Kids finish tales started by pro authors
With all the fervor and volume of a revival preacher, Kevin Cordi got 100 eighthgraders to stand up and repeat after him: “I am a creative genius!”
The students at SouthWestern’s Jackson Middle School needed the pep talk. It’s a tall order to be 13 years old and adding endings to the unfinished works of professional novelists, some of whom have written New York Times bestsellers. It’s even more daunting when you know that the best ones might be published.
Cordi, an education professor at Ohio Northern University near Lima, was at the school Friday morning to unveil the Young Adult Authors Unfinished StoryBox. It’s literally a cardboard box, filled with the starts of stories from about 40 youngadult authors, including Margaret Peterson Haddix of the Columbus area, Eugene Yelchin and Gabrielle Zevin.
The students will craft their own endings to those stories over the next few weeks and add them to the box. Then the box will move on to another school for other kids to try. Cordi said he’s been in talks with a publishing house over the past two years to put out an anthology of the best completed stories.
Cordi founded the StoryBox Project in 1995, and since then, has sent boxes filled with writings and mementos around the world — to schools, to prisons, to hospitals — for others to read and add to.
Two years ago, he circulated a box of children’s poetry, but this is the first time he’s had kids focus on young-adult fiction. Jackson Middle School was the first stop. Cordi put out a call for published youngadult authors to lend their talents and time. Some, he said, told him to talk to their agents or asked for compensation. But others jumped right in.
“This is a way to experience reading and writing as though you are a possible author,” Cordi said. “Reading rates are dismal.”
He said he’s had some college students tell him, “I’ve never read a book on my own.”
Language-arts teacher Randi Flynn applied to do the StoryBox with her four classes of eighth-graders. She knows Cordi because he is a codirector of the Columbus Area Writing Project, a professional development program for teachers.
“This (event) wouldn’t be possible without Randi Jo,” Cordi said. “She is amazing at energizing people.”
In fact, Flynn was the one who dreamed up the fanfare surrounding the grand opening of the box.
“I just wanted it to be more special and exciting than opening a packet and passing out stories,” she said.
Each of four tables received a parchment scroll and a bottle of water. One student read aloud from the scroll to the classmates huddled around.
“Your mission: Over the next month, you’ll have access to top-secret stories that have never been read. Please remember to keep these stories off the internet ...”
Then the kids followed the scroll’s instructions: Roll it up as before, stick it in the bottle and shake. The paper vanished into a gray swish.
Flynn found dissolving paper on Amazon. Yes, that’s a real thing.
Andrew Schmude, 13, grinned as he read the story starter he’d picked out.
“It’s about pushing someone off a cliff, so that’s interesting,” Andrew said. “I think I got a good one.”
Terilyn Nicole Walker, 13, said she reads constantly, but writing isn’t really her favorite thing. “It definitely is a lot of pressure when you know you’re writing with a published author,” Terilyn said. So she said she’s going to take her time.
She’s wondering whether she should change her style to mimic the writer’s.
“It should be able to flow through the piece without the reader knowing that one ended and the other began ... but your style should still shine through,” she said.