In the wild heart of Wishwood forest, a small village of mice makes their home beneath a fallen tree. Each day the search for food, friends, and survival sends the mice scurrying along the fern-shadowed paths of the forest. What will they find? Hungry weasels, stranger mice, mysteries, danger, new ideas, treasure, adventure? A whisper of magic? 

And who are these small forest folk? That’s up to you, the chosen storytellers of Wishwood. 

In this creative writing class, students are invited into the magical world of Wishwood Forest, where we will meet the mice who call it home. We'll learn how to create our own original mouse characters and introduce them to the group. We will work through the basic steps needed to craft a believable character so real you’ll swear you can see their whiskers twitch! 

We’ll imagine things like~ appearance, age, name, special abilities or talents, personality traits, and more. Then we'll explore writerly strategies for showing who our characters are, and finally, we will each write brief scenes that reveal our mice and allow them to meet each other. 

I created Wishwood Forest as a "writer's playground", where young writers can let their imaginations run wild and have fun playing with words as they co-create a fantasy story. This first class serves as a stepping stone to further travels within this mysterious world. Once you have created a character through "Creative Writing Workshop: Meet Your Mouse!", you can choose to join the ongoing role-playing adventures in “The Mice of Wishwood Forest” creative writing classes (coming soon in September), launching your mouse into the forest to see what stories they will find themselves caught up in. 

This class is structured as follows: 

* An introduction to creative writing community guidelines, and the world of Wishwood, with time for questions and answers.
* A brief discussion of the elements of character building. 
* A collaborative group brainstorm and writing experience in creating a character together.
* Students use this as inspiration to independently write their own lists of character qualities to create a mouse character. 
* We work together on writing brief "showcasing sentences" that reveal character traits. 
* Students independently write one-paragraph scenes featuring their original mice, and are encouraged (not required) to share them aloud if they feel comfortable doing so, introducing their mice to the group. 

I welcome young writers of all levels to join this supportive learning community, and I look forward to our shared adventures into the realms of imagination. Wishwood Forest awaits!  And beyond the immediate fun of this specific writing adventure, I hope to connect my students to a lifelong love of creative writing.