Writing Fiction [in High School]: Teacher’’s Guide

Sharon Watson began her writing life by crumpling up her unfinished story about cats and heaving it into the trash. Next, she moved on to one-liners, notably, ＂I Hate Math!!!＂ scratched across the top of her fifth-grade math homework one dark and stormy night in the back of a cluttered closet. In a junior high English class, she read The Scarlet Letter but never could figure out what Hester’s ＂A＂ stood for. All this has given her an empathy for students stumbling through school and trying to make sense of their English and writing classes, and she loves finding ways to make writing tasks enjoyable and concepts easier to understand. Sharon homeschooled her children for 18 years and has taught high school fiction writing, composition, and literature to local homeschool students and in all-day workshops. She has been a Christian since her youth; her textbooks reflect this worldview. She lives in Indiana with her husband, whom she met in college in Upstate New York. They have three grown children and two grandchildren.