New Updates

Hello again everyone! Just to keep you all up to date…

So our workshop this year was a great success! Since each workshop is 10 weeks long, our original hope had been to run two workshops every year, one per semester. Today we had a meeting and are beginning to work out new plans for next year. We are making plans for two full 10-week workshops next year!!

We’re continuing to contact the Oak Hill PTA and principal — we’ll be sending out volunteer information and next year’s officer applications soon. Stay tuned!

-Lily Hsiang

A Series of Videos on Fostering Creativity

Australian author Peter E. Taylor (writing-for-children.com) has developed a series of videos which encourage kids to be creative and explore writing. Looking at this video, I assume the target age group is somewhere between Preschool to 3rd grade. I would definitely recommend parents and teachers to take a look at this series of videos–Taylor presents some interesting knowledge. Check out the first (of six!) video here:

-Xiaoxiao Lin

Jazz and Pizazz

During our presentations, we try to spice things up while still teaching a lesson.  Here’s a sample from our lesson on metaphors, which also gives a little life lesson on finding happiness.

Enjoy!

Sample Lecture Slides

Here’s a sample from one of our presentations.  These PowerPoints are projected onto the students’ screens at home, while the instructors lecture through phone lines or through the Internet.  Students can also ask volunteer instructors questions through online chat boxes — it’s very interactive and easy to use!

Enjoy!

Success!

The ThinK workshop was conceived by the founders to educate and interest students in the field of writing. We created a relationship with Oak Hill Elementary School and sent out an invitation, looking for students who would be interested in joining. To our surprise and delight, we got twenty-seven replies. At TJ, we recruited twelve students who would be like to be involved in the education of these bright young minds. They were designated as the instructors. Working as pairs, the instructors were paired up with a group of students whom they would attend to solely.

After ten weeks of training, the improvement in writing was astounding. Numerous of our students went from having large grammatical errors and relatively plain writing to fascinating, suspenseful pieces that included all sorts of writing techniques. Everybody from the instructors to the parents of the students to the students themselves were amazed at the amount of progress that was made. A mother of a student commented,

“This is just to let you know that my son Chinmay Kedar, attended the 6th grade workshop and had a wonderful experience. It has definitely made a difference in his writing ability. It was directed well and the interaction between all was immensely beneficial. Thank you very much. Hope you have it again soon!”

Many other parents also contacted us to thank us. Due to the very positive feedback that we received, the THinK club is planning to also set up another workshop, this time for essay writing.

Stay tuned for more updates!

-Ellen Huang

How You Can Help!

As always, we’ll love for more volunteers to help us continue our workshop.  You don’t even have to be local, as our workshop is entirely run online through web conferences and email.  You don’t have to be the best writer in the world to help!  All we ask for is some time and patience and love to help younger kids.  Whether you’re interested in maintaining our website and database or would love to work with the children and give lectures or edit essays, we’d really appreciate your help!  Send an email to teens_helping_kids@yahoo.com and we can get in touch!  Thanks!

-Xiaoxiao Lin  

How It All Works

THinK is an extracurricular activity designed for elementary school students by high schoolers. Every other week, there is a lecture given by the mentors through an online network conference application (we have used GoToWebinar and GoToMeeting as our primary conferences programs) to the elementary school students.

The lectures start with a brief biography of a famous writer, to get the students familiar with and interested in a wider range of authors

Afterwards, the lecture focuses on a specific aspect of writing (such as onomatopoeia, or varying sentence length). The newly introduced concept is internalized through a series of creative writing exercises, which allow the students to incorporate their imaginative ideas in an interesting way. Specific word games emphasizing the concept of the week are suggested for family play, again contributing to the fun factor.

After the lecture and exercises, there is a question and answer session, where students can freely ask questions to the instructors about anything they’ve learned. When every last question is answered, the session ends. Shortly following the session, a homework assignment is posted. This homework assignment requires the students to write a creative story, using the creative technique learned in the corresponding session and any others learned in previous sessions.

This story is submitted by a deadline (usually a few days before the next session) and graded by the instructors. The instructors make constructive comments and edits with regard to grammar, word choice, and appropriate use of creative techniques. The student receives this feedback immediately.

The process behind THinK is a very interactive one, which gets all parties involved (parents, students, instructors) in the process to work towards the common goal of improving the students’ writing.

-David Kim

Why YOU Care

Why exactly is THinK so important?

Think of it this way - THinK is an educational initiative started by students, for students. We know what it’s like to be students. We know that sometimes, the school curriculum just doesn’t cut it. As we have noticed, school systems don’t necessarily teach the fundamentals of writing coherently to students. A traditional English curriculum taught in the Fairfax County school district covers literature and grammar, but concepts like wordsmithing and sentence variation are rarely taught, if at all. We know from personal experience that writing isn’t necessarily taught all that well in schools.

I am especially aware of the inability of students to write in a professional manner. I, too, felt confused by the concept of an essay - how should I know if this sounds strange, or if that doesn’t support the argument well? Even after attaining straight A’s from every English class I took in in elementary school, I was still unable to write a focused essay. Whenever I was assigned such an essay, I would be overtaken by anxiety. It was only through my own initiative, through observation of political speeches, reading books outside of class, and hearing typical dialogue, that I began to understand how to write well.

So you could say that I turned out well in the end. However, that’s not the case for everyone. I am still, as a junior attending the number one ranked public high school in the nation, surrounded by people incapable of writing comfortably. They continue to make basic mistakes, and there are holes in the logic of their arguments.

We realized that this need to be patched early on - and so THinK was born. Our mission is to help students at a young age learn to write effectively and creatively. We provide a different approach to learning how to write. After all, we were once elementary school children struggling with writing too. We understand the pitfalls of the standardized writing curriculum, and we teach and supplement students’ writing education as necessary.

THinK is currently offering only writing workshops, but there are plans to expand to other subjects in the not-too-distant future. With student experience, we can effectively troubleshoot the conceptual holes in students’ understanding of a subject, whether it be writing, math, or history.

-David Kim

Why WE Care

Our Origins

So how did this all originate?  Many years ago, when we were in elementary school ourselves, Ellen and I always shared a passion for reading and writing.  Our sixth grade teacher instilled in us a love for literature — finding hidden symbols and themes as if the novel were a great treasure map with secrets revealed only to the wary reader.

Once the torch had been lit, we sprinted on our own.  We got together on weekends to write our own stories, essays, and even short novels; we created our own little personal writing workshop.  Perhaps to the foreign eye it may just have been a simple brown table with scattered pencils and eraser shavings littering the wood, but it was our nest built with sprigs and twigs of festivity and creativity.  Not only did it bring us a sense of personal accomplishment and pride, but we also brought home quite a few first place awards in the Reflections program.

Since then, we haven’t been fortunate enough to have the time to continue the workshop over the years.  But the skills we nurtured have helped us inexhaustibly, whether it be in writing arguments for debate tournaments or publishing works in the school newspaper and literary magazine.

Last summer, Ellen and I concocted another new idea.  Why couldn’t we share this opportunity with other sixth graders in our area?  It wouldn’t be difficult to start up a new workshop, as long as there were eager students and enough volunteers.  Over the summer we ran a successful trial, which encouraged us to try local elementary schools for more willing pupils.

Ellen and I spoke with the principal and the president of the PTA at Oak Hill Elementary School, and they agreed to help us advertise among the sixth grade.  But while we taught the classes, we needed people to help us as TAs.  After successfully recruiting twelve students at TJ as volunteers, we’ve successfully completed our first 10-week workshop session (all completely online) with twenty-seven students!

We were extremely impressed with how quickly the students progressed, and we hope to continue this workshop and expand into even more elementary school networks.  It’s a fantastic way for us to give back to the community through writing, which has personally helped us greatly.

-Lily Hsiang