Creative Writing: Write a Chapter Book or Book of Stories

This class is taught in English.

The goal is to develop their storytelling and writing skills by writing a novel. See the specific weekly learning goals in the class description, but we will cover every element of storytelling including characters, setting, plot, tension, scene-building and literary devices. 

I'm a published young adult novelist and a writing teacher with over twenty years teaching experience, and I've designed award-winning writing curriculums based on multi-sensory writing prompts and positive feedback. The key to helping kids and teens grow as writers is to build their creative confidence and help them believe in themselves.

As a novelist, I've written two acclaimed young adult novels, Trafficked and This Is Not a Love Letter, published by Penguin and Disney-Hyperion, and I have another novel contracted with Little, Brown. This Is Not a Love Letter was one of NPR's top books of 2018 and Trafficked made several state lists for top books. They've both received starred reviews and made top lists for books. If you want to learn more about me as an author, you can always go to my author website, under my name. 

Besides writing my own books, my passion is helping kids, teens and adults write their books and achieve their dreams. I've been teaching ESL, essay-writing, and novel-writing classes for kids, teens and adults outside of Outschool for over twenty years. I currently run two successful in-person after-school programs for creative writing in Los Angeles. I've also taught homeschooled kids in both New York City and Los Angeles, and even homeschooled one of my kids. Furthermore, I was the first curriculum director of the famous non-profit, WriteGirl in Los Angeles, and I helped build it into the multi-sensory interactive writing program it is today. 

In terms of education, I have a BA in international Relations from the University of British Columbia, one of Canada's elite colleges, as well as a journalism degree from BCIT and a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing from VCFA, which qualifies me to teach at the college level. 

More importantly than my education and experience, I think, is that I have so much fun with my students and sincerely care for their well-being. My goal is to make them feel confident about their writing and inspired to write even more or go on to achieve any other creative goal in their lives. 

Every week, they should write at least two double-spaced pages on their own. I will give them a bonus asynchronous workshop and handout to do this. 

No grade, but we celebrate each time a student adds another ten pages!

55 minutes per week in class, and an estimated 2 - 4 hours per week outside of class.

We will use the Wonderstorming Workbook and Flying Fingers, a Kid's Daily Guide to Writing a Novel, which I wrote for students using hundreds of books on craft as well as my MFA and my experience as a novelist.