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Last Friday our Kids’ Writing Workshop welcomed author Kirk Scroggs, who wrote the Wiley & Grampa’s Creature Features series, the Snoop Troop series and the Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet series.  He gave us a presentation about his books and characters, and then we did activities where we took a boring sentence and made it something more interesting.  Kirk talked about the rule of “Show, Don’t Tell,” talked about writing active sentences that show a lot of action, and eliminating adverbs which are usually shortcuts that good authors don’t take.

The kids came up with some wild sentences, and then we took some of those sentences and drew a cartoon illustrating them.  At the end of class, I had nine free Kirk Scroggs books to give away and the kids got them signed by Kirk!  It was a great workshop.  Kirk was very friendly and encouraging to the kids.  He frequently commented on what was great about their sentences and what they could also change to make it even more effective.  Even the parents got into the fun, writing new sentences and reading them!  We had a blast.

Check out our video for some of the insights Kirk gave about writing:

And here are some more pictures!

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