I decided on the spur of the moment to volunteer with a program at my college to teach a middle/high school creative writing class. You can basically teach anything you want (within reason) so I'm teaching Creative Writing with no boundaries. Sci-fi, fantasy, romance, mystery, fanfic... anything they want to write is okay with me. When I was in high school (and even college), I was too often told I had to write certain kinds of stories and that I couldn't write what interested me. I loved writing enough that I was going to do it on my own, but if I hadn't loved it as much as I did I would have just quit by now. And I imagine lots of kids would enjoy writing a lot more if they didn't have a bunch of rules telling them how to do it.
So my next task is to come up with reading assignments for the kids. I'd like to read things in lots of different genres and styles to give them ideas and emphasize that they can write whatever they want. Maybe even some fanfic, if I can find some that's PGish and in a fandom that I think most kids will be familiar with (which probably means not L&C, although it's the easiest place to find gfic separate from nfic).
So far, the only story I've decided on is the fantasy "Roses by Moonlight" from Patricia C. Wrede's
Book of Enchantments . So I'm looking for a bunch of shortish stories (or things I can take excerpts from), especially in genres I'm not very familiar with. Everyone on this board seems to be very well read, so I figure you guys can suggest some good things
Any thoughts? The class is for grades 6-9, which roughly translates to ages 12-15, so I need things that would be appropriate for that age group. Other than that, no restrictions
