Northwest High School students who want to earn an A in Bob Atchisson’s creative writing class have a tough assignment.
They have to write a stage play, podcast play, screenplay, novel, or a collection of poems, short stories or essays and then get the work published or have a staged reading.
Atchisson said he wanted to teach anything but a “stereotypical creative writing class.”
“We wanted to do something practical,” he said. “(Students) just think it’s a blow-off class, and then they come in and start seeing what the expectations are, and the first week they run to guidance and say, ‘This is not the class for me.’”
Atchisson said typically about half the students who sign up for the class drop it after learning what is required for an A. He currently has six students in the class.
Students may earn a B by completing all the classwork and submitting their work to be published.
Atchisson said he has taught the class for about five years, and during that time about 20 students have seen their work published in magazines, websites or other media.
“This is a legit workshop,” he said.
Atchisson said he typically works on his own screenplays during the class unless a student needs help and advice.
“That way they hold me accountable,” he said.
Atchisson has his students sign a contract called an endeavor agreement at the start of the class so they know what they’re undertaking. The agreement also must be signed by a parent and a principal.
He said he also has students write messages at the end of each semester-long class to future students to inspire them to stick with the class and finish their piece of writing.
Atchisson said he has a “proud teacher moment” and a “proud colleague moment” every time one of his students gets a work published.
Atchisson, who has taught for 30 years, including 14 years at Northwest High, said he is retiring at the end of the 2022-2023 school year and hopes to see another teacher continue the creative writing program.
Published authors
Senior Nathan Robinson, 17, of House Springs said he did not know about the class requirements before his first day in the class.
“It was kind of terrifying because I had never written anything longer than an essay for school,” he said.
Robinson said he decided to write a novel, and classmates helped him edit it.
“They’re nice and honest,” he said.
Robinson finished the class with an A after self-publishing “The Silver Door,” an 84-page fantasy novel available for purchase on Amazon. An ebook is available for $1.99, and he said he is working to create a paperback version.
He said he is not sure how to check if people have purchased his book, so he has no idea how many copies he has sold.
Robinson said he feels bad charging people for the book, so he listed it at a low cost.
He was inspired to write the book after listening to music.
“Whenever (the main character) transfers to the other worlds, he gets in kind of a black void and is floating there, and that’s a feeling I get when I listen to music, sometimes,” he said.
Robinson said he learned a valuable lesson from the class.
“I can do anything as long as I put my mind to it,” he said.
Robinson said he plans to attend Appalachian State University in North Carolina next year to pursue a degree in business.
“I do want to write another (novel) because I honestly find myself enjoying the process of doing it,” he said.
Senior Sabrina Henderson, 17, of House Springs, who completed the class last semester, wrote 101 poems and published them on a website she created.
“I’ll be honest; I was lazy,” she said. “The whole book idea sounded like way too much work for me.”
Henderson said she thought about leaving the class, but decided to stay and take on the challenge, and she is happy she did.
“I like that I have something published, something already out there,” she said.
Henderson titled her collection of poems “Thoughts and Chaos” because the poems are about her random musings and ideas.
“I just wrote one about a rubber duck,” she said. “Some days you just can’t think of any ideas, but I need to write a poem for that day. I need to get something down. So I use whatever the first thing that comes to my mind.”
Henderson said a pair of related poems are her favorite.
“They’re called ‘Stalker’ and ‘Admire.’ They’re two different ones and it’s from two different perspectives. ‘Stalker’ is from the girl’s perspective of being stalked by this person and the other one is the stalker himself admiring the girl.”
Henderson said she will attend Webster University next year to seek a degree in illustrating.
Senior Jakob Ledbetter, 17, of House Springs said he decided to write poems so he could try different styles of writing. He wrote a collection of 95 poems titled “My Garbled Amalgamation” and published them on a website.
“The way I approached it was I wanted anybody to take away at least one poem and joy from it, so it covers a lot,” he said.
He said he has a poem representing each decade starting in the 1950s.
Ledbetter’s poems can be read at jakobledbetter.wixsite.com/my-site.
In the works
Senior Cheyenne Morris, 17, of High Ridge is taking Atchisson’s class this semester and is working on a novel.
“It’s about this high school student who has plans for college and everything, but there’s going to be some type of accident that changes all of that,” she said.
Morris is working on the second chapter and plans to have 10 chapters. Morris said her first three chapters are due by the end of the month and she has to finish and publish the book in early May to get an A.
Morris said she found the class a bit intimidating at first but did not want to change her schedule around.
“It’s kind of scary, but it’s also kind of cool because I can graduate and be like, ‘Oh, yeah, in high school I wrote a whole book,’” she said.