Allison Boudreau was totally "getting her teacher on" Wednesday morning at Evans Elementary School in Lake Station.
"Second step, plan it out!" she told her thirdgrade students.
"Second step, plan it out!" they shouted back in unison.
"Third step, write, write, write," she told them.
"Third step, write, write, write!" they shouted back while standing around her.
After her six-step lesson plan, the students returned to their seats to write, write, write, using a storytelling template dating back centuries. It prompts the young kids to tell their personal stories using narrative details, characters, dialogue, editing, revisions and other timeless writing techniques.
"Then your stories go out to the world," Boudreau told them.
People are also reading…
This exchange was a thing of beauty from my viewpoint as a lifelong writer.
"Children at this age love to talk, and they seem to never stop talking, but there can be a disconnect from their brain to their hand," Boudreau told me as her students worked on their stories. "A lot of our kids are struggling writers. But they like to story-tell."
Humans are wired to tell stories. We've been doing it since our earliest exchanges with each other. We've gone from storytelling around the glow of campfires to storytelling around the glow of computer screens. The modes of storytelling have changed but not the primal importance behind it.
"Writing is about sharing ideas and stories," Boudreau said. "You don't need a curriculum to teach writing to children. But there is a process."
A booklet designed for her students shared an outline that's been used by generations of new writers, at any age: Pick an idea. What's on your mind? Narrow the topic. Write a lead that hooks readers. Add key details. Use juicy words, the booklet suggests.
I've been using a similar outline since my first newspaper story.
When I told the third graders that I've been writing stories for more than 25 years, they collectively gasped.
"Almost to like infinity," one boy yelled out.
"Yes, I've been writing for almost infinity," I told them with a laugh.
The students have their own newspaper, the Panther Post, sharing their stories, photos and drawings. One headline screamed, "The Newspaper Kids are BACK!"
I loved everything about it. I have a passion for writing like Boudreau has a passion for teaching.
"I just play school every day like when I was a girl," she said.
When Boudreau was in third grade, she asked her teachers for extra copies of assignments so she could teach them to her dolls. She was born to get her teacher on, a phrase that hit home for her this week.
The day I visited her school — one of my favorites in Northwest Indiana — special guests showed up to record a documentary about the school's teachers, staff and students.
Two years ago, the Indiana Department of Education launched a first-of-its-kind partnership to provide interactive professional development and support to educators across the state.
The partnership with Get Your Teach On, an organization established by highly-acclaimed educators Hope and Wade King, provide Indiana educators and administrators with free access to conferences, workshops and training sessions developed to ignite their passion for teaching and promote positive educational outcomes for students.
"Get Your Teach On picked our little school as a Indiana Department of Education collaboration site," Boudreau said with the excitement of a schoolgirl. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would be doing this here."
The organization's founders, Hope and Wade King, visited the school along with fellow facilitator Chris Pombonyo to interact with staff members and record parts of the documentary.
"They're incredible," Boudreau said. "They have poured magic into our low resource, low morale, low just-about-everything school to the point we're overflowing now."
The entire school buzzed with excitement this week.
"They're bringing all of the magic," said Boudreau, who's on the leadership team for the GYTO collaboration.
The school's students enjoyed escape rooms that were sorted into "houses."
"Yes, like Hogwarts from Harry Potter," Boudreau said with a raspy voice from an earlier battle with laryngitis.
This house system is designed with hopes of boosting student and staff morale by giving them a "house" and implementing a "whole school" mentality.
"GYTO has funded all of this, including signage, a beautiful mural and new TVs to display a constant run of house points," Boudreau said.
The organization also sponsored five educators from the school to previously attend a three-day regional conference in Las Vegas. And it will be sponsoring another group from the school for an upcoming national conference in Orlando, Florida.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't have wet eyes right now," Boudreau told me. "I'm so proud of this little under-served, underdog school. I have so much excitement in my teacher heart, yet sadness that our time as a collaboration site is coming to an end."
To complement today's column on the universal importance of writing, my Monday column will celebrate National Read Across America Day by visiting Wallace Elementary School in Hammond to read the book, "How to Be a Lion," to second graders. I hope they don't eat me alive.
Contact Jerry at Jerry. Davich@nwi.com. Find him on Facebook and other socials. Opinions are those of the writer.
