Session with Gordon Korman, and more.

After riding in the car for three hours, Kenzie Goshorn, Cati Davis, Haley Koch, Sam Wilwerding, Sarah Goedken, Megan Owens, Addy Kaster, Emma Hochfelder, Zoe Swinten, Mrs. Renkly, and Ms. Gray, attended an opening welcome and then dispersed into their chosen writing sessions. After lunch, they went to one more writing session, and then to a college auditorium to listen to a long-time published author Gordon Korman. There he talked about what he does when he gets writer’s block and how he goes about writing adventure stories. Gordon also discussed the books he has written with the audience including the book he wrote when he was in seventh grade. A book that Gordon wrote was, Liar, Liar Pants on Fire and it was also translated into French, so it read, Teller of Untruths, Your Trousers Have Combusted.

The seventh graders took back with them writing secrets to make their writing better, advice from a published author on writing adventure stories, how to write a song, radio broadcast, poetry, recording data, associated with science, how to write hieroglyphics, and stories not only written by them, but many other students.

I personally think that this trip sounded really, really fun!!!!