Every Friday morning at Creative Kids Co-op, students from the 5th through 7th grade classes meet in the West Multipurpose Room to discuss different styles of writing in the IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) class. Reports, creative writing, and even poetry have been covered in this class, which is taught by Mrs. B. Mrs. B. makes the class fun by giving candy as prizes and inventing vocabulary games, such as Vocabulary Baseball and Around the World. Games like these test the students’ memory and require quick response time.

This year, the IEW book covered in Mrs. B’s class was about ancient civilizations. Students wrote about important cities like Egypt, Rome, Greece, and Ancient Sumer.

To make their papers more interesting, students were required to include certain “dress-ups”–clauses, vocabulary words, strong verbs, alliteration, etc.

The most enjoyable writing unit was by far the creative writing section. Students retold classic fairy tales, wrote stories inspired by pictures sequences, and more. In one lesson, “Borrowing a Conflict,” students stole plots from well-known fairy tales or books and built their own stories around them. Examples include The Boy Who Cried Ice Cream by I. W. (based on The Boy Who Cried Wolf) and YOLO Swaggins and the Fellowship of the Bling by L. H., (based on The Lord of the Rings).

IEW is an amazing class that unlocks the tools of writing and teaches students valuable life skills.

by L.H., seventh grade CKC student