School Circles

One of the best ways to develop writing skills within a community is to start a Writers Circle club in your school. This site began out of a Writer's Circle Club established in a high school in 2006, which published an anthology in June 2007.

If your school does not currently have a writing club, ask a teacher or counselor how to set up one. Once you have permission to set one up, here are a few ideas:

Conduct creative writing activities, like starting a story, then passing the stories around and having each person add to them as much as they can in 2-minute intervals. Also, ask people to bring in objects, then trade them around and write a piece inspired by the object.

Allow for some "editing time" at the beginning or end of each meeting. People can bring in personal pieces to be peer-edited, and everyone can give suggestions and advice.

Bring in a guest speaker. For example, write to a published author and ask if they can give a short presentation on their personal writing experiences.

Begin a group project. Plan to publish an anthology, or a group-written novel, and set deadlines. Have everyone edit each piece, then either approach a publisher, or use a free self-publishing site to get your work published.

When you have your School Circle established, feel welcome to join it to this online community. This allows you to gain editing resources, and to give a wider community access to the products of your hard work.