Designing a Writing Group

“What do you think our writing group should look like?” I asked 8 y.o. No. Two as we headed into town on BART.  I’d heard, every unschooling parent has heard, that things will work best when the kids are put in charge of their own learning.  I knew Two wanted a writing group.  That’s why we were headed into the library presentation on writing groups, but I’d never though to ask her what she wanted in a writing group.  Not until now.

“I’d like us to meet outside.”

This should have come as no surprise to me.  The kid loves being outdoors.  She loves nature.  Her favorite superhero is Poison Ivy.

“Cool, what if we met at different playgrounds or other places around town, what if we moved the meeting around?  That way members that live in different neighborhoods can attend meetings when they swing nearby.”

“Sounds good.  We could have it at libraries too!”  She chimed in.

“All right.”

“When we have it at libraries, we could write about a book in the library.”

“Like use the book for a writing prompt?  Remember, in our last group we had prompts?  An idea of what to write about?”

“Yeah, like that, but not just what to write about.  It’d be OK to write about the book itself too.”
The kid was suggesting book reports of her own accord.  She doesn’t even know what a book report is.  Well, I take that back.  Clearly she does, but she doesn’t know it’s a thing.  She doesn’t go to public school…  So, there’s that.

“OK, what else?  How often should we meet?”  I figured I’d get an answer that we should take it easy.  She and I haven’t been to a writing group in months.  I thought she’d want to glide back into the process.

“Twice a week!”

“Wait what?  Twice a week?”

“Twice a week.”

“Oooh, that’s a lot, but OK, twice a week.”

“One really outdoor place, and one library a week.”  By really outdoor she meant a park, or ideally a forest.

I thought about their schedule.  Could this possible work?  Yeah, yeah it could  “You know, we can do that I think!  You guys are at libraries at last once a week, so we’ve got the library bit covered, and you're outside most of the rest of the time.  We just need to figure out where you’ll be once a week ahead of time.”  I’m an off-the-cuff scheduler, this will actually be work for me.  “But, I think we can do it.”

“Great!”

And that’s it, that’s how the kid developed her own writing group format.  And, it was better than anything I would have come up with on my own.  This letting kids lead their own education thing?  It really does work!