Calling all high-school teachers! Or hell, anyone who has ever been in 9th grade! HALP (easy halp)

[tzikeh]

I am collecting a series of writing... prompts? Assignments? Tools? Not quite sure how to explain. Here is a list of what I've created all by myself so far. Problem is, I make most of them up by myself (stole the drabble from fandom *g*). I've looked around the web for free lesson plans (totally acceptable with proper attribution) and man, online resources have gotta run like 12-to-1 for K-8 versus 9-12.

Long text under the cut is long.


Write Or Die! (http://writeordie.drwicked.com/)

Explanation: Write or Die is a website for anyone who needs help getting going on their writing, or keeping their writing moving along once they've started. The self-determined time and/or word limits lets the author control how they will approach any given assignment, while making writing a fun (dare I say goofy!) game, rather than what might feel a dreary, dreaded experience to some. (The software programmers behind the site have recently created a downloadable desktop version. It costs $10 and works on all platforms.)

Application: The program can be introduced early in a course plan as an invaluable tool for creating rough drafts while eliminating "internal editor" worries that can keep many students frustrated and stuck. An in-classroom demonstration of the website's uses will allow students to see that the site, rather than being stressful (timed writing! Five hundred words or else!), is entirely user-controlled, and extremely useful for keeping students writing, which is oftentimes the first stumbling block in any writing assignment. By diving right in, students are freed from their likely long-entrenched restraints of writing with a constant eye to spelling, grammar, and even clarity. Once they have their self-determined number of words, or minutes or hours spent on the general idea of their work, they have something to start from that isn't a blank sheet of paper.

The Journal

Explanation: Journaling helps students develop the habit of writing, regardless of topic, when the teacher expects the students to keep a journal during a unit or course plan. The habit of writing often, whether the writing is fiction, criticism, self-reflection, or any other option, is one of the most important things a Language Arts teacher can help a student achieve.

Application: There are endless opportunities and applications for journaling in a Language Arts classroom. Since teenagers are naturally drawn to talking about (or writing about) themselves, it makes sense to have them keep a journal that asks them to relate their opinions and experiences. To combine this tendency, which can wander all over the place, with the in-class purpose, an example of a course-long journaling assignment would be to relate journal entries to each unit (or lesson)—not to have the students write their opinions of the lesson or unit, but that the journal subject would be directly related to the lesson subject. If the unit is on To Kill a Mockingbird, the students' choices of journaling entry topics might include how the student views racism today versus the racism evident in the novel, or examples of racism they have experienced or been witness to, or how they view their father, their experiences with peer pressure, etc. Since the goal is to keep students writing, and not a more structured goal (grammar/syntax/flow/etc.), the journal entries would be in addition to other assignments, but would either not be given a grade, or would be graded simply on whether or not they met the required number of entries agreed upon at the beginning of the unit.


Quotes

Explanation: I have collected quotes for as long as I can remember. Clever, profound, sad, hilarious, topical, it doesn't matter; I probably have thousands of them. A pithy quote will get an instant reaction from a student, whether it is a laugh, rolled eyes, a spark of recognition that an idea he or she agrees with has been expressed in a way that makes sense (or the opposite, that the student entirely disagrees with the sentiment), etc. A quote on the board or projector or overhead cannot help but start the mind going.

Application: Were it not that my students would quickly tire of me (and my superiors would wonder if I knew any other way to teach), I could center every lesson around a quote, whether it was directly from the material with which the class was engaged, or from my collection of quotes. A quote gives a little more color, a little more depth, to the beginning of an assignment than direct instruction. For example, rather than using teacher talk to explain a lesson on persuasive essays ("Some people think that kids and teens shouldn't be reading books meant for adults. Others say that all books should be available to anyone at any age. What do you think?"), or handing out an essay on the debate, and then asking the students to write down their opinions, putting "'Every book is a children's book if the kid can read!'-Mitch Hedberg" on the board can energize the room into instant discussion, oftentimes even before the lesson begins.


100 Words

Explanation: The 100 Words exercise is self-explanatory: the student will write the given assignment in 100 words—no more and no less.

Application: The 100 Words exercise can teach economy of language, tone, how strict rules can often bring out more creativity than unlimited freedom, and many other writing skills. It can be used to teach students how to summarize, e.g. the class reads (or retells in discussion) "Cinderella," and then students are organized into in small groups and asked to write the story of Cinderella—in exactly 100 w ords. It can also be used to teach how to imply rather than state ideas or emotions, because there won't be enough room to write these things into the story. It makes the students really dig in and work hard at sentence structure and word choice specifically, honing those skills.


Third-Person to First-Person (can also be Fact to Fiction)

Explanation: The teacher, or the students, brings in short newspaper articles (generally something local, such as a report of a traffic accident, or a street festival, etc.). The students then have to rewrite the articles from the point of view of one of the people mentioned in the article (usually there is a quote or two from bystanders or participants—that would be a requirement of choice of article). They could even choose to rewrite it from the point of view of, say, a car in the accident, or a bowl for sale at the fair, etc.

Application: This is a terrific exercise to teach narrative POV. Because the students are the ones changing the point of view, they will experience the difference by creating it, rather than trying to parse it by reading it. It also helps students imagine what they read from inside the story, rather than outside, which is a good way to introduce them to close readings of first-person fiction (e.g. looking past the story of the protagonist and considering the possible needs/wants/motives of the less-developed characters). This can also be adapted to teach narrative modes; during a novel study, the students can learn the difference between subjective, objective, and omniscient perspectives by getting into groups and rewriting teacher-selected pages from their novel in the different narrative modes.

Not Your Style

Explanation: Students, after reading either a few short stories by the same author, or a few poems by the same poet, or a novel, will write a poem or a short story (certainly not a novel) in the style of the author or poet.

Application: There are so many discrete elements that go into style that it's one of the trickier things to teach students. Having the students do a hands-on assignment when it comes to style, rather than trying to write about an author or poet's style, is like having the students grab a handful of clay and make a bowl, rather than writing about a bowl. Their creation will not be perfect, but their understanding of what makes our "canon" writers unique will be, in a sense, muscular, rather than simply cerebral, and by working with their "hands," they may begin to see what their own style might look like. Another adaptation of this exercise would be to take one passage from, say, Fahrenheit 451, and rewrite it in the Dickensian style. Not only will they crack themselves up, but they will start to understand what differentiates one author's style from another.

ONLINE RESOURCES FOR THE TEACHER

Web English Teacher (http://www.webenglishteacher.com/): A seemingly bottomless resource of lessons suited to everything from Shakespeare to Journalism to Media to Grammar, and everything in between. Each of those topics is broken down into subtopics (e.g. Journalism includes Editing, Ethics, Photography, Censorship, etc.). Lists of ideas for exercises are easily adapted to many kinds of lesson plans. The "Writing" section has lesson plans and strategies most applicable to this notebook, but there are plenty of writing exercises in the other categories as well.

enotes (http://www.enotes.com/): a teachers' site that has study guides, lesson plans, literary criticism, etc., each divided into sub-sections with cross-linking—e.g. a study guide for Hamlet links to critical commentaries, suggested essay topics, and an on-site discussion board dedicated to Hamlet. Examples of other discussion board titles include: To Kill a Mockingbird; "Guide to Literary Terms;" and "Essays," which is a discussion board for teachers to help one another with their own writings.

To Learn English (http://www.tolearnenglish.com/): a wonderful site for any teacher who has ESL or ELL students in his or her class. It includes numerous lessons set up in the Anticipation / Reading / Listening / Grammar & Vocabulary system, with most of them centered on modern-day topics (Tom Cruise; Christmas Shopping; etc.), as well as resources for teaching grammar and vocabulary. This will be extremely helpful to teachers who have nothing more than bare-bones ESL/ELL training.

Lit Plans (http://litplans.com): a warehouse of literature lesson plans for SecEd teachers. Some are free; some are for purchase. While the website is not particularly attractive, it's comprehensive list of covered titles (http://litplans.com/titles/) is, if nothing else, and terrific starting point for a teacher looking for ideas for a unit on a particular novel.

Read, Write, Think (http://www.readwritethink.org/): a site with multiple search options for a plethora of writing lessons and strategies. By selecting grades 9-12 from a drop-down menu, four sub-choices become available: Literacy Strand, Learning Language, Learning About Language, and Learning Through Language.Each of those sub-choices then have their own sub-choices, e.g. Learning Through Language has a section on collaborative writing, which has detailed lesson plans for different types of group writing work, including poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essays, and more.

What I need help with is increasing the variety in the kinds of activities, I covering far more aspects of the writing process, such as pre-writing, process writing, re-writing, research, writing strategiesetc. And if you've got more creative writing instruction ideas, I'll take those too! I'm mostly working with the idea of a standard 9th-grade General English semester. If you've got ideas, fling 'em at my head. I can likely come up with a detailed explanation and the application on my own, but a quickie summary of what the activity entails would be awesome. Even pointing me toward websites that provide lesson plans/ideas would be awesome.

Comments

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

using prompt words. picking five or ten words at random from a dictionary, cut up pieces of paper from various texts, etc, and including them in a piece of writing.

taking a passage from a story you like and re-writing it from the pov of another character.

other kinds of remix.

shifting mental state using sensory awareness and writing from that state. for example, focus on sounds or sound memories of a certain place. or, focus on what your bones tell you, what your blood tells you.

alphabet challenge: write a passage starting each sentence or verse (if poetry) with the next letter of the alphabet.

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

When I taught Freshman Comp, I would ask students to pick an essay and re-write it to "break the rules" of writing, but "break them with style and panache."

So part one was to have them pick the favorite essay they'd written so far (you've got to do this towards the end of the class) and then re-write it:

(a) Like you'd say it to a friend on the street.
(b) According to the grammar rules of another language (if you speak one)
(c) In a different dialect of English (eg Hawaiian, or other pidgin if you speak one at home.)
(d) In 1337.
(e) Like your mother or father would write it.
(f) Choose your own adventure (but clear it with me first).

Turn it, and your original essay in.

And then, after it was all done, and the student got both essays back, they wrote a short, 1 page essay in class comparing the two. I'd wind them up by asking them to think about what was different or better, what was stronger or weaker, and how does changing the tone and voice change things? Oh, and was it harder or easier to write the second essay?

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if you can get away with it, start teaching POV and how it shifts things, by using that X-Files episode with the Vampires in it.

You can also talk about how the songs on Emenem's albums come from 3 distinct personas: Marshall Mathers, Emenem, or Slim Shady, and the way each of them would/does talk about a topic colors things.

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

a few more -- these are things I use in writing groups that are designed to be therapeutic, but they can be adapted in different ways, too.

Letter from your future self: Imagine 2 years (or whatever seems right) has passed, and your life is working out exactly as you would wish. Write a letter from that future self to your present self. What would he or she say to you?

Letter from an archetype. As above, but using an archetypal figure meaningful to the writer. I've done it with mitochondrial Eve (evidence for a common female ancestor for all humans), people have used gods, goddesses, other religious, historical, or mythical figures.

Group writing exercise: Take several pieces of paper and place in the center of the room. Someone takes each piece and writes a line on it and puts it back in the middle. A second person takes it and reads the first line, adding a second line, then folds the page so only their line shows. This continues, until everyone in the room has added at least one line, each one only seeing the one line before theirs. Unfold all the pages and read. This exercise is best after other activities have happened to give the group a sense of cohesion. The result is often some nice surprises as people come up with similar images and associations.

[thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com]

Find a short movie or t.v. show, preferably one you can be confident they've never seen. Show the first 2/3 or so. Have them write the ending.

Write a journal from your favorite book (or with special ed/ELL - t.v.) character.

Be Oprah: Write a script as if you were Oprah and you were interviewing the main characters from a book you've read. (Write both the questions and answers)


I should have more... but winter break started day before yesterday and I'm actively not thinking like a teacher now. :p

[sweetestdrain]

Oooh ooh ooh. I'm currently working with college students, but -- same diff.

Write about a personal experience (great if it's a conflict or argument) -- from the point of view of someone else who was there. This can be a really challenging exercise, as it's difficult for students to view themselves from another perspective, or even, at times, objectively. My students found it fun even if they weren't successful at divorcing the narrator from their own point of view.

Write a six-word story. Similar to the drabble idea, but challenging in a different way. A good example is the supposed first six-word story, by Ernest Hemingway: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." This is a great prompt for autobiography or as a class introductory prompt, too -- students can try to sum themselves up in six words.

Here's a rewriting exercise that's good for shorter pieces like poetry, or a single paragraph: Without looking at or rereading the poem/paragraph, flip the paper over and write it again. This can help students hone in on the important ideas or lines in their writing and get rid of the filler.

OR:
Look at your written work and pick out your absolute favorite sentences. Now -- cross them out and rewrite the piece without them.

OR:
Pick your favorite -- or a problematic -- sentence in your essay (or story, poem). Now rewrite it ten times. Focus on changing words, rephrasing ideas, or even changing the structure of the sentence. No two sentences should be the same. (This is especially good for working on thesis statements, or for students who are having trouble phrasing their ideas concisely -- or the opposite!)

ETA: It occurs to me that thesis statements etc. are probably a bit advanced for what you want. But you get the idea!

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Can I get back to you on this tomorrow when I'm back in my office? Most of my teaching resources are there these days and it's been too long since I've been a real teacher for me to remember them off the top of my head.