More than 30 Luverne Middle School students joined roughly 300 students in 17 districts from across southwest Minnesota last week for the annual Young Writers Conference in Marshall.
The event is organized through the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative (SWWC), and this was the 34th year.
“I always enjoy taking students to the conference … Luverne Middle School has been attending for over a decade,” said Luverne Middle School teacher Gavin Folkestad.
“It provides an important outlet for students who are academically minded, artistic and creative.”
SWWC student enrichment coordinator Andrea Anderson said the conference activities tap into students’ creativity and imaginations as they learn writing skills.
“From comic book stories, to mapping your story, to crime scene stories, presenters worked with students to create a catchy story that will attract readers,” Anderson said.
Students learned how to come up with book ideas, how to generate scripts for radio announcing and how to create a TV news story, among other things.
“It was an amazing day filled with creativity, connection, and hands-on fun with authors,” Anderson said.
Folkestad said the conference is always time well spent for his students.
“The conference is a great activity to help students with writing for classes or possible future careers,” he said.
“It’s also good preparation for activities like speech, mock trial, and the fall, spring and one-act plays.”
Luverne sixth graders attending were Miles Hanenburg, Logan Hoff, Ella Larsen, Parker Myhre, Rory Nolz, Addilyn Peterson, Axel Scarset, Kaleb St. Clair, Calla Thone and Kara Zak.
Luverne seventh graders attending were Ashlyn Hemme, Henry Selle, Jennifer Stock, Boston Groff, Josh Luitjens, Jaeva Evans, Hazel Molberg, Brooklyn Lagle, Charlie St. Clair, Aurora Nettifee, Kenzi Petersen and Mila Rensink.
Luverne eighth graders attending were: Joslyn Meinerts, Allison Lysne, Oliver Carbonneau, Ross Loosbrock, Molly Boltjes, Shelby Larson/Vlieger, Kaydence Hendricksen, Hadian Alinizi and Cali Syndergaard.
By Lori Sorenson, Rock County Star-Herald