How To Teach A Child Creative Writing

Early this months, Brittle Paper published one of my non-fiction articles. It is titled 8 Ways To Tutor Your Children in Creative Writing.

The post was popular among writers and readers on social media, so I figured it would benefit some of my readers on Creative Writing News. Some adults said they learned from the 8-step guide as well. So I guess, the post is for every budding writer, young and old. Another thing I’d have liked to mention in the article is the essence of journaling. Buy a diary for you and your writer child. It’ll force you to shut out the inner critic so that you will practice a lot more writing and even enjoy the process.

If you’d like to read an excerpt, here’s a sneak peek into the article.

You don’t need an education degree (or an MFA) to help creative children channel their newly acquired reading experience and budding writing skills into crafting a compelling tale. When I began homeschooling two preteens in creative writing, I was still earning my post graduate diploma in education. What you need, instead, is a lot of patience, grit, love and this five-step guide.

 

1.   Make Reading A Habit

When I attended the Farafina Workshop, I observed that Chimamanda Adichie and all the other established writers and publishers harped on about the importance of reading. I think it was Chika Unigwe who said, ‘read, read, and read’..

2.   Write, Write, Write

Make sure the child has time to write every day. Create a writing space where the child can write during an agreed upon ‘creative time’.

Make a list of words that aren’t allowed in a story. I chose common, weak words for instance. The children were forbidden from using words like man, woman, boy, girl, go, went, cool, fun, said (except in a dialogue tag), nice, good, bad, fine, pretty etc. This forced the children to be more creative.

For instance, instead of writing, “The man went to the hall.” The child could write, “The retired architect drove his old Mercedes to the Enugu conference hall.”

You can read the rest of the article HERE. Please note that this self-help guide focuses on creative fiction and non-fiction. If you want to learn how to write blog posts and other content for online purposes, Click HERE.