Lit Jam

I have really not written much this year..... at least not on the blog. I feel like some how I'm missing parts of the story of our life because of it... oh well, I'll try to do better, but I have to admit that I have a lot of things that take up my mind - not to mention my time.

The first year of the kids at the school year was a great year in learning about some of the special programs that happen. One program was Lit Jam - Literary Jamboree - which, I must admit, I was not very thrilled to hear about. Of course I had my own pre-conceived notions about the program and could not understand why a "writing conference" was focusing on kids starting as young as 3rd grade. To be honest, I'm still not really sure about that side of it.

However, I learned a little, and it wasn't the "writing conferences" I had been exposed to as a teenager, and since Gabi had her heart set on it, well, we let her do it. Her whole class wrote pieces as if they were going, but only those who actually were planning on attending submitted their pieces to be judged. You could submit up to three pieces of work, but Gabi wanted to just do the one since it was her first year. All I ever saw of her writing before it went in was when I helped her separate paragraphs while she was typing it up.

To be honest, I wasn't thrilled with the piece, but I didn't know how it would be graded and I am not at all experienced in her age group and writing abilities. All I knew was that I'd seen better from Gabi before - at least I thought I'd had.

Still, we were given notice that she had won an award so we went to the awards ceremony - boy was it packed - and found she'd received a mark of superb. Obviously the pieces were marked with grade level appropriate rubrics. I was impressed (and very much grateful that my lack of expertise had not been part of the rating and grading).

She had several friends that went as well, but one friend in particular, from another school, also earned great marks. Eliza had submitted two pieces and received the marks of excellent and superb. It was a great evening for them both.

Gabi loved going to Lit Jam and is eagerly awaiting next year. In the meantime, she wrote Bob a story for his birthday (in about 30 minutes) and as I typed it up for her (she'd run out of time and isn't as fast a typer) I realized how well she really writes - especially when it's completely her own idea and her own topic - not trying to focus on a topic someone else has told her she has to write about. The girl's got talent - noticeable talent!

Don't tell her, but I think she's better than I was at her age..... not that I have anything much to fall back on!