#2239. Short story writing

Reading/Writing, level: Middle
Posted Sun Apr 29 19:20:52 PDT 2001 by Emily Donavan (evandon@telstra.com).
North Albany senior High school, Albany, Western Australia
Materials Required: Pen Paper and a class of students...
Activity Time: two/three weeks
Concepts Taught: creativeness, POV, Characterisation,ETC

1)Have students pick out an object in the room and describe it with out saying what it is or what it does. Explain the idea of a cliche and at the same time get them to think of Images which are not cliches. This does assume some prior knowledge of writing!
2) Have students describe their hand and the lines on there hand with out using the words "Line, finger,skin or vein" Write a paragraph on this.
3)Discuss characterisation and imagine a plot line and build characters for the story together and then do this in pairs.
4)POV and it's importance in a story- Write a paragraph about an event in their life from 3rd person and then 1st person. Note the difference. Discuss this as a class and try to get people reading their paragraphs out.
5)Plot line in a story. Get some short stories and cut them up into paragraphs or even sentences. Get students in small groups to rearrange these so that it makes sense. TO make it harder mix some stories together, or leave some pieces out.
6) Write individual stories with one person writing for 15 minutes and then swap with teh person next to you and continue and then do the same thing. I spent about an hour on this. It gives students the oppurtunity to play with other plot lines and build different characters and bring new concepts into stories. These are not meant for marking!
7) Finally, get students to write a story of there own, complete with drafts and notes.