Sharing Personal Writing Goals with Students

Earlier this summer I mentioned how my students never forget about my mention during the winter that I am working on my first young adult novel (or any novel at that). This week as I introduced my first ever Author Tip Tuesday a student shot up his hand to ask about my own venture as an author. The truth is my novel still has a ways to go. I have not set it as high of a priority as I need to if I want to finish it in the near future. However, I decided to set my vulnerability aside and let my students get the first glimpse of the book.

Tonight I reread through my first three chapters. The book is told from multiple perspectives, so each of the selected chapters are told from one of the three cousins. I copied and pasted the text into a separate word document and formatted them with a landscape orientation and two columns so that it looks more official than when it is in my regular word document.

Friday I will have my class split up into three groups and each group will read one of the perspectives. They will not only get to see a glimpse of my book, but I will also use it as a teachable moment about constructive criticism. It will be even better for them to hone their skills in this area on me so that I can develop tougher skin rather than with their classmates who may not be as accustomed to receiving criticism yet (I was not until I college, but hopefully my students will become comfortable with it as middle schoolers). Then I will give them feedback in order to finesse their constructive criticism for suggestions with their classmates the rest of the year.

I also look forward to seeing what they think. While I am nervous, at the same time it is good for me to put myself in their shoes and the insecurities of sharing writing.