National Day on Writing

By Communications
Since 2008, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has celebrated National Day on Writing on October 20 to honor the importance, joy and evolution of writing with events hosted by thousands of educators across the country.

Ideas, thoughts and memories were tweeted using the hashtag #WhyIWrite more than 60,000 times, reaching millions of people across the world. The focus this year was on informal writing—the words we tweet, email or jot down. NCTE collaborates with The National Writing Project, The New York Times Learning Network, and the Teaching Channel to promote this event.
 
“As teachers, we want our students to learn how to think critically, to communicate effectively, and to do so with passion and dignity,” said Deborah Shaul, English and history and social science teacher. Most importantly is how they use these skills not just in our classes but in the world around them. When I heard that every October 20 is National Day on Writing, it seemed obvious that LJCDS should participate in this national celebration. Teachers from Grades 1 through 12 found ways to profile the act of writing—through a celebration of previously written work or through close attention to recently completed assignments. Samples of the activities and assignments from the various grade levels—poetry, short essays, responses to lyrics and single lines of poetry—will be on display in the library next month.”
 
Here is a sampling of how LJCDS celebrated National Day on Writing:
 
Grade 3 (Ms. Lisa Bennet): The class discussed book titles and reasons why they connected with a particular title over another and then composed poems, scripts, short stories and/or free verse using those book titles.
Grade 5 (Ms. Danice VonFeldt): The students’ ‘I Am’ poems were hung in a gallery walk (photo above) and class silently read each other’s poems and provided positive feedback.
Grade 7 Algebra IA (Ms. Amy Rohrbach): Students created poetry about mathematics using the Order of Operations technique.
Grade 7 English: They researched and crafted written responses to questions about Chairman Mao, Communism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution as they prepared to read Red Scarf Girl.
Grade 8: Students incorporated one of the suggested prompts that LJCDS teacher representatives from each division created, such as a line from a poem or song, into a one or two sentence statement that describes their current personal essay topic.  
Grades 9-12: Most classes wrote and shared what they wrote based on the teacher's suggested prompts.
AP English Language (Ms. Amy Parish): Students wrote two essays, one on what it means to be an American and another on music with social justice themes from the 60s compared to today.  
American Studies (Dr. Jane Healey): The class wrote Emily Dickinson-styled poems.

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