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The right way to write

Writing coaches come to Yellowknife

Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 01/02) - Why come to Yellowknife?

"Because he asked," says Writers Room co-founder, Sheila Crowell from Montclaire, N.J.

Crowell was referring to St. Patrick high English teacher Gerard Landry. He became interested in the Writers Room program, after meeting them at a teacher's' conference in Milwaukee, Wisc. in November 2000.

Since his visit, the school has joined five others in New Jersey and Berkeley, Calif. who participate in the program helping young people become better writers.

When Landry invited Crowell, along with fellow co-founder Ellen Kolba, and program director Sandra Kenny to conduct a seminar in Yellowknife this week, the buzz made it all the way to The New York Times.

"We've been trying to get their attention for 10 years," says Crowell. "When The New York Times found out about our trip to Yellowknife they were very interested."

One of the main differences between the methods traditionally used in the classroom and those used by Writers Room in assessing a student's writing, is that more emphasis is placed on a writer's strengths rather than weaknesses.

"Teachers tend to look for mistakes first," says Crowell. "A good coach tells someone how they did something well, and not just what they did wrong."

"If a student writes rhythmically, I will point that out to him, because I don't think it's something most writers are aware of," adds Kolba, while poring over a paper on Shakespeare's Macbeth, written by one St. Pat's student.

Since initiating the program in 1989, Writers Room have actively set out to recruit writing coaches from within the schools. At St. Pat's, 21 students have signed up to be writing coaches since December.

"We want to identify strengths, re-enforce ideas," says Landry, who along with Writing Room founders and student coaches, held a seminar at Trappers Lake on Wednesday. "We want them to work through positions of strength."

St. Pat's writing coaches mainly work with the younger grades down the hall at Weledeh Catholic school. Besides being enabled to offer other students a little constructive criticism, the coaches say analyzing the writing of others has helped improve their own.

"I need to learn structure," says Grade 9 student Chelsea Heide, who wants to be a lawyer some day. "It will help me get a better understanding of the information."