Excitement is so contagious! The Writers' Club was full of energy today because of two activities we did based on the idea of how characters come alive to readers. A week ago, I asked the girls to think of a character they would like to present to the rest of the club. We had a few rules and then, because we had about a thousand questions, we had a few more rules. The bottom rule was this: try to make it fun for everybody. To work towards that, we had a few 'suggested' rules: Don't say too much; don't say too littleDon't choose obscure charactersDon't make your speech more than two minutes longDon't read out a speech As we went on, more rules were added, but eventually, today, many of the girls had (of course) forgotten everything. Some had forgotten to think about a character at all, and two were too shy to come forward unprepared. Yet, we had Harry Potter, Geronimo … [Read more...]