Inside BlueSky’s New Creative Writing Course
Here at BlueSky, we think it’s important to always be updating and improving our curriculum for our students. Our courses range in subject matter and are always designed to give students an educational experience they’ll enjoy and of course one that will teach them valuable skills.
This year, Barbara DeGrote who joined BlueSky nearly ten years ago created a brand new Creative Writing elective course for our high school students and we are so excited to share a little insight into this awesome new course! Read on to take a journey into the new Creative Writing course.
Flexible and Engaging Assignments
Barbara DeGrote had been teaching for years before she started at BlueSky over ten years ago. So she has seen different ways of teaching and learning over the years. The Creative Writing class is part of our self-paced program which allows students to log in to lessons and complete assignments on their own time.
The course uses engaging materials like TED talks, poetry, and freewriting assignments to inspire the students to explore their writing. The students explore the materials and are then encouraged to do their own writing. An example of a TED talk around writing is 12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing by Anne Lamott.
Being a self-paced course, the students are not required to be in attendance at any specific time. To keep them on track, attendance is taken by assignment submission. The students are welcomed and walked through expectations through a welcome video and then it’s off to the races!
SEL Learning
This year has been extremely difficult for many students across the state, country, and the world! We recognize that it’s important to take student emotions and situations into account. Our commitment to being a trauma-informed, social-emotional learning community has allowed us to step up for our students who need support. Barbara has dubbed her students the “brave ones” because they are such great examples of prevailing through a difficult time. Our students are all unique and even in a virtual space, we want to provide support and encouragement to each and every student. This Creative Writing class is no exception, using personalized teaching and kind and direct instruction, we take pride in supporting our students.
We are so proud of our teachers and our students here at BlueSky. To learn more about our classes and curriculum, click here!
