My child does not like creative writing, how will you address this?

    Creative writing can be quite the struggle for students, especially younger ones. While the imagination can wonder aimlessly, it can be a challenge to take those thoughts that formulate in our mind and write them on paper for someone else to read. Even then, sometimes it is just not easy to create a story without having a common ground or something to write about.

 

    "So, What's the Story?" is actually written and directed towards teaching students how to write narrativesin order to "understand ourselves, others, and the World" but I find after reading and even engaging in several of the listed  activities, that these could also be used to help students form ideas to write creative stories (even creative narratives) for class while expanding their horizon and participating in class.

How you see it: Students will write a description of a place (classroom, jail cell, car crash, etc.) from the perspective of five different characters. The book suggest having students write the two following perspectives perspectives: 1-someone who knows the place well, 2-someone visiting for the first time and then creating three other perspectives for the characters. “This is practice for how characters filter places” and show students how changing the perspectives can change the character throughout the story.

 

     The following are some of the activities that I am considering to use with your child in my classroom to engage them in creative writing.

 

WAGS: A set of questions that are useful to help students create characters.

• W--world of the character: Where does this character spend a lot of time? How does the world affect the character and how does the character affect that world?

 

• A--action of the character: What does the character during a regular day (routine actions)? What does the character do in pursuit of the goal shown in this story (exceptional actions)?

• G--goal of the character: What does the character want? What does the character need (this is often different from the character’s goals)?

• S--stakes of the goal to the character: What bad thing does the character think will happen if the goal is not reached? What makes the goal worth pursuing and grappling with obstacles and confrontations put in the way of attaining that goal?
   

     Character relations: Give students a list of character types such as; hero, love interest, queen, rebel, and so on. They talk about how these various character possibilities can relate with each other and then write a story with characters fulfilling these roles and interacting with each other. This helps them see the potential as writers for characters to relate endless ways.

 

     From picture books to writing: Providing students with photo books that have no dialogue or words. Even comic strips would work! As students view the pictures they can create the dialogue or description  Give students a picture book with no words. Let them write the story of the characters based on what they see in the pictures.This helps foster the character development and shows they can write based on many ideas. While this idea comes from "So, What's the Story?" it sparks ideas from "The Joy of Reading and Writibg: Suoerman and Me" where the author Alexie Sherman describes teaching himself to read through the use of comic strips. He could not read what the text said but when he saw the super hero knocking a wall down he would say, "Superman is breaking down the door." Not only was he creating the text and character development but also sparking an interest in his reading abilities.

 

     Quick moments of the characters characters experiences: An activity that you can have students do after creating their characters to help them develop experiences that the character may encounter in a narrative story. Have students write 3 different times with the same character. Each time should be for about three minutes or say 100 words. During the first write students should explain how the character would deal with being lost in an unfamiliar place with as many descriptions as possible. In the second write, students should address how the character would deal with receiving any type of bad news (includes shocking or weird) from someone they have never met. In the third write students should address how the character would take uncharacteristic (not normal) actions, behaving in a completely different way, or behave badly toward another character without directing negative comments at that character. 
 

     I think it is really important for students to see how much they really have to say about something, they just do not realize until they find the right words to express what they are thinking. Too often, there might be ideas we would like to write about, explore, and express but are to afraid of what our audience may think. It is so important and essential that students in the classroom, especially my own classroom, understand that what is discussed and read between classmates is private and personal-not to leave the room out of respect for others. I have this desire to create a close knit writing group for students, a community in which they can trust and get to know one another. There will also be implentation of small writing groups, groups of 2 or 3 students, who work together all semester to help with the editing, revision, and creative process. Through experience, the use of writing groups is so highly effective that I would recommend it to anyone, not simply students and teacher but anyone who does writing. The support that one recieves from their peers can be just enough to get the final or even beginning push that is needed to spark ideas and find motivation. Along with the benefit of support, it will help students to get more feedback on their writing than simply waiting for me to read and respond to each of their papers. It just cannot happen, and in order to develop their writing styles they need as much practice as possible.