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Free flowing fiction, poems

Lisa Scott
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 19/04) - A child's imagination can dream up some weird and wacky ideas, but sometimes classroom curriculum has a way of stifling that creative process.

One Yellowknife middle school teacher has been encouraging kids to find their voice through a series of writing workshops since the early 1990s.

NNSL Photo/Graphic

Monika Eichenberg, 13, and Sylvia Pellerin, 12, check out some of their classmates' written creations during a writer's cafe at William McDonald school. - Lisa Scott/NNSL photo


The 75 Grade 7 students who take Lynn Lalonde's language arts classes at William McDonald school recently read out loud their written poems and stories to each other.

Stories like "The revolt of the appetizer," about a snail on the loose, show off the great imaginations students can have when they are allowed a little freedom.

"Often, too many times in school they don't have a choice," says Lalonde.

"Imaginations can be stifled quite easily in schools as we learn. The writer's workshop opens it right up," she says.

As students read their writing from a podium, classmates eat cookies in the candle lit library.

It's obvious the students enjoy the workshop and have a connection to the subjects they chose to write about.

"The kids are hooked. They love to find their own voice," says Lalonde.

At the beginning

For students Monika Eichenberg and Sylvia Pellerin, the hardest part of the assignment was the start.

"It took a very long time to get the idea," says Eichenberg, who eventually came up with the escargot story.

While they didn't feel brave enough to read their fiction aloud, the girls listened eagerly and openly to their classmates read.

The Grade 7 students bound their writing into books and even created their own mock publishing companies.

For Lalonde, the ideas and thoughts flowing through her classroom are one benefit, but she encourages other teachers to try it for another reason as well.

"Boy, is it ever fun to mark," she says.