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{ INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GU I DE }

The process can also very often take the quiet kids stuck on the periphery of elementary school social life and place them at the forefront. “We see this over and over,” he says. “They go from introverts to extraverts in the course of three minutes watching their story come to life in front of the whole school.” Care is given in the crucial phase of writing known as rewriting. Focusing their efforts heavily on revision, he defers on framing a first draft revi- sion as a critique. Instead Story Pirates confronts the kids with questions like “Couldn’t your story use more rich details?” or, “How could this be made funnier?” “It’s a process of chasing the idea that is in your head and working and reworking it until the words on the paper really match the impact you’re trying to have in your heart and in your head.” Of course not all the 30,000 stories that land at the central offices make it to the stage, but the Sto- ry Pirates Story Love Squad shows its appreciation to their writers. “Our initiative is to let every kid know that we’ve read their story, and we encourage them to keep writing. We show each kid that their story matters by writing a personal note.” As for the best part of his day, it arrives every day in his inbox. “My child hated writing. Story Pirates showed up and now he’s writing every after- noon,” beams Salka of all the letters from parents and teachers. Rich Monetti is a freelance writer in Westchester. *

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