November is national novel writing month. This site http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/ offers you for free a novel writing kit and workbooks to print out that explain the writing process. You have to sign up for this but there is no cost. When you sign up for an educator account you can get the free novel kit sent to you (free shipping also). What is very cool is that when it asks you in a drop down box what type of educator you are it gives Homeschool as an option! Anyway, there are forums for you and for your child if you sign your child up on his or her own account. I have not looked into the forums...just letting you know. The kit and workbooks are totally worth signing up!
Oh and you can still print off the workbooks. The kit is cute but the workbooks are the really cool thing if you are teaching your child how to write.
I have cruised through the site and tried signing up from several of it's pages. Each time all I get is a blank white page. :? I have saved it to my favorites and will try again at the beginning of next week. Were you able to view the workbooks on the site itself? Was it only after you signed up? My DS is always telling stories. Most are disjointed, but he has the ability. I was hoping that this could show him how to focus those abilities. It would also help his word comprehension, penmanship, punctuation and tasking. Thanks for the lead.
A lot of the site is inactive between NaNos & the adult forums are...well, adult. This is a really good site though. I love them! They turned my complete non~writer into a novel producing machine! lol We are counting down to November.
Did anyone participate in the Amazon competition a few years ago? Someone wrote a page or two to get a story going. Every day, members of the public could sign on and write their own paragraph. The Amazon judges chose what they believed to be the best submission, added that to the developing story, and the next day everyone would submit their entry for the next paragraph. At the end of the competition, an author wrote a couple of pages to wrap up the novel. I remember getting a free travel mug out of it. For a while now, I've been thinking about running a similar competition for homeschooled children. We'd publish some introductory paragraphs to get the story going, children could type their paragraph into the system, I'd have some parents judge the best entry for the day, we'd add that paragraph to the story, and so on. Maybe the name of every child whose paragraph is chosen is put into a hat, and then we randomly select a winner for each level - a gift certificate or something. I had no idea that November is National Novel Writing month. Maybe that can give me a target so I don't keep procrastinating. We could publish the opening paragraphs on November 1 to get the story going (any volunteers to write that?), children could submit their first paragraph on November 2, the judges would do their job every evening (would anyone be willing to help?), we'd add the winner's paragraph to the story in the evening, and so on. The last paragraph would be added on November 28, someone could write a wrap-up section on November 29 (any volunteers?), and we'd announce the prize-winners on November 30. What do you think? Would it work? Should there be a separate competition for elementary school ages, middle school ages, and high school ages? I'm open to your ideas. It could be a lot of fun: The Homeschool Spot Writing Competition! I'm willing to donate the prizes if you can help me with writing the beginning and end to the story and judging entries.
I never heard or this site before today...so I am not sure of the content of the forums. I also cannot remember if I had to sign up to see the workbooks. lol. Steve, you have a great idea! I'm not sure of the details but it sounds pretty cool. Honestly, I think making a blog for this would be best. The submissions could be here...or through email...but it may be better to have a whole new forum..or site for a competition. What would the story be about? Would there be more than one? I do think separate age levels would make more sense. Sounds exciting! Let me know if others are interested...I'd love to help out. I am a writer and book lover at heart so this kind of thing gets me going! lol.
OK. Let me give a little more detail about what I am thinking. At my online system, I can create discussion forums similar to this one (but a little more rudimentary), so that would be the format. I'd create three discussion areas: (i) Submission board - where students can post their paragraphs (other students wouldn't see them, only the judges); (ii) Published board - where the competition organizer posts the winning paragraphs in sequence and hence the novel grows day by day; (iii) Adjudication board - where judges can post their comments on which is the best submission for the day and agree who should 'win' that day. Early on November 1, we'd post a page-long start to the novel at the Published board. Someone here, hopefully, would volunteer to write this. During the day, all students in the competition could read this introduction and write what they think should be the next paragraph to the story. They could submit only one entry per day. During the day, the judges would read each paragraph and suggest in the Adjudication board which they like and don't like. The deadline for student submissions each day might be 8pm. By 10pm, the judges would agree which is the winning submission, and the organizer would move that paragraph into the Published area. Now the novel is one paragraph longer. On November 2, students would see the newly published paragraph and now write what they think should be the next paragraph, submitting their entry before the daily deadline. The entire daily process would be repeated, the winning paragraph would be published, and the story goes on. The final student submissions would be on November 28. On November 29, a volunteer writer (hopefully from here) would write the closing page of the novel. This is not easy because it has to tie together all the loose ends, but it would be fun for someone who enjoys a writing challenge. That final section would be published at the end of the day so the complete novel would be there for all to see on November 30. Also on November 29, the names of all 'winning' students (whose paragraphs were chosen) would be put into a hat and an overall prizewinner selected. This child would receive, let's say, a $100 gift certificate for Amazon online. All the other paragraph winners would receive a small prize of some sort (e.g., a competition T-shirt proclaiming that they are a 'winner'). I'm quite happy to donate these prizes. To make this work, you really need a lot of participants - at least 50. If we're going to do three separate stories (to cater for different age groups), that's 50 students per category. To ensure the judging doesn't become too burdensome, maybe we put a limit of 250 entrants per age group. Of course, this would mean we'd have to publicize the competition, letting friends with homeschooled children who are budding writers know about the competition. Maybe we could do this through some type of email campaign. So, in a little more detail, this is what I've had in mind for some time, and national novel writing month might be the most appropriate time to hold such a competition. What do you think?
Sounds great, Steve! I think it sounds like a lot of fun for the kids...and the adults. A discussion forum would better serve this idea than a blog. I'd love to be a judge and help write, if we get enough participation.
Steve, two points: First, if you want to be a total wimp, you could head over to Writing.com (www.writing.com). They have "campfires" as one of the options, and people can just add paragraphs directly. WDC has a free membership as well as paid memberships, although for the life of me I can't remember if you can post a campfire as a free member. Or you can browse through and see what kind of format they have, as well. Second, if you hold your competition, there will be people/kids who are putting all their energy into NaNoWriMo and will opt out of yours. You'd get more people doing it in December or January. Or really any other month. Some people will come over to blow off steam from working on a novel, but a novel is, you know, a lot of work.
That's a very good point. December may not be so good either because of the holidays. Maybe January would be a better idea. (Procrastination is kicking in again!)
A couple of things. Some of us aren't American. I think there's 3 Aussies on these boards ~ one living in the Middle East. The time thing could be a real pain. We're a day ahead of you. Just make sure the time things clear to the kids. Secondly: depending when you do this I may be able o help with writing. Nothing in our term 4. Ditz's performance schedule is insane & I won't have time then to help & she won't have time to participate.
The time zone issue is important, as you point out. Maybe the event should stretch over two months, with two days for students to submit each installment of the story. That way, everyone will have at least one full day to contribute. Thanks for the different perspective. Just so I understand, when is term 4?
I also think that stretched over two months allowing two days for each submission is better. That pace also gives the judge time to get through all the submissions easier. We would need to define a time for the winning paragraph submission, so that students can have it scheduled into their day and to maintain fairness. Dividing it into three age groups is best, as the skill levels are different and the younger children may not be able to compete with the older students on the storyline as successfully. I do have one question. What do we do with the completed products? Would there be a possibility of publishing them? This could be done with guidelines. They could be offered for sale to the participants, with the proceeds to go to a charity named in advance of the competition. Monies from the sale would first cover the expense of the publishing, the remainder to be donated. The cost of the novel could be kept low. We could even include a listing of the winners of each paragraph in the back of the novel. It is definately best if we wait until January, it gives more time to gather the volunteers and have a better outline for the writers. I would be more than happy to volunteer for this. I can put efforts to writing and/or judging submissions. Let me know how this advances.
Term 4 starts in the middle of September & ends the middle of December. This year we have 2~3 concerts every month, singing exams & a trip to Singapore all in this term. Anything else is just not going to happen but it is always a heavy concert/performance term for us. Please check. At one point I noticed some Europeans on these boards too. Don't know if they are still around but they will also be on a different time & school schedule. NaNo offers a publishing deal. Forget who with but I believe it is reasonable & a search of their boards should turn the information up.
Interesting thought. It would be straightforward to publish the finished 'novel', but only the work of 30 entrants would be included - those who won each 'round'. Maybe the novel would form the first part of the book, and we could add other 'highly commended' paragraphs in a second part of the book. Each student could submit a brief biography. For sure, it would be great if this could raise funds for a homeschool related charity. Two ideas I've been playing with are (i) college scholarships for homeschooled students and (ii) a year's high-speed data service for a homeschooled family to access the Internet. Any other thoughts?
My first thought is should we start this in a thread of it's own? That way more members would be aware of it. I am willing to write, judge or both. I still want my DS to be able to participate so I would need to be assigned to a different age group to keep it honest. I like both the scholarship and the Internet access ideas. I know that we could have used the Internet access ourselves this year. Money has been more than tight since I lost my job. We do need to discuss how to set this up. I am not sure of laws surrounding non-profit. If this is a success I would want to see it continue. I don't want it to be shut down because of an over-sight. Do we need to consider posting this idea in other homeschooling forums? That would broaden the supply of people that could possibly help with this. Is there a way we can get the beginning group together for chat? In a private conference room we can either voice or type. That way all ideas can be discussed and we can get a quicker start. Maybe a short message could be sent to each that have responded so far. The message could give an evening range for the meeting. They could respond with a time that works and we can coordinate from their responses. We just need to name the format to use. I should stop now. Give me an idea and I run with it, lol. I tend to be an over-thinker.
