Video Game Influence on Story Writing.

We have finished a book that the kids work on every morning in my class, so I had to figure out something else for them to do. I figured the best choice would be to have some time to do some writing. So each morning when they come in their books are on their desk and their job is to write write write. They can write whatever they want: poems, stories, journal entries, etc. They also share with each other. I have tried to set it up like Anne and Don Green's Community of Learners (well, except our desks aren't in a circle). I have really enjoyed it, and the kids seem to really enjoy sharing their stories. We use something someone has written each day for a little Language Arts lesson. It's a lot of fun.

While we have seen some jokes and some poems and some journal entries. The topic of stories is surprising to me. Everything is about video games! I really encourage them to write stories, and it seems that is always the first choice - a take off from a video game.

Should I be alarmed? Saddened? Or is this just how it is with kids these days. Maybe this is what they pretend now? Or is it simply because they spend way too much time in front of screens? Not sure. We'll see if overtime there is more variety in their stories. Somehow though, I think they're pretty dedicated to the genre. *sigh* I guess I can work with it. Perhaps they'll be more interested in writing and editing and learning about punctuation and capitalization if the stories are things they love. I'll go with that for now.