Genoa Middle School students — mostly sixth-graders — spent all of November composing novels as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a national program that challenges writers to draft 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days.
Genoa students set writing goals with their language arts teacher or media specialist Deanna McDaniel, who worked with seventh- and eighth-grade students interested in participating in the challenge. In all, students wrote 840,615 words towards their novels. In one of Tracy Jados’ language arts classes, students met 97% of their writing goals.
McDaniel said students experienced authentic learning while crafting their stories. They wrote by hand, on computers, on devices. They continued writing on the Young Writers Program’s virtual classroom, where they could connect with other student writers and their teachers.
Teachers Shannon McCreary, Jessica Meginnis, Pooja Shah, Emily Minney and Jados hosted the challenge with their classes this year.