Hybrid Summer Writing Club 2021

My summer Writing Club this year was a hybrid, and it worked. I hosted three students in-person and eight on Zoom. We met for four days, two hours each day, and we wrote fiction. Lots of fiction. By the end of Thursday’s session, each of us had the beginnings of twelve new stories. There was feedback, but there were no grades. And we had fun!

I used many of the prompts from my book, Shoes and Boxes and Peanuts and Keys to inspire writing. I also added a few new ideas, just to try them out. On any given day, there was an object sitting in the middle of the large table in our meeting room, the “classroom” in my basement. There was also a display or two on the floor of our room. Each two-hour session consisted of a warm-up, and two other prompts. We used old parts from a sprinkler system, sticks from my yard, shoes, boxes, keys, necklaces, pictures of doors, a hand-held air pump, an empty packing tape dispenser, and a variety of other items. I made sure to take photos of the objects ahead of time. I put these photos into a Google Slides presentation that grew longer each day. In this way, the Zoom members could focus closely on an object as the in-person members moved closer to their selected objects to study them.

I asked a lot of questions. The club members drew and wrote, actually wrote, in their notebooks in response to these questions. At many times during our sessions, the only sounds were the scratching of pens or pencils on paper. At other times, those sounds were masked by soft instrumental music. Once the music played, I began to write.

I decided to run the Writing Club in the same way that I had run my classroom at school. I used my Zoom camera to show those who joined me from their homes the displays of objects, placing my laptop on a Lazy-Susan so that I could easily spin it in whatever direction I needed. I also used the Zoom camera to let them see those who were present in-person. This was comfortable for all of us.

I noticed some definite similarities between Writing Club and my school classroom. Often, those students who attended in-person were the first to volunteer to read or share or give feedback. A few of the Zoom members joined into our talk regularly, but some never really spoke. All of this was OK. After the first day, everyone seemed to become comfortable with each other. We used questions as feedback (another blog, another day). We laughed a lot, often at my expense. Typical. The members enjoyed hearing each other. They liked working with the large group of eleven members. They offered to read their work aloud. I did too. The feedback given to me was really helpful. In most cases, it will serve to make my stories longer and more involved. I think this is true for the members as well.

On day two, I realized another similarity with my school classes. I decided to place the Zoom members in Breakout Rooms for sharing and feedback. Those who attended in-person would be their own group. This was a bad decision. The in-person group had a really good session of sharing and feedback, but the Breakout Rooms failed miserably. I promised not to use them again.

On the final day of our club, I asked the members to fill out a Google Form as feedback for me. Here are the results, from those who responded.

75% - too short, number of days

100% - just right, number of hours per day

100% - would prefer in-person

The last day of our Writing Club session was June 10. I am still receiving emails from the members telling me that they have shared their stories with me. Some continue to add to their stories. Others have resolved comments I made. Still others are finally ready to show me their drafts. I hope this will continue. I know that writing is hard work. I know that writing is personal. I understand that I may never see some of the writing that came from Writing Club. And that is OK.