I can't recommend National Novel Writing Month highly enough for gifted kids. The idea is that participants will write a novel in one month. The word count for adults is 50,000 words, but Young Writer participants choose their own word count. Participants sign up for a free account and enter their word count, which is tracked on the site. I think it is great for gifted kids because writing a book is such a daunting challenge. Because of the time constraint, perfectionism has to be muzzled and tossed into the back seat. The focus is word count, word count, word count. That allows gifted kids, who often have extremely high expectations for themselves, to relax and enjoy the writing process.
As far as Owlet N, his novel resides in a top secret computer file. He thinks it's pretty terrible, but that's okay. He has big plans to write a better book this year, and that's a good thing. Like many gifted kids, he is used to things coming very easily to him. If he's not good at something the first time he tries it, he tends to say, "I'm not good at (insert activity)," and stop doing it. He doesn't know how to handle a learning curve. But there's something magical about a novel. It's such a big undertaking that just finishing is a real accomplishment, and it's easy for him to see that writing good novels takes practice. For him, and many gifted kids I know, that's a Really Important Lesson.
I can't speak highly enough of National Novel Writing and the wonderful staff who run the program. Edutopia has an article about classrooms using the program here, but I encourage families to sign up for a free account and write from home, too.
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