Does it matter if we have missed some of the live lessons?

Absolutely not! In some ways, it’s an advantage, because with a mixture of live and recorded lessons, you’ll have a choice of incorporating the SNWC into your classroom from 2-5 times per week, each lesson with great activities to get your child to improve writing skills by putting words on paper.

We encourage you to begin by jumping right in with the first available live lesson. This will introduce your students to the fun approach that Sigmund brings into the Story Ninja classroom. After that, you’ll have the luxury of looking back through all the previously recorded lessons and choosing what components you’d like review or teach your students next.

So if we miss a live lesson during the week we can access it later? Short answer: yes! This is one of the great features about SNWC. You can do it at your own pace because the lessons are recording and posted in the lesson section later.

How do I know this program will turn my students into better writers?

We’re not going to make promises we can’t keep! The only way your students will become a better writer is by writing. And writing. And writing.

What we do promise is a program with survey results from students that show it is very effective at motivating and inspiring them to put words on paper*, and from parents who have been delighted at the attitude change of their reluctant writers.**

It’s one thing to motivate and inspire. But what kinds of things are actually taught in the SNWC?

It begins by getting children to understand a crucial concept: the content of a piece of writing is separate from how it is delivered by writing itself. In other words, no matter how good writing is, if there’s nothing worth reading, we won’t care about the writing. But no matter how interesting the content is, without good writing, we’ll never enjoy that content.

This allows Story Ninjas to first have creative fun coming up with the content. Because Sigmund Brouwer has published over 150 books, he’s able to deliver easy-to-understand and easy-to-implement ways to generate ideas and and how to structure those ideas for narrative writing, expository wiring, and essay writing.

With content that students want to share, it provides crucial motivation to become Writing Ninjas as they put words on paper to deliver their stories. As an author, over the length of the program, Sigmund is able to discuss and role-model all the writing components of Language Arts curriculum, showing how he applies it to the stories that he has published over the years.

Why so much focus on story?

Dr. Mark Turner answers this in his book The Literary Mind:

“Narrative imagining — story — is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend on it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of planning, of explaining. . .most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories,” according to Dr. Mark Turner, The Literary Mind. Stories allow us to remember facts, to place facts in context, and to deliver facts with emotional context. We tell stories, we dream stories, we learn through stories and we love stories delivered in many ways — from movie screens, the pages of books, cartoons, jokes. Since story is so fundament to human connection, children who are part of the program not only become better writers, but are building a great foundation for future success as great communicators.

Can we trust that the Virtual Lessons are safe and secure?

The classes are hosted with the password-protected Zoom webinar format, which means that participants are unable to active webcams. As well, microphone access is not enabled. Students participate through a moderator-monitored chat box to ensure that anyone who abuses the strict anti-spamming policy is immediately removed from the classroom. This format has proven to be very effective, because it essentially eliminates on-screen distractions. As well, because students communicate via the chat box, it encourages writing skills throughout each class.

Do we need a Zoom account to access the classes.

Nope! As per www.zoom.us: “Webinar attendees do not need their own Zoom account to join a Webinar. You can join through a browser or the Zoom client from any desktop, laptop, mobile device, or Zoom Room.” You can enter the classroom by clicking on the website button, or you can copy and paste the zoom link into a browser, or you can use the provided webinar number to join via the zoom app or zoom website. If you do have a Zoom account, we encourage your child to use the profile to rename himself or herself before entering the classroom — Sigmund loves to address each Story Ninja by name as he responds to their chat comments and questions.

What qualifications does Sigmund have as a teacher?

For starts, what sets this program apart from other on-line courses is Sigmund’s background as an author with over 150 published titles. The survey results from students show that 100% of them think it’s ‘cool’ to have an author as an instructor. Just as importantly, Sigmund has developed this program through years in the classroom, working with both reluctant and gifted young writers, working as a consultant with various school boards across Canada, and also consulting with teachers on the best way to bring story components and writing components to students at different levels. Here’s an example of how effective the Story Ninja approach is, as quoted from a year-end report of Sigmund’s consulting work with the Horizon School Division, which consists of 41 schools and consistently higher reading benchmarks than the year before his involvement with the board: “While it is difficult to determine a single variable or factor that has supported our middle years readers and teachers, it can be said that the concern and response to the middle years data has resulted in positive learning for students. Part of that response was the inclusion of an author-mentor. Sigmund Brouwer developed relationships with students and partnerships with teachers that motivated them to look at reading a different way. We have seen student engagement with reading in our middle years increase and the assessment results reflect that success."