With an anticipated 300,000 writers taking part this year, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has become a beloved institution since its founding over a decade ago. Participation in its Young Writers Program has more than quadrupled since 2008, with 90,000 students set to take the challenge of starting and completing a novel this November.
"I really wanted to make all of our curriculum and resources tailored to teachers, so one of the first things I did was to revamp the lesson plans and curriculum," says Chris Angotti, director of the Young Writers Program. "I aligned them all to the Common Core, which really makes it easy for teachers to take stuff right out of the box and bring it into their classrooms."
The Young Writers Program recommends a sliding scale for students' word-count goals, ranging from 20 to 200 words for kindergartners, to 25,000 to 50,000 for12th graders. The lesson plans provide guidance from prewriting to publishing. Supplements include downloadable workbooks for students and classroom kits with goodies like stickers and buttons.
