Re: Creative Writing Help

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First of all, I am so glad that you want to teach high school
English. I teach English I and I love it; it, of course, can be a
challenge, but it's nothing that I'm not up for.

Anyway, about your creative writing question, I would say just use
your own judgment as to how often you incorporate creative writing
activities. It is hard to give you a set number because it depends on
the particular group of students you have too.

Also, there are so many creative writing activities out there that
you don't have to repeat anything. There are easy ways you can
incorporate creative writing into the curriculum. For example, for
the short story unit, I teach the story "The Lady, or the Tiger?"
which has no ending, so I have my students make up an ending. Also,
we read an excerpt from "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" which is
about a made-up place. So, I have my students make up their own
world; they have to write a paper on it (they must give their world
an original name, give it a population number, tell me who can live
there, describe what the people do for fun, list popular foods, tell
me if there is a president/king/queen, what are the laws and
punishments, etc.) then draw the world on a poster board.

Well those are just a couple examples of what I have done.. Good luck!

On 9/26/10, Chris77 wrote:
> Hello, I'm an aspiring high school English Teacher, and was
> wondering how often is too often in terms of creative writing? I
> love to write creatively myself and would love to incorporate at
> least one creative writing assignment into the study of each text
> throughout a curriculum.Does anyone have any ideas on how to do
> this without constantly repeating assignments?
>
>
> On 9/23/10, Miss English wrote:
>> I know how you feel. I taught a writing class last year that
>> had no curriculum. It was fun though because I pretty much had
>> free reign over everything. The majority of what I did was
>> creative writing fun stuff.
>>
>> I know your first day has come and gone, but I thought I could
>> give you some activities that I did. (for future assignments)
>>
>> One fun one is to put the students in pairs and give them a
>> newspaper article picture and have them make up a story that
>> happened before, during, or after the photo was taken. (They
>> really liked this one)
>>
>> Other fun ideas can be found here
>> http://www.creative-writing-now.com/short-story-ideas.html
>>
>> This website gives the students three elements (such as: a
>> stolen ring, fear of spiders, and a sinister stranger.) that
>> they must include in their story.
>>
>> I complained about teaching that class at first due to not
>> having a curriculum, but after a while I really loved the freedom.
>>
>> Makes me sad that I am at a different school now where
>> everything you have to teach is predictable.
>>
 

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