Writing Workshop: 5-Year-Old Style

A few times a week, Risa and Vida's teacher conducts "Writing Workshop," wherein the kids (I think) draw in their journals and then—when the music begins—write stories to accompany the art. Since the rain has been cramping the girls' normal let's-go-to-the-backard-and-do-things-that-scare-the-bejesus-out-of-their-mother style, they decided to re-enact their workshop. Each completed one piece. I'd scan them, but they're on humungous paper. And so...

Here is Risa's (as it appears on the page, and then translated):

I LOVE MOM
I see butrflis
I see a haos in mado
athr. Risa

I love Mom.
I see butterflies.
I see a house in [the] meadow.
Author: Risa

Now here is Vida's:

STORE BY vida
WUN DA
ThE
SUN
WUS GON
AND OL
ThE
PEPL
WR DYINYG

Story by Vida
One day the sun was gone and all the people were dying.

I think it's safe to assume that one of them was taking the current weather situation a little too much to heart.

So anyways, it's fascinating to witness these early attempts to create meaning on the page. Both of them have a tendency to fret over whether or not something is "right," which initially made them resistant to writing any word they didn't already know how to spell correctly. I have to bound and gag my inner editor (plus throw her in the closet and smother her with pillows) whenever they show me something because at this point they just need to feel free to write without worrying about "mistakes." Plenty of time for that, right?

As Lucy Calkins points out in "The Art of Teaching Writing," (a really very kick-ass book that has much to teach an adult writer, too) nobody ever frets about the primitive sounds a baby makes; we marvel at them, and then talk to the baby as if she is perfectly able to uphold her duties as a conversationalist. Lo and behold—one day she does exactly that. And so it should be with writing.

Now I just need to learn that bound-and-gag trick when it comes to my own stories.