NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, people from all over get together and set their own personal word count goals, with the big idea being that you get a novel drafted in a month (or at least a good start to a novel). Last year, I happened to find the NaNoWriMo website just a tad late, on November 1st. But as it was a weekend, I figured I had a whole day and a half to revamp my writing plans for the month and bring out a new challenge! My students had mixed reactions, but even the most reluctant were happy when they could set a small word count goal, such as 500 words. We didn’t quite plan as much as I would have liked, but the enthusiasm was infectious, and final word counts ended up between 1,500 and 9,000 words. Of course, if they were going to do it, I figured I had to promise to do it too, and I ended up writing a novel over just over 32,000 words.
I knew it was a project that I wanted to do again, and the resources that are available from the Young Writers Program are amazing. So, this year we started in October with the planning stages. First, we put away our inner editors, and then we started planning characters, settings, plot arcs, dialogue… all the things that make a good story! We set our word goals, and when November 1st hit, we all started writing. At the end of the month, everyone in the class had once again met their word goals, and my small group of 6 boys had written a total of more than 45,000 words, including one Choose Your Own Adventure book. A student from the previous year wanted to do the project again and added 10,000 words, and I wrote a sequel to my first book to add on another 30,000 words for a total of just over 85,000 words! Incredible!
We took a short break from the novels, and then started on the revision/editing process. Since students are always looking for new books to read, and I’m always looking for ways to get them to respond to literature, this was a perfect match. Each student got to take home another book and proof and comment right on the draft as they read. The kids conferred, revised, read, edited, smiled, and asked eagerly for the next book. We then worked on formatting the text in class, and during art class they worked on cover designs and publishing. In the end, each of the kids had their own published novel.
And me? Well, the kids kept telling me that I should publish my book, too. So that’s my next project. Here are a few of their published books on display.
