My Writing Workshop at Bishop Maginn High School is in its fourth week, and I wanted to say that I love my class. My students are intellectually and geographically diverse, which makes the class both interesting and fun.

I loved in cities for most of my life, and I miss having black and brown and yellow people around me. I taught at NYU for four years, and my class looked like a U.N. meeting.

I feel the same way with my Writing Workshop; they are all different, all engaged, from a half dozen different parts of the world, including the U.S.

I have stories about Greek Mythology, one inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien,  another by the gang violence in L.A. (Isabelle). Katie is writing a story about old dogs in need of rescue. Kim is writing about Myanmar.

Mike is writing about life in a Medieval English town about to be raided by Vikings.

(Please check out the new Bishop Maginn Amazon Wish List, there is only one item left on it: one gallon of Acryllic Paint for the Mural Painters in the art class, $18. For those who need it, the school’s address is Bishop Maginn High School, 75 Park Avenue, Albany, N.Y., 12816.)

I took their photo today, four kids were missing today.

Ron Dre is writing about Poseidon and a young demigod, his son; Melak is writing about the need to accept people who are different (she knows a lot about this).

Blue wants to write a fantasy tale about abused children, in a fantasy format, Gabe is writing about his passion for science.

I love all their stories, they tell me their ideas, and I give them mild critiques and encouragement and talk about sentence structure and the need to think about the reader and not fall into narcissism.

Katie told me she thought it was stupid for people to buy puppies when so many wonderful old dogs languish in shelters, and she wanted to write about it.

I told her she would be cuddling one of those puppies in a couple of weeks, and maybe we could find a way to tell the story more softly.

She agreed, and we put together a good plot – a boy comes into a shelter, meaning to adopt a cute puppy and sees a wise old beautiful dog who has been in the shelter for years waiting to be adopted.

The boy, who is autistic, and also lonely, falls for the dog and brings him home, but his father says he was counting on a puppy and told him to bring the dog back.

The boy pleads for some time, and the father relents, and the dog helps to brighten the boy’s life, leading him to friendships and fun and a more connected experience. He changes the boy.

I told her she is much more like to persuade people if she shows them, rather than tells them.

There is a  happy ending. Katie liked it.

The class has been extended from six weeks to sometime in the Spring of 2020. We plan to publish these stories in a book, “Tales Of Bishop Maginn.”

My class is short, it’s in the lunch hour and the kids have to go get their sandwiches and get up to the class. It’s not much time, but I’ll make it work.

The kids are e-mailing me their writing and I can go over it before class. I’ll do one on one editing with them as often as I can. Mostly, they need to work on story structure, their writing is very strong.

I gave them each a “Bishop Maginn pen,” I had a bunch printed up to juice up school spirit a bit, they were impressed.

I love this work; these are great people, passionate, curious, and wide open.  I tell them they all have stories to tell, and they are all important.

I’m teaching the right class for me.