Hello everyone -- If you could spend your day writing fantasy stories and drawing comics, then talking about octopuses or discussing witches and pirates, would you be happy? Welcome to my life--lol! I'm so grateful I get to explore topics I adore on Outschool.com with your bright and gifted learners. Below I've listed new class sessions taking place in January through April on Outschool.com. Check out the coupon at the bottom of this post for $15 off! Read on for descriptions:
FANTASY FICTION & CREATIVE WRITING: hands down, my most popular fantasy creative writing workshop is called Other Stars, Other Worlds. Is your society violent or peaceful? High tech or primitive? A multi-week online workshop where first we create a world collaboratively, but then each student creates their own society and writes a new story about that society each week. Kids who love fantasy books or D&D are gaga for this class. My process is simple, yet learners practice writing, focussing, reading out loud, and analyzing while having fun. They walk away with more confidence in their writing and story making skills. There are many sessions available at different times--check it out!
BOOK CLUB: Also check out this fantasy book club that's once a week. The kids pitch books to each other and they practice summarizing plots. (Summarizing: seriously the more I teach English Language Arts, the more I realize that having good summarizing muscles is half the challenge when it comes to writing essays.) We talk about themes in fantasy books in general which sometimes leads us into deep topics. Learners have fun, they socialize, and after belonging to this group for half a year, they are ready to slice and dice once they hit high school or college level English class discussions. Sometimes we all agree to read a book together. This fall we read Shadow and Bone and now we're starting The Golden Compass.
COMICS: My Comics class is cool because you can be at any experience level when you start and the class will still make your comics better. It offers some basic fundamentals that are key to comics, but aren't really covered in other classes to my knowledge. Personally, I love that "oooh!" moment when learners suddenly see their comics are looking amazing and more professional.
NATURAL SCIENCE!
Science Detectives covers Octopuses/Sharks/Orcas/Whales with an overall focus on animal intelligence and unique features of their biology. I'm fascinated by this topic. Even kids who already obsess about sea creatures still learn new facts and concepts in natural science. We focus on really cool specific stuff like how a narwal's horn is actually a tooth. But then we go one step deeper and discuss why animals sometimes have these weird physical attributes that seem almost like a disadvantage for survival. How did that come about? My absolute favorite part of this class is when kids sit around and theorize about how something could help or hinder an animal in the wild. Or how it might feel to be a whale hybrid that sings differently from all the other whales. Yes, they're guessing. However, as their knowledge base builds, they start putting pieces together. They begin drawing connections at a high level of intellectual engagement. We become familiar with thinking about design and strategy concepts too, as well as making connections.
HISTORY:
Bloody History is a class that combines a series of other fun history classes I teach on Outschool about Vikings, Witches, and Pirates. Each section builds up knowledge that allows learners speculate and theorize about certain questions history scholars still have today. What caused the initial torment of the little girls in Salem? What happened in the end to Vikings who settled in Vineland? Were there ever real treasure maps used by pirates? The basic idea is to experience history as a fun topic. However, because we discuss the underlying nature of how people take up causes, or how they justify their actions, this historical context give learners a greater understanding and thoughtful perspective about contemporary events happening today in our world.
Thank you so much for reading about these classes! I hope you message me here or on Outschool.com if you have any questions before signing up. Meanwhile, here's a coupon just for you:
COUPON CODE:
Get $15 off my classes with coupon code MOORE2024WINTER15 untilDec 25, 2023. Look through my classes at https://outschool.com/teachers/Leeyanne-Moore and enter the coupon code at checkout.
