Jump Write In!: Creative Writing Exercises for Diverse Communities, Grades 6-12

by Judith Tannenbaum, WritersCorps, Judith Tannenbuam

Classroom teachers often feel pressure to choose between using standards-based lessons and activities that engage their students' creativity and encourage personal expression. In Jump Write In!, however, the experienced writer-teachers from WritersCorps offer numerous exercises that do both: build key standards-based writing skills and give voice to youth. Through poetry, fiction, personal narrative, and playwriting, students will improve their writing skills by being invited to put their truths on the page. Perfect for a moment of inspiration as well as for deeper exploration, these easy-to-use and field-tested activities engage students from a variety of ethnic, educational, and economic backgrounds and encourage the recognition that their voices matter. The book's eleven chapters include: Order your copy today.

Genres: Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2005

About the author

Judith Tannenbaum has taught poetry in a wide variety of settings from primary school classrooms to maximum security prisons. She has chaired panels and served as keynote speaker at many conferences on prison, prison arts, and teaching arts, and taught in prisons in eight states. Judith currently serves as training coordinator for WritersCorps in San Francisco. You can read more about prison arts and teaching arts at her website.


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Reviews

[Angie Hull · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, this text gives a large number of creative exercises to use with students and it is broken into different categories of writing (ex. icebreakers, poetry, images, theme, narrative). The exercises help the writer step away from their drafts and focus on a small part of the process. One really neat thing is that most exercises then have the student writer create a poem using the exercise.

Many of these exercises will work nicely in workshop and it's a really unique way to add some poetry writing within the drafting/revision process of other student writing units (narrative, informational, etc.)

[Salsabrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of creative starter ideas for inspiring kids to write. Great for teachers and especially adults working with kids but who are not trained as teachers.