Writing Club

One of the things I've decided to focus on with my students is writing. I started a writing course for a few of my stronger students. Many of my students struggle now writing an essay in Azerbaijani, let alone English. When given an assignment without a "right answer," many students have so much fear of writing the wrong thing, they plagiarize or copy off their neighbor. In general, creativity and critical thinking aren't strongly encouraged in any of their subjects. Thus, I began this writing club because I see strong potential in a handful of my students to be good writers. The club has many objectives, the loftiest objective being to teach students the skills to be able to write a 3-part thesis on a topic of their choice. Said "skills" include creativity, coming up with original ideas, and proper organization. I want my students to be able to express themselves comfortably in writing. My hope is that these skills will apply to both Azerbaijani and English writing assignments, and students won't be so mystified by the whole process.

So that all sounds a bit technical, but I love this course because I get a much better understanding of how my students think. The only way to teach the concept that there is no wrong answer is to get them to say something (plant the seed) and encourage the living daylights out of anything original, coming from their own minds--water it! For their first assignment, I had students pick out a picture from a magazine. Their task was to make up a short story that must include a beginning (introduction), middle (identify the problem) and end (solution) about the person or people in the picture. Here's what one of the students wrote: