Rainbow Class

Creative Writing Course

Rainbow Class is an exciting course created to help students in grade 5, 6, 7 or 8 to enjoy creative writing. The course develops basic writing skills, clear thinking, and creativity. 

Rainbow Class is designed to give a lesson plan for teachers but also enables teachers to add their own creativity to each lesson. The purpose and value of Rainbow Class is to motivate children to write. The main objectives of Rainbow Class are: 

The purpose and value of Rainbow Class is to motivate children to write. Since motivation must come from the children themselves, Rainbow Class stimulates such motivation. It also teaches a writing process in an enjoyable manner. Basic writing skills are taught, clear thinking is encouraged, and creativity is fostered at all times. 

The philosophy of Rainbow Class is that everyone can write. Everyone has experiences from his or her past and present, as well as imagination that can be shared through writing. Rainbow Class stimulates motivation to share these unique ideas and experiences. 

Rainbow Class is an enjoyable class to teach. Writing assignments are varied. Both fiction and nonfiction writing are taught with a greater emphasis on imaginative writing. Students write sentences, paragraphs, simple poetry and short stories. 

The theme of rainbows is used throughout the course. Corresponding to the seven colors of the rainbow, there are seven teaching units bearing the names of these seven colors. The five lessons in each of the seven color units strive to teach the student a unified concept concerning a certain aspect of the writing process. 

Student writing is evaluated rather than graded. The seven-part rating scale used to evaluate writing is converted to the colors of the rainbow; thus students receive color evaluations when they write. 

In the first lesson, students choose a pen name by which they will become known in Rainbow Class. This pen name is a two- or three-word color name with which they will sign all of their stories. 

The lessons in Rainbow Class have enough structure to allow any teacher to read the resource guide and present the lesson exactly as written. On the other hand, creative teachers will find that Rainbow Class enables them to bring their own creativity into the lessons. Every teacher brings a unique background and special interests into the classroom. When incorporated into the lessons, personal background and experiences enhance the course. 

Rainbow Class is designed to foster the creativity of teachers as well as students. Teachers who are willing to work with their students by giving examples of their own writing will benefit greatly from the course. They will discover creativity within themselves that they never knew existed. However, teachers who feel uncomfortable writing along with their students do not have to provide personal examples. The course provides examples for each writing task. 

There are thirty-five lessons in the seven units of Rainbow Class. The last two lessons are optional in case time runs short during the school year. All lessons are designed to be taught once a week for approximately sixty minutes or twice a week for thirty minutes each. This allows sufficient time to review a previous lesson, evaluate writing, present a new idea and monitor students as they begin a new writing task. This hour per week may be in place of a regular language arts period or periods for that day. 

Because Rainbow Class is primarily designed to motivate students to write, it does not presume to teach them everything about writing! It is assumed that students receive additional instruction in the mechanics of writing and grammatical structure in other language arts courses taught throughout the school year. RAINBOW CLASS is designed to enhance other language arts courses such as reading, spelling and English. Throughout the years, fourth through seveth graders have responded enthusiastically to the course and how it has enhanced their writing.