642 Things to Write About: (Guided Journal, Creative Writing, Writing Prompt Journal)

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We’ve never heard of criminal charges [filed against a school board] for curriculum,” said Ralph Lusher, staff attorney with the Ohio School Boards Association. Write the ad for an expensive new drug that improves bad posture. Now, list the possible side effects. While emphasizing he is not familiar with the Hudson Board of Education’s process to approve curriculum, Lusher said school boards typically have a process where curriculum is reviewed by committees before it comes before the board for its approval. He said he believes it’s “unlikely that something would get to them that is of such moral turpitude that it would bring criminal charges.” In a prepared statement, Superintendent Phil Herman said the “inappropriate and offensive writing prompts” were part of a supplemental resource used in the high school senior-level College Credit Plus writing sections. The Raeths are also concerned about the teacher who oversees the writing course at Hudson High School.

Brian Wilch, a high school Principal, said that the course is offered in association with Hiram College for college-level credit, but it is taught in the high school. Wilch said that the material wasn’t properly vetted for high school students. It’s 1849, and you’re headed West along the Oregon Trail. Describe the safety features of your state-of-the-art covered wagon.

If there’s one positive that can be attributed to the pandemic school closures, it’s that the “virtual learning” allowed parents to see what exactly was being taught to their kids. Public school enrollment dropped during the pandemic, and homeschooling has increased dramatically despite remaining a steady 3.3% of students since 2012.

The teacher is wonderful and it seems like the teacher is being vilified a little bit too, and accused of grooming,” said Erika Raeth. One prompt instructs the writer to drink a beer and then write about the taste. Another said, “Write a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom.” Parents deserve choice, not a one-size-fits-all education system that includes B.S. material that doesn’t actually educate students. If you were given one extra hour today and you weren’t allowed to use it for anything you’d normally do (e.g.; eat, sleep, etc.), what would you do with that hour? The Mayor called the book titled: 642 Things To Write About, which was given to students “child pornography.”News 5 reached out to the Hudson School Board to get their response to the calls for resignation from the mayor and other parents. I've heard mention of, like, 'We shouldn't offer these classes at all.' So then then they're taking away an opportunity for these children to have college credit," said Raeth. And there is a huge push to fund “students instead of systems” and have your tax dollars follow your child rather than get dumped into the failing public school system. One of the biggest advocates of this is scholar Corey D’Angelis, the researcher at American Federation for Children. You can hear Corey talk about funding “students instead of systems” here. The book was used for years in the school’s College Credit Plus writing class, but was taken away from students Monday after parents and administrators became aware of some of the writing prompts inside. The Raeth family plans to attend the next school board meeting and share their perspective about the book being used in class.

Even though Regan Raeth only graduated last year, she's already a second-semester junior at Kent State University. She was able to get those credits by taking the College Credit Plus and AP courses. Parents at the meeting said that these prompts are inappropriate for high school students. One parent said that he was “appalled” at the content and demanded cameras in the classrooms to allow parents to monitor what is being taught to their children. One parent called the prompts tantamount to “grooming.” It's not something my other child ever mentioned because it was such a non-issue, non-part of the class,” said Raeth. Want to improve your creative writing? Start with these TED-Ed Lessons: How to write fiction that comes alive, How fiction can change reality and How to build a fictional world. The book went unnoticed for years until some parents and administrators discovered the prompts inside Friday.The book titled ‘642 Things to Write About’ contains writing prompts with topics some consider to be inappropriate for high school students. Having not seen the book that was used in the writing class at Hudson High School, Lusher said he wouldn’t want to judge whether the material “would cross a line or not.”