Back in the 90s, right after I became proficient with Front Page, for two years I ran a website for "Home Schoolers" called, The Young Writer's Showcase. Honestly, this little homemade website was VERY successful. But I also had my own book to publish and so many other things on my plate that I politely called it a day. Now I am 73 and I'm never going to do this again. So..... I wanted present this concept here and who knows, maybe this is something for you. And it doesn't have to only involve home-schooled children. It was just that I discovered that I could access these children and their parents much easier. So basically I was asking parents and the kids to write something and send it to me. I would then "publish" it. The point is that when the children "saw their names in lights" - and their story or poem published (able to show grandma, grandpa and friends), somehow this really lit a fire within them to write. I had letters from parents telling me how their child all of a sudden "wanted" to write. So that was cool. I even had one contest with a new digital camera as first prize. This young girl from Texas sent me a poem that really struck me as unique. I asked her if she wrote anything else besides poetry. She said no. But then she emailed me again and said she did write one story. I had to pry this information out of her. So we corresponded a bit more and I asked her what she had written. She said a story from the American Civil War. Now that was very odd for a young girl to write!!! Anyhow, it was a masterpiece and I sent the camera to her. Some of the children were very young and would send poems about Halloween or other holidays. I would create a page background to fit the mood of what they had written (spiderwebs, etc) and this was fun for them. Anyhow, this is a tip. Hopefully someone can see the same merit in this that I actually discovered first hand. I even has some actual teachers get involved as consultants. I tried very hard to make what I was doing come across as something professional and safe. When you're dealing with children, at least from my perspective, great care has to be taken to be honest and not have some hidden agenda. So this was never a problem and everyone involved was very satisfied and grateful.
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Originally Posted by SueC
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