Creative Writing with Substance

Giving students an opportunity to write fiction is an important and empowering experience. Too often personal narrative, persuasive, and expository trump all other forms of writing in our classrooms. Meanwhile, we read multiple short stories and novels – all examples of creative narratives that we analyze and exalt. Having student analyze fiction, but not create it runs the risk of sending students a terrible message: the fiction they could write is inferior and not worth creating.

In order for students to really understand why authors do what they do, students must take on the role of the author. Good readers read as writers. When deciding the parameters of a creative writing assignment, I look to my reading standards, not just writing.

Pre-writing plays a key role:

Theme: Get short stories with substance by asking students to find an inspirational quotation on http://www.quotationspage.com/  and then create a plot that proves the theme to be true. Model an example, create plot charts, and let students conference just on the plot charts and ideas so they can refine and get feedback.

Character: By creating innovative and realistic characters, student practice characterization. Character profiles, like the one over at National Novel Writing Month’s teacher resources packet, gives students the scaffolding they need to flesh out their ideas. Use my lesson on the coronation scene from Frozen to help show students the versatility of dialogue.

Symbol: My students were really struggling with analyzing symbols. I wanted them to see symbols from the other point of view, as the author. I modeled with my own story – a stunning narrative that involved Brad Pitt buying me flowers.

Stage directions: This year, our district moved drama unit into the same grading period as our narrative reading and writing units, so I took this as an opportunity to change the short story to a script. Capitalizing on the standards for our grade level that asks students to analyze stage directions, we looked at models and students used them to establish characterization and symbols.

What’s more, the kids have fun! The creative process is engaging. Students are energized. The testing genres are killing our kids. They have voices and characters and worlds ready to be unleashed! Creative writing opens the doors to those worlds and lets kids speak through their characters.

Using Technology to Effectively Plan Narratives

As March approaches, I think about how we can revisit narrative in a fresh and exciting way. How to maximize my time before STAAR while re-energizing my students and not sending them toward burnout? Enter technology! Using Answer Garden and Make Beliefs Comix, students can create prewriting that focuses on depth and reflection in a small package (exactly what the 26 line essay needs to be!) while also showing students how to have unique topics.

PROCEDURES:

1.     Post a narrative writing prompt. For example, a released STAAR prompt: http://bit.ly/1vSFLlq

2.     Send students to an Answer Garden (http://answergarden.ch/  ) you have created. Make the question where it asks students to brainstorm possible answers for the prompt. For example, if the prompt is “Write a personal narrative about a time when you had fun participating in an activity with other people. Be sure to write about your experience in detail and describe why it was memorable.” The Answer Garden question would be, “List the activity as only one or two words. EX: "fishing" For the settings of your answer garden make sure to select brainstorm.

3.     Encourage students to submit at least 5 possible answer choices. (More than 3 is important. When students brainstorm for prompts they tend to brainstorm the same top three things. The fourth and fifth ideas tend to be unique and thoughtful. )

4.     Post the results of the Answer Garden on the board. As a class, analyze the topics through a series of questions: What do you notice? Imagine if you are a rater and read hundreds of essays answering this prompt; how would you feel when you come across yet another essay on one of the most popular topics? Which topic would you like to read about and why? What do you notice about our less common topics? When did they come up in your brainstorming? How many topics should you brainstorm? How should you make the decision when selecting the topic to pick for your essay?

5.     Have each student select the topic they will pick for their prewriting.

6.     Direct students to  Make Beliefs Comix http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ and pick the three panel.

7.     Instruct students to put the narrative outline in the three boxes. You may want to post these as the directions:

·         Think of your three boxes as one representing the three parts of your story: beginning, middle, end.

·         In the first panel, use “panel prompt” to write the setting and establish characters.

·         Write dialogue that is important/memorable.

·         Select appropriate emotions.

8.     Set an expectation of time (10-15 minutes) to complete these three panels. Give verbal reminders as you go to help students who fall behind. (i.e. By this time your should be done with your first panel and onto your second.)

9.     After the set time, instruct students to change the panel count from 3 to 4.

10.  Direct students to the rubric for the essay. You may want to bring them to STAAR Composition Rubric Way Oversimplified by Gretchen Bernabei:  http://bit.ly/1z76A61 Bring attention to what makes a 4, highlighting the depth of thought and reflective aspect of the rubric. Panel 4 will describe this reflection.

11.  Revisit the prompt. Determine the part that is asking you to be reflective. EX: “Write a personal narrative about a time when you had fun participating in an activity with other people. Be sure to write about your experience in detail and describe why it was memorable.”

12.  Instruct students to use panel four for this purpose.

13.  Students can then print a copy. To make PDF, press print and then change the settings to create a PDF that can be stored on student’s electronic portfolios.

14.  This product can then be used to use as an outline as students write their narratives.

Narrative and Expository Project

I am a huge fan of pairing books. I'm also a huge fan of kids getting to choose what they read. How to give kids freedom but also pair? Enter the brainchild of my first year teaching 7th grade! After teaching narrative the first quarter and expository the second, I knew I wanted to have the kids do something with both in the third quarter - the very same quarter leading up to writing STAAR where kids would have to write in both modes.

Students read the narrative of their choice and then pair it with an expository book to check it for accuracy. I then had them present their findings by finding quotations from each, writing an overall thesis statement of accuracy, and compiling it all on a presentation. Some kids used Prezi and others PowerPoint.

Examples of pairings:
Colin Fischer paired with a book about autism
Lightening Thief paired with a book about Greek Mythology
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry paired with a book on the Jim Crow Era

Get the handout for free here!