#2ndaryELA Twitter Chat Topic: Creative Writing

Brynn Allison, The Literary Maven & Kristy, 2 Peas and a Dog host #2ndaryELA on Twitter every Tuesday evening from 8 - 8:30 PM EST. #2ndaryELA is a weekly chat for secondary English Language Arts teachers focused on a topic. Every Sunday, we post the topic and questions on our blogs to allow you to prepare for the upcoming Tuesday evening's chat. Thank you to everyone who joined us last week and we hope that you will join us again.

Looking for the recap? Click on the image below.

We'd also love for you to join our 2ndaryELA Facebook group, even if you aren't on Twitter. 2ndaryELA is a group of middle and high school English Language Arts teachers looking to share ideas and best practices. This group is an extension of our Twitter chat and a place for collaboration, questions, and encouragement. Feel free to post teaching ideas, success stories, resource links, photos, etc. that will enhance our instruction.

On Tuesday, October 10, our #2ndaryELA chat will be about creative writing in the English Language Arts classroom.

The Format:
8:00 – What and where do you teach? Include a link to your blog if you have one. #2ndaryELA
8:05 Q1: What is the structure of your creative writing (CW) class or how do you incorporate CW into your ELA class? #2ndaryELA
8:10 Q2: Do your CW students keep blogs? If so, on what platform? For what purpose? #2ndaryELA
8:15 Q3: Has anyone incorporated graphic novels or movie storyboards into a CW class? Share your experiences. #2ndaryELA
8:20 Q4: In what ways do you provide an authentic audience for your creative writers? #2ndaryELA
8:25 Q5: What guidelines do you use for fairly assessing student creativity? Effort? #2ndaryELA

The Directions:
1. Log into Twitter on Tuesday from 8-8:30 PM EST.
2. Search for tweets with the hashtag #2ndaryELA in the search bar. Make sure to click “Latest.”
3. Introductions are for the first 5 minutes.
4. Starting at 8:05 (@literarymaven or @2peasandadog) will post questions every 5 minutes using the format Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. and the hashtag #2ndaryELA.
5. Respond to questions using the format A1, A2, A3, etc. with #2ndaryELA.
6. Follow any teachers responding and who are also using #2ndaryELA.
7. Like and respond to other teachers' tweets.

You can schedule your responses to the questions ahead of time using a scheduler like TweetDeck or HootSuite (but don't forget to use A1, A2, etc. and #2ndaryELA). Links are encouraged, so be sure to use a link shortener like tinyurl, bitly, goo.gl or ow.ly Just visit one of those links and paste your long link to shorten it for Twitter. Using images is also encouraged when relevant.

New to chats? Here are the rules:
1. Stay on topic & stay positive!
2. Please do not post or promote paid products unless specifically asked.
3. If you arrive late, try to look through other posts before beginning.
4. Feel free to just read, like, and/or retweet.
5. Always use our hashtag #2ndaryELA, including in your replies to others.
6. Make sure your twitter feed is set to public. (Also keep in mind that Twitter is completely public – that means students, parents, and administrators can and will read what you tweet.)

You can also check out a quick video tutorial in this blog post.

Be sure to spread the word to any teacher friends who might be interested in joining us as well. We look forward to chatting with you Tuesday evening and in our 2ndaryELA Facebook group!

Get caught up on past chats here:

Creative Writing 101: Crafting Well-Developed Characters

Often when my students write a narrative, their characters are flat and predictable. Students are so focused on the events in the plot, that they don't develop their characters into multi-dimensional or round characters. To help students practice creating well-developed characters, I created this writing activity.

First, I cut out people from magazines. I avoided celebrities or well-know figures so that students didn't have any preconceived ideas about what his/her character would be like.

To save yourself time, you could have students do the prep work for this activity by asking one class to cut out characters for another class. If you only have one class, allow students to cut out the characters for other students.

Then put several characters into an envelope, filling one envelope per student. The surprise factor is part of the fun of this activity. Students will select two people from their envelope to develop into characters, so put at least three or four people in each envelope to give students some choices. I tried to include a mix of genders, races, ages, etc.

After students have selected two people, they will complete a character sketch for each, deciding the details of what his/her characters look like, act like, their interests, etc. Have students glue their pictures of their people on the back of their character sketch in case students don't finish that day or for later reference.

Once students had a detailed character sketch, I presented them with Mad Lib-esque prompts. Students had to insert the characters they developed into these situations and begin writing short vignettes. I created a series of four prompts, giving students about five minutes to start writing in response to each.

It wasn't important to me that students write out a complete narrative for each prompt, I just wanted them to practice crafting a story around their character. You could allow students to pick one or more of the prompts to develop into a larger narrative or have students save their characters for their next narrative writing assignment.

You can find this creative writing activity and others here.

For more writing lesson ideas and resources:

Encourage the Inner Writer in Your Students with National Novel Writing Month's Young Writer's Program

A guest blog post by Katherine Fleet, young adult author

Hi! I’m Katherine Fleet, debut author of the young adult novel, The Secret to Letting Go. I’m also a Canadian who is lucky enough to live on the Caribbean island of Curacao with my husband and three kids.

Four years ago, I discovered National Novel Writing Month and fell in love with the program. For those who haven’t heard of it, writers challenge themselves to write a novel in one month. NaNoWriMo happens in November and a key component is the support you receive from other writers also working toward the same goal of crafting 50,000 words in one month. My debut novel is the first NaNoWriMo book I wrote in 2012.

As I was getting ready to participate again in 2013, I discovered an amazing program developed by the folks at NaNoWriMo to support young writers. It’s aptly called the Young Writer’s Program (YWP) and is very similar to the adult version with a few key differences. Instead of committing to writing 50 K in one month, young writers are allowed to set their own goal for the month. It operates on a separate website, allowing educators to set up a virtual classroom for their participating students and letting students chat with young writers from around the world on various writing topics.

I was immediately drawn to YWP for a few reasons. First, I wrote my first novel in my 30s, but regretted not starting sooner. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I’d been encouraged to write when I was younger. I also live on a small island and there’s not a large writing community here. I wanted to talk to other writers, and their age didn’t matter. I just wanted to find other people who were passionate about writing. Finally, my daughter was in middle school and loved to write, but I think she felt alone in this interest. I wanted her to find other kids who shared her interest.

So what happened? I approached the school, and this past November, the International School of Curacao (ISC) participated in their third NaNoWriMo! Spearheading the program, here’s what I’ve tried and learned so far.

In October, I go into all Middle School and High School English classes to give a presentation to the students. I stress that NaNo is voluntary, that they are not required to turn in their writing to anyone to be checked or graded, and that this is a chance to write about whatever they want, including fan fiction. It’s also about learning to turn off your internal editor. Writing and revising are two different processes and the goal of NaNo is to create a first, rough draft.

We run NaNo as an extra-curricular activity. Interested students join our virtual classroom and with the help of the teacher and the online site, they figure out a reasonable word count goal for the month. During November, we hold a kick-off party, weekly writing sessions where we word sprint together, and a closing party. We hold these off school grounds, at places like Starbucks or the local McCafe, which helps distinguish the writing from regular schoolwork. This year, we also added a pajama and pizza writing party at the school’s library around the mid-way point. It was a big success. I love cake, so there’s always a cool NaNo- themed cake involved.

I see a direct correlation between student participation and teacher support. There is one high school English teacher who loves NaNo. She offers NaNo participation to her high school students as an alternative to her November class assignment. She also lets students participate in word sprints during class time.

Every year, the students surprise me. First, the students who are really committed to NaNo are often not the ones I would have suspected. I’m reminded that there are no ‘typical’ writers. There are just writers. Also, students come up with the most amazing plots and characters for their novels. Sure, some of them are just starting their writing journey, but they are clearly on the journey. This is so inspiring to me. Finally, they can follow through. Last year, one of the student writers sailed past her 30 K goal and still had a week left in November.

Through this process, I’ve also had to adjust my expectations. When I first went to the school, I pictured all grades and teachers working this fully into their curriculum. I pictured packed writing events and awards to all the participants. I was clearly naïve. Just like adults, not every student is interested or passionate about creative writing. But NaNo provides a chance for those kids who are interested to test their writing chops and see what it’s like to be part of a supportive writing community. For that reason, I’ll keep organizing this event every year. One day, I know I’ll see some of these students with their first published novel!

If you’re interested in starting your own NaNo program at your school, here are a few tips for getting started:

1. Check out the National Novel Writing Month Young Writer's Program website. Under the “Educators” tab, it explains how to set up a personal profile and virtual classroom, and it provides lesson plans and writer's workbooks for various grade levels. Because ISC is a small school and participation is voluntary, we have one virtual classroom that all students join.

2. Students will need to create an online profile and then be added to the virtual class. We’ve done this during school time to make sure they don’t have any problems.

3. Their word count goal will default to 30,000 words. To help them set a realistic goal, we use the word count goal calculator (found on the YWP site) during class time. Students free write for 10 minutes. Their word count is then calculated and this number is used to help them set a goal. It should be challenging, but obtainable. The goal can be adjusted anytime up to November 24.

4. Check out the various forums for students. Some of my favorites are the Character Café and Adoption Corner. Students can offer up plots, titles or characters that they came up with and don’t want, and other students can adopt them.

5. Students love to “word sprint” together. Decide on a set amount of minutes (anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes). Set an alarm or timer. For that period, everyone writes as many words as they can. No distractions. At the end, they compare words counts. Students are ALWAYS amazed by how many words they can write, often reaching their daily goal in one sprint.

6. Consider writing yourself. We’ve had two teachers write with us, and it really helps them relate to the struggles their students might be going through – writer’s block, problems with characters or plots, or just struggling to find time to write.

7. Find a local author willing to come in and help with NaNo events. There are a lot of writers and authors participating, so there is sure to be someone in your community.

8. Encourage ways for students to talk about their stories (without requiring them to share any writing). We normally set students up in pairs and have them interview each other about genre, setting, characters, plot, etc. Then, students take turns presenting their partner’s book. A few years ago, the Grade 5 teacher had six girls participating. They met every Friday after school, drank hot chocolate, and talked about their stories and helped brainstorm ideas. I loved joining their amazing discussions!

9. Remind students to validate their words prior to midnight on November 30th. Students must paste their words into the word count validator, which only counts the words. No one reads the words! If they meet their goal, they win. This includes prizes like free printed copies of their book (if they choose to use it). We always have one student who forgets to validate and is disappointed when they don’t 'win.'

If you have any questions, contact the folks at the Young Writer’s Program. They’ve always been prompt and very helpful.

Writing In The ELA Classroom: Narrative Writing

This #2ndaryELA Twitter chat was all about narrative writing in the ELA classroom. Middle and High School English Language Arts discussed favorite assignments, students struggles and solutions, and helpful resources. The highlights are below.

Favorite assignments:
*Short creative assignments like rewriting fairy tales/famous stories

*Write their own version of the 12 Days of Christmas using their favorite holiday

*Write about their average day, then to embellish it into a fantastical story
*Have students do a random act of kindness and then write about their experience
*Write commencement-style addresses, or words of wisdom on what they've learned

*Write a sci-fi/historical fiction piece of their own after reading Kindred by Octavia Butler
*Writing Roulette where they have to continue story of peer, maintaining the story's mood/tone
*Create quirky characters and make collages or social media profiles before writing fictional narratives
*"Encyclopedia of my Ordinary Life," Top Ten, and House Hunters

Struggles:
*Making meaningful revisions
*Page and word limits. They want to keep writing and writing.
*Separating fictional stories from their personal stories
*Slowing down the narrative. They get excited about where the story is going and skip the details.
*Getting started if they don’t have story idea

Solutions:
*To encourage revision, first read mentor texts & identify effective techniques. Then ask students to find those same techniques in their own writing. If they aren't there, students need to add them.
*Page restrictions are essential. One cannot mark a novel.
*Having journalling for personal stories and creating fictional character that are different from them.

*Peer edit with students with different writing styles 

*Use mentor texts as read alouds

Helpful Resources:
*Pinterest boards like this one
*Baby by Patricia MacLachlan. It is simple, beautiful, almost poetic. A great example of concise writing.
*Collect ideas while reading young adult literature

*Teaching for Joy and Justice by Linda Christensen

Hope you'll join us next Tuesday night, December 8 at 8pm EST to discuss helping students think beyond themselves during the holiday season. The questions for our next chat will be posted here on Sunday. If you missed this chat, scroll down and read the whole thing below.

Creative Writing 101: Point of View Retellings

You would never want to insult your students by having "little kid" books in your classroom library, even if you have students reading at that level. But is it ever okay to bring children's stories into the classroom?

My blogger friend Lauralee of The Language Arts Classroom wrote a post about using literary terms like characterization, mood, and point of view from children's books to teach high school students.

It got me thinking about how I use The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith to teach the literary term unreliable narrator. And that got me thinking about a fun creative writing assignment, having students retell a classic fairy tale or other well known story from an alternate point of view.

I use The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka for this lesson, but there are so many other choices: The Frog Prince Continued also by Jon Scieszka, Goldilocks and The Three Bears by James Marshall, and these collections of The Other Side of the Story. I haven't read any of the stories from The Other Side of the Story collections, but each story can also be purchased individually like Really, Rapunzel Needed a Haircut! and Seriously, Cinderella Is SO Annoying! I even learned that there is a term for this type of story, a fractured fairy tale.

I am partial to the Jon Scieszka books because they always have great illustrations. I scan the book and create a PowerPoint of the pages so that my students can read along with me. If you are having trouble getting your hands on one of these books, many of them can also be found on YouTube. I also saw some great Pinterest boards of other titles. There are so many possibilities.

Which story you choose to use as a mentor text is up to you. I recommend not sharing too many as not to limit students' choices when they choose a story to rewrite. After analyzing the differences in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, I offer some suggestions of topics (including superheroes for those boys that think fairy tales are girly) and planning questions to help think about how students' stories would differ from the originals.

A few excerpts of my students' work:

Batman & Robin

After re-capturing the Riddler, Batman and Robin went back to the batcave. While in the batcave Robin was thinking over how his role as a superhero all started. 

(flashback) It was a cool summer evening the young adolescent was was defiling a strange automobile. Upon being discovered in his act of criminal activity the Batman appeared from the shadows. Young Robin looked in somewhat shock and surprised. He apologized to him but Batman was still unpleased with his actions. But none the less, the boy was ready to take off if things got hairy...

Cinderella:

I know you’ve heard about Cinderella and the glass slipper but I’m here to tell you the real story. I am Lady Tremaine, Cinderella’s “evil” step mother as they say. But, in reality Cinderella is a cruel person. I've tried my hardest to raise Cinderella but she’s been out of control every sense her dad's death. To start off, she stole money and jewelry...

Allowing students to retell a well-know children's story from an alternative perspective gives those students who struggle with getting started a starting point as well as a format to guide their writing, while still hitting all of the Common Core narrative writing standards as well as working on characterization and point of view.

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

Creative Writing 101: Talk Show Interview

When I think of creative writing, poetry and short stories are the first things that come to my mind, and probably yours too, but not all students are interested in that type of writing. In my creative writing elective class (which students had not elected to take), I wanted to come up with a creative writing topic that all of my students would be interested in. Since everyone has at least one person they are interested in, whether a famous athlete, musician, etc, I came up with the idea of having students write a script for a talk show interview.

As I thought more about it, I realized this assignment would also require students to engage with nonfiction sources and use their research skills, but because students would be focused on a person of interest, they wouldn't even realize it! Sneaky, sneaky me.

I allowed students to choose any famous person, living or dead. I discouraged students from using someone non-famous, like their grandmother, because that would be more difficult to research in class. Some choices were: Beyonce, Steve Jobs, Kevin Durant, President Barack Obama, Aliyah, and Will Smith.

After students selected a person of interest, I asked them to identify three credible sources of information about their person. As my students were in 10-12th grades, we just did a quick review of what makes a source credible or not. If your students are younger, you may want to spend more time on the topic. Students emailed me the links to their three sources and once I checked them to see if there was enough information and that they were credible sources, students received the okay to begin developing the questions and responses for their talk show.

Once students had an outline of their Q & A, we examined samples of written interviews to properly format our own. We also discussed the idea of dialogue (narrative skill) and making our written interview sound as if two people were actually speaking to each other. Watching clips of a view interviews would help students get the flow.

After students wrote out a rough draft, they typed it up in Google Drive where I could easily make suggestions about revisions.

In my English classroom, I might use a similar project to have students "interview" a favorite poet from our poetry unit or a favorite author at the end of the year. You could also "interview" a character from a novel, but then students would be using a fiction source rather than nonfiction and would not employ research skills.

A talk show interview isn't limited to the ELA classroom. This writing project would require nonfiction sources and employ research skills regardless of the subject area.

Some ideas:
1. In history/social studies, have students select a historical figure from a unit or time period to "interview."
2. In science, have students select a scientist who made a significant contribution to the unit or course topic (i.e. chemistry, physics, anatomy) to "interview."
3. Similarly in math, have students select a mathematician who made a significant contribution to the unit or course topic (i.e. algebra, geometry, calculus) to "interview."
4. In gym/physical education, a famous athlete.
5. In music or art, a famous musician or artist from the genre or style you are studying (i.e. jazz, Cubism).

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

Creative Writing 101: Object Personification

This lesson was inspired by a piece of writing one of the students in my writing club shared with me. She write a monologue from the point of view of an inanimate object. I won't tell you what yet, I'll let you figure it out.

Title: Through The Eyes Of The Barrel

Before you pick me up, think about your life. Think about the time you’ll serve. The many people you’ll kill. You think I want to be this fearful thing people see. You say you’re my friend, but when you hear the sirens you just ditch me somewhere. You don’t care where you throw me on the ground. You just leave me in the cold with scratches on my handle. I have feelings you know? When I lock up, it’s only because I’m nervous, but you get so frustrated at me. And when I don’t clean up my mess you end up in deeper trouble, not even knowing it. It’s only because I care. I figure you have to change at some point. But you go out and do the same thing. You don’t even feel my pain. You just think you’re down and cool. You’ll never understand. So you’re going to pick me up anyway? Did you not hear me? Go ‘head pull me and see another go.

After reading her piece, I thought it would make a great mentor text for a piece for my creative writing class while reinforcing the concept of personification. I asked students to consider what the object being described might be, which of its "real" characteristics were included in the piece, and how the object was personified.

After a quick review of the above questions, I encouraged students to select their own objects. I asked them to choose something different from the topic in the mentor text (of course at least one student chooses the same topic) and provided an extensive list of choices if students couldn't come up with their own.

Before writing, students created a quick web of their chosen object's characteristics. Students hand wrote a rough draft and then typed it up so I could make suggestions about revisions using Google Drive. I was impressed by their creativity and the humor many brought into their writing.

Samples:

I am a unique object that is carved to only fit yours specifically. Without one you won't be granted; no entry. I am convenient for late nights. Also I am used to start cars and motorcycles. If you lose me, you might get in trouble by your mother. I could be used to open a safe that you own. I am an item that is very important to your life believe it or not. Basically I am your access to a lot of different things.

So you think that you can just go around and do anything you want to do to me? You have your friends sitting on me like I'm crap or something. Then they just drop their money in me. When you're upset you will cut me, and when you see me getting old then you will just throw me out like I'm nothing and will get a new one.

I found that quick one to two day lessons like this one worked best with my creative writing class; they capture students' attention and don't last long enough to lose it.

Answers: gun, key, couch.

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

Creative Writing 101: Scary Story Mini-Books

In mid-October, about six weeks into the school year, I found out I was being assigned an additional class (the reasons why are complicated, so we will skip that part). A week or two later I found out that the class I would be assigned would be a creative writing elective. To say I was less than thrilled was an extreme understatement.

Two months into the school year I would be teaching an elective class that the students in it did not elect to take, and most of whom would be turned off by the mere mention of the word writing, let alone a course with writing in its name.

The students in the class would be a mix of 10th-12th graders, some of whom I taught previously, so I couldn't repeat any creative writing assignments I might have slipped into my regular English classes in the past. Sigh.

I was even less thrilled when the resources I was given for teaching the class included a grammar textbook and a handbook to writing a research paper. Seriously?!


Since the class started right before Halloween, the first assignment I came up with was creating scary story mini-books. A hands-on activity with minimal writing, and what kid doesn't love scary stories?

I used a plot diagram to help students plan their stories.

Then I taught them how to make mini-books from a single sheet of paper. You can see step by step directions in this previous post.

Then I gave them plenty of time to plan, write, and illustrate. While not the most rigorous first assignment, it was fun and helped me get to know my students a little better.

You can use mini-books in a variety of more rigorous ways in your own classroom:

1. Challenge students to retell and illustrate a short story, novel, or play in just 6 pages (8 with front and back cover). Word choice will really be important in a limited amount of space, and students won't be able to go on and on and on as sometimes they do when summarizing plot.

2. Similarly, ask students to summarize a nonfiction text, pulling out just the 6 most important points.

3. Create an illustrated glossary of terms as part of note taking or to review for a quiz or test.

4. Write a prequel or sequel to a fiction piece. 

5. Write a children's book on a nonfiction topic synthesizing information from several sources.

For this and other creative writing activities, check out this engaging, common core aligned resource.

Common Core Writing: Narrative Writing

This is my sixth in a series of posts about my online course, Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards. In my first post, I gave an overview of the writing standards. In my second post, I showed how the gradual release process can be used with writing. In my third post, I explain why it is so important that basic writing skills be explicitly taught, no matter the age or grade level.

My fourth post focused on argument writing, my fifth post focused on informational writing, and this post will focus on narrative writing, the third and final type of writing in the Common Core Standards.

Narrative writing conveys an experience, either real or imaginary, which means it can connect with both literature and informational standards. Students should be developing skills like giving detailed descriptions of events, characters, and settings, depicting specific actions (blocking), using dialogue and interior monologue, and manipulating the sequence of events to build suspense by using flashbacks or flashforwards and foreshadowing. So narrative writing = stories, but what about other types of creative writing like poetry or plays? The Common Core does not focus on those types of writing, but leaves that up to the teacher's discretion. To read more on this issue and narrative writing defined, see Common Core Appendix A, page 23-24.

The standard for narrative writing, standard 3, (at the 9-10 levels) reads "write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences." As discussed here, the standard is the same at all grade levels, just more complex over time.

I first want to address the part of the standard that calls for "effective technique." What is effective in narrative writing and how do students learn to write like that? Over the summer I obsessively read Teaching for Joy and Justice by Linda Christensen. I can't recommend her book enough.

In her unit on teaching narrative writing, she included a checklist of criteria she asked students to include in their narrative writing. Effective techniques found, but how to teach students to write like that? Enter mentor texts, the importance of with I discussed in my last post.

I used "Thank You Ma'am" by Langston Hughes and "The Jacket" by Gary Soto (both recommended by Christensen) and added "The Family of Little Feet," an excerpt from The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros as well as student samples from Teaching for Joy and Justice to create a set of mentor texts themed around materialism.

I then created a simple, yet clear graphic organizer listing the effective narrative techniques I wanted students to look for: dialogue, blocking, character and setting description, figurative language, interior monologue, and flashback. The graphic organizer gave a description of each technique and provided space for students to record their own examples from any text.

We used this graphic organizer over and over with our mentor texts through the gradual release process. First I modeled with one text ("I do") and then students guided me through usage with another text ("We do"). After that, students worked in small groups or pairs ("Two do") and finally, independently ("You do.")

When it came time for students to write their own narratives, they had ample examples at which to look back. And when they entered the revision stage, they were looking for these same techniques in their own writing and peers'.

The techniques students were looking for as they self and peer assessed are listed again with their definitions. Using a different color for each technique, students highlighted evidence of the technique in their own writing. They then rated their usage of the technique on a scale of 1 to 4 (1=needs improvement, 4 = excellent). A peer also ranked them.

The color coding made it very clear to students which techniques they were using frequently, infrequently, and not at all. Students now WANTED to add more to their stories.

I also find that because this type of writing is often the most personal, students can take criticism of it the most to heart. Using checklists for students to use while self and peer assessing can help make the process a little more objective, and show students it isn't what they are writing about that needs to change, just how they write about it.

Now let's look back at the standard: "write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences." Effective technique? Check! Well-chosen details? If blocking, character description, and setting description are included in the techniques, then also check! That only leaves "well structured event sequences."

As we were reading our mentor texts, I had students complete a series of quick writes related to the theme of materialism: write about a favorite or least favorite possession, write about a time you wanted something that you couldn't get, etc. At the end of reading our mentor texts, students selected one of these quick writes to develop further. This strategy eliminates the "I don't know what to write about" whiners. The mentor texts also validate that these topics are worth writing about. Once students decided upon their topic, I had them outline their story using a plot diagram.

Charting out the plot of their stories using these diagrams ensured that all students had a clear beginning, middle, and end. We discussed as a class how some of our conflicts might be internal, like wanting something you didn't have the money to buy, or external, like classmates making fun of your ugly jacket, or sometimes both. We also discussed that the chronological order of events on the plot mountain did NOT mean you had to tell your story in that order (i.e. using flashback, flashforward).

And just like that list of narrative techniques reappeared at revision time, so did the plot diagram. After a peer ranked the usage of a student's narrative techniques, he/she then completed a plot diagram for that same student's narrative. I had to remind my students that they couldn't help each here. If a peer couldn't identify the conflict, that meant the author didn't have one or it wasn't clear enough, and that was a place that needed revisions. Students were thrilled when their peers were able to diagram their stories just right. Well structured event sequences? Check! If you are interested in using this lesson with your own students, you can find it here.

With all of the emphasis on nonfiction with the Common Core, you may be feeling guilty about reading fiction and even more guilty about writing narratives, when argument and informational writing may seem so much more important. But who says you can't blend the two?

In this article, "Common Core in Action: Narrative Writing," by Heather Wolpert-Gawron, she discusses how you can incorporate nonfiction by asking students to write science fiction or historical fiction. These types of narratives would require students to do research (and read nonfiction texts) in science or history to make their narratives convincing. Students could also incorporate argument writing by centering their science fiction narrative around debate over a new form of government in a future society, or incorporate informational writing by detailing an important invention in the past.

As my students were wrapping up reading Kindred by Octavia Bulter before winter break, I assigned them a science fiction/historical fiction narrative. Like Bulter's main character, Dana, students would have a character traveling back in time to a time and place of their choosing. They were required to complete research on their period and location to make their narrative realistic. The students loved it and will continue writing when we return after break.

I think it is also important to remember a point that Wolpert-Gawron touches on, but could have said more: the skills that students can build through narrative writing are transferrable. To become good writers, students must study good writing. As she mentions, the literary techniques we use in narrative writing can be used to make any type of writing more interesting. Research shows that telling a story helps students connect to and remember what they have learned. Students can use narrative elements in an argumentative or informational piece to help convey their argument or facts.

I would love to hear about how you are using narrative writing in your classroom or blending the different types of writing. More on research and writing next.