Genoa Middle School teachers Deanna McDaniel, Carol Goodpaster, Shannan McCreary, Tracy Jados, Pooja Shah and their students were extremely busy during the month of November, creating their own novels for NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month). 1,086,766 words were written in the 30 days of November! This beats last year’s word count of 985,772.
Pupils experienced authentic learning as they created their own novels. They wrote by hand, on computers, and on their devices. Some even used the voice-typing feature available in Google Docs. Youngsters also took advantage of the Westerville City School District’s Google Drive, which enabled them to access their stories and keep writing from multiple devices. They used Web 2.0 tools to communicate with other student writers and their teachers, received email from authors participating in Nanowrimo, and had virtual word wars with other classes.