Smith Elementary School students are exploring creative writing through a new club organized by a Columbus East High School senior.
Hailee Bott created the club targeted to third- through sixth-grade students as part of her senior project. The students have been meeting twice a week since Sept. 10 to practice creative writing skills and different story forms.
“I want them to take away the fact that creative writing can be fun,” Bott said.
Bott comes to each writing club meeting with a writing prompt, such as writing about fairy tale characters, and students develop their stories from the topics.
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Bott, who attended Smith starting in the second grade, said she has always enjoyed writing and developed miniature stories of her own while in middle school. When she was younger, she also created books based on stories she wrote using scratch paper, she said.
“My grandma pushed me to write because she was really proud of it,” Bott said.
In addition to creativity, the club is also a mechanism to teach students the differences between certain words, particularly those with the same pronunciation but different meanings, Bott said.
At a recent club meeting, participants were asked to explain the difference between “a tale” and “a tail.”
Sixth grade student Allison Pool said she joined the club to become a better writer and for the chance to write fairy tales, as that opportunity doesn’t happen for her class assignments.
Rebecca Munoz, also in sixth grade, said she joined the club because of an interest in writing and she enjoys socializing with other students in the club.
Bott said her overall goal is to spark creativity among students through their writing.
“They have a lot of fun with it. There’s so much untapped creativity in here,” she said.
Bott also reviews the writing the club members produce and provides tips on punctuation and grammar. The club is expected to run through December, but Bott said she hopes it will continue after she graduates from East.
“I’m happy that they’re having fun and making friends,” she said.
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The writing club at Smith Elementary School is open to third- to sixth-grade students and meets weekly on Mondays and Fridays from 2:50 to 3:30 p.m. There is no cost for Smith students to participate.
For more information, contact Hailee Bott at [email protected].
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