HS Creative Writing Class- what would you want to learn?

[bethany]

Okay, so I'm so excited, I'm teaching a 9 week (90 minute blocks) high school creative writing elective starting next monday! yay!

I'm already planning to do independent projects, and observation journals where they write down...observations :) and snippets of writing they like...I'm also going to give them some independent reading time.

But I want to do a mini-lesson on some aspect of writing every day. I have lots of ideas, but what do you wish you had learned or could learn if you had creative writing in high school?

[bethany]

oh and I will NOT be teaching the ubiquitous "Said is Dead" lesson or the "how to pack as many adjectives and adverbs into one sentence" lesson. :)

[alleycat]

One light comment to start . . .

I cringed when I saw the idea of keeping a journal. I remember doing that for 10th grade English class. It was, for most of us, the biggest waste of time imaginable. Mark Twain had a great quote about keeping a journal; I'll have to go find it so that I don't mangle it. Could you maybe make keeping a journal optional? I'm sure some would find it helpful and enjoyable; and some would do what I did for my English class . . . fill in the journal with nonsense and stuff I didn't actually do the day before I was to show it to the teacher.

[bethany]

huh, my English students and I have really lively dialogues through their journals. Did your teacher directly comment on yours? Even my so called "bad" students like putting in song lyrics and why they like them. I wasn't going to read the last set before Christmas, but 3 of the first 5 I opened to scan for a grade included notes like, Dear Ms. ___ , I love you. Or where do I order your book, or whatever, so I ended up reading and commenting on them all. I also put stickers in them and they collect the stickers. My students are kind of dorks.

ETA- the creative writing journals would have a choice- they could copy down bits of writing they like and analyze it, or they could just make individual observations.

[DeleyanLee]

Personally--how to listen to my gut/creative/inner voice and follow story wherever it may lead. HOW to do that, I've no idea, mind you.

I've lost that ability somewhere done the line and I've been struggling several years now to try and get back that sense of trust.

[alleycat]

Here's something you might be interested it. Are you familiar with the book Naming the World?

Here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Naming-World-Exercises-Creative-Writer/dp/0812975480/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230660119&sr=8-1

It's chock-full of creative writing exercises provided by other writers. Some of them seem like they would be very helpful to high school students.

I have quite a collection of books on writing and happen to have that one. I got it for my own reasons at some point, but not to do the exercises. If you would like, I would be more than happy to send it to you. No charge whatsoever.

[ABekah]

I, on the other hand, enjoyed keeping a journal. ;) The journals I did in school were free for alls, we could talk about whatever we wanted, so long as we wrote. Freewriting. Sometimes we were given class time to complete a journal entry, which was helpful.

One exercise I found particularly helpful in my highschool creative writing class was sensory writing. We went outside on a pretty day, closed our eyes and spent some time observing with our other senses, then wrote about it.

Another fun activity is to have students brainstorm a list of words related to a specific topic and then collaborate on a story together using those words.

I'd want to learn a little about the publishing process, too. Critiquing each other's work. Can you have the class sponsor a school wide writing contest? Granted that might be too much to take on in such a short period of time.

Something we did when I was tutoring and teaching college freshman: have them write their own "My Turn" essay. Newsweek has these essays in every issue. They are personal essays written on almost any topic. Have them study the format from a couple of issues and write their own. Maybe some students could even submit their essays. Ya never know.

For some reason, we also watched Monty Python in my creative writing class. Still not sure why.

[bethany]

Sure, Alleycat, I'd love to have that book. I'll pm you my address, if you really don't mind.

Those are great suggestions Abekah- They LOVE talking about the publication process. My English class was in heaven when I got the cover for Handcuffs last year.
and I'd love to watch Monty Python in any class, but in 9 weeks, probably won't happen :)

Also, just so I don't sound crazy-defensive- or maybe so I do? THe way I know my students have some appreciation for their journals, is that when they get them back, they pore over all the pages looking for comments and then share the comments with their friends. I'm not doing free-writing journals with my English classes next semester, because I just don't have time...instead they're going to have to keep a current event journal as a reference point for their persuasive essays. Blah. state standards :)

[alleycat]

huh, my English students and I have really lively dialogues through their journals. Did your teacher directly comment on yours? Even my so called "bad" students like putting in song lyrics and why they like them. I wasn't going to read the last set before Christmas, but 3 of the first 5 I opened to scan for a grade included notes like, Dear Ms. ___ , I love you. Or where do I order your book, or whatever, so I ended up reading and commenting on them all. I also put stickers in them and they collect the stickers. My students are kind of dorks.

ETA- the creative writing journals would have a choice- they could copy down bits of writing they like and analyze it, or they could just make individual observations.
That's wonderful that it works for you and your students. Maybe I was relating too much to my own very shameful high school experience. ;-)

And, just for fun, here's the whole quote by Twain from The Innocents Abroad. I hope you enjoy it; I don't mean it as deterrent to your plans.

After prayers the Synagogue shortly took the semblance of a writing school. The like of that picture was never seen in a ship before. Behind the long dining tables on either side of the saloon, and scattered from one end to the other of the latter, some twenty or thirty gentlemen and ladies sat them down under the swaying lamps and for two or three hours wrote diligently in their journals. Alas! that journals so voluminously begun should come to so lame and impotent a conclusion as most of them did! I doubt if there is a single pilgrim of all that host but can show a hundred fair pages of journal concerning the first twenty days` voyaging in the Quaker City, and I am morally certain that not ten of the party can show twenty pages of journal for the succeeding twenty thousand miles of voyaging! At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty`s sake, and invincible determination may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat.

[alleycat]

Sure, Alleycat, I'd love to have that book. I'll pm you my address, if you really don't mind.
You're more than welcome. It would probably be one of those that would just sit on the shelf unused (not that I don't think it's a very good example of that kind of writing book); it would be better if someone got some use out of it. By the way, one of the exercises in the book was recently featured in either The Writer or Writer's Digest magazine.

Send me a PM with your address and I'll mail it tomorrow. It might not get to you my next Monday, but probably would some time next week.

[caromora]

I loved keeping journals in HS, and I'm going to guess that any kid who takes a creative writing class probably wouldn't mind. :)

As far as lessons--you probably can't lose by sticking to the basics of storytelling. What an info dump is, what a scene is, story structure, how to write decent dialogue. And if the class will cover poetry, the best thing I learned in a college creative writing course was how to listen to words as you use them--to ignore meanings and just hear the sound and rhythm. Our professor brought in a bag full of magnetic poetry pieces and had us play with them.

[Captshady]

One light comment to start . . .

I cringed when I saw the idea of keeping a journal. I remember doing that for 10th grade English class. It was, for most of us, the biggest waste of time imaginable. Mark Twain had a great quote about keeping a journal; I'll have to go find it so that I don't mangle it. Could you maybe make keeping a journal optional? I'm sure some would find it helpful and enjoyable; and some would do what I did for my English class . . . fill in the journal with nonsense and stuff I didn't actually do the day before I was to show it to the teacher.

I didn't have this assignment until I was in college. It had to be one page per day for every day in the semester. We turned it in each week and had to have 7 additional pages than the previous week.

My instructor gave the assignment, then added, "You might not believe me, but studies have proven that if you write every day, no matter what, your writing will improve." This began my writing bug. I'm convinced that had I not heard these words, I wouldn't have this burning, incessant desire to write.

For fiction, break it down into components, and give assignments for each. Like "Write a story describing a fictional place such as a castle, cloud city, fake country with weird rules." Do another on dialog, another on character development, etc.

[bethany]

ooh, I hadn't put bad things on my list- infodump, mary-sue etc. We could do a "elements of bad fiction" once a week :) Adding to list...I want a list of about 15 elements- that I am composing right now to look at over 2-3 day periods. The negative elements we can look at in just one day periods- no sense dwelling on them, I guess.

[Siddow]

I think anything to get them toward submitting would be excellent. I love the Newsweek suggestion--Chicken Soup also has some upcoming titles that may be suitable writing assignments for teens. http://www.chickensoup.com/form.asp?cid=possible_books

You might also send them to Duotrope and have them select a market, and do all the research of finding the submission guidelines, reading some of what they publish, brainstorming stories for that market, and writing one.

And just for fun, just this morning I was looking at this page (http://mysite.du.edu/~bkiteley/advice.html) (which has some interesting REAL stuff on it), and that led me to this page, (http://mcsweeneys.net/2006/5/4wiencek.html) which could either be useful or hilarious, but probably not language you could use in school. :)

[Toothpaste]

Count me in as another one who hated writing journals. Maybe I was in the minority, but I never did it, and then had to fake writing in the journal the night before, using different pens to make it look like I was writing at different times. I think the reason I hated journal writing so much was I didn't want to write my observations down. I made too many of them, I didn't know where to start. My brain was always observing, and not only observing but remembering.

It's something I have taken into my adult life as well. As an actor, especially in drama school, when we would be working on a play and my director gave me notes, I wouldn't write them down. Writing things down doesn't help me remember them, and it also distracts me from the actual advice being given. I worry too much about HOW to write the notes, point form, full sentences . . . plus my handwriting is awful. I now know to go up to directors at the start and explain to them that I won't be writing down the notes given, but not to worry, I will still remember them.

Journal writing works for some and not others. Maybe you could suggest that those who don't wish to write down observations could work on pieces of fiction, etc. And that comes to the next thing I would like to see in the class:

Too often students in such classes are made to do little exercises that illustrate a point, small short writings etc. I think of course it is important to do these things, but maybe have something longer on the go as well. For the last ten minutes of every class, the students get a time to just write what they want to write. Be it a novel, short story, song, whatever. I always hated writing classes that didn't let me write what I wanted to. It removed the fun from writing creatively, and for that reason I wound up being more creative at home than in class. You want to, above all things, instill a great sense of fun in such writing. And so many of these classes wind up taking away from it.

[dancingandflying]

Well... I'm in a creative writing class in high school and can tell you what I enjoy in the class. I like when my teacher throws (not literally!) great writing at me ("To Kill A Mockingbird", "Night", "Streetcar Named Desire", and movies like "The Producers", "Young Frankenstein", "Stranger Than Fiction") and being able to absorb it before diving into an independent piece. I love group critiques on my pieces, and I love critiquing other people's work. I love writing timed pieces in class. I love when my teacher has us try on new styles of writing without pressure.

However, I never liked writing in journals, or being forced to get inspiration for a piece of art, or writing in groups in class.

Just my two cents.

Good luck!

d&f.

[alleycat]

I saw a wondeful little example of creative writing recently. It took a short, well-known annodote and broke it down into its separate elements and pointed out that the short annodote had everything that a good short story should have.

It was in Dare to Be a Great Writer by Leonard Bishop.

[alleycat]

Count me in as another one who hated writing journals. Maybe I was in the minority, but I never did it, and then had to fake writing in the journal the night before, using different pens to make it look like I was writing at different times. I think the reason I hated journal writing so much was I didn't want to write my observations down. I made too many of them, I didn't know where to start. My brain was always observing, and not only observing but remembering.
I remember doing that too! Great minds . . .

[bethany]

Their independent projects will be most of the class grade and the final. So they do get to write whatever they want.

Probably 30 minutes a day including library/computer lab time. 20 minutes independent reading/workshop (in workshop they can do their journals or work on assignments from the day before), 20 minute minilesson(which is what I'm collecting ideas for so I can put them in coherent order), 30 minutes work on project, 15 minutes group work/collaboration (which will also be linked to independent projects on some days, and will be much longer a couple of days per week).

Block schedule requires crazy amounts of organization. Plus if you waste a day you lose a lot of time.

[Captshady]

I remember doing that too! Great minds . . .

Well the "Freedom Writers" in LA have had positive results from Journal writing, and you'd never have heard of Tyler Perry, unless he'd committed a major news worthy crime, had he not been told to write in a journal.

[alleycat]

Well the "Freedom Writers" in LA have had positive results from Journal writing, and you'd never have heard of Tyler Perry, unless he'd committed a major news worthy crime, had he not been told to write in a journal.
I'm not trying to talk anyone out of doing it, but as Toothpaste pointed out, I think forced journal keeping works for some more than it works for others, especially for high school age students.

But, that's just my opinion. Bethany says it works for her and her students.

BTW, I've just barely heard of Tyler Perry anyway.

[bethany]

I think anything to get them toward submitting would be excellent. I love the Newsweek suggestion--Chicken Soup also has some upcoming titles that may be suitable writing assignments for teens. http://www.chickensoup.com/form.asp?cid=possible_books

You might also send them to Duotrope and have them select a market, and do all the research of finding the submission guidelines, reading some of what they publish, brainstorming stories for that market, and writing one.

And just for fun, just this morning I was looking at this page (http://mysite.du.edu/~bkiteley/advice.html) (which has some interesting REAL stuff on it), and that led me to this page, (http://mcsweeneys.net/2006/5/4wiencek.html) which could either be useful or hilarious, but probably not language you could use in school. :)

Sigh, I tried to get my literary club to submit stuff all last year. It was a challenge for some reason. Maybe these guys will be more interested in doing that.

I can probably get my editor at Random House and possibly my agent to do a little interview with them, that would be fun, oh and I had considered a little mini-research assignment on writing related jobs where they could research the publication process or other jobs that deal with writing.

[Captshady]

BTW, I've just barely heard of Tyler Perry anyway.

:tongue Well he's rich as all get out.

[alleycat]

Well he's rich as all get out.
So was Bernard Madoff . . . :tongue

[Captshady]

So was Bernard Madoff . . . :tongue

LOL Mr Perry is rich because of his writing! Smart alec ;)

[Kitty Pryde]

ooh, congrats! sounds like the kids are in for a fun class. most of my writing classes tortured the pleasure of writing creatively out of me. here's my suggestion: short excerpts to read weekly and reflect on that come from very diverse sources. In high school, every single thing I read could be summarized as: a literary novel wherein a zillion bad things happen to the MC who is never ever happy, and at the end, he dies or his fingers fall off or his baby dies or his village is destroyed or all of the above. There's nothing wrong with those sorts of books, but where are all the other things people read and love? Junior year I used to hide fantasy novels behind my binder to read in class. I think students would benefit from reading and then making observations on short chunks of things like: kids fantasy, golden age science fiction, sherlock holmes, popular mysteries, memoirs written by outsiders in society, song lyrics by tupac, feminist manifestos, sophie's world, the mahabharata, science written for the average reader (like robert Sapolsky's stuff), self-help/empowerment, etc. you get the idea! so they get the chance to explore all the many different things writers can write creatively about, and maybe find something they didn't know about to love.

[alleycat]

ooh, I hadn't put bad things on my list- infodump, mary-sue etc. We could do a "elements of bad fiction" once a week :) Adding to list...I want a list of about 15 elements- that I am composing right now to look at over 2-3 day periods. The negative elements we can look at in just one day periods- no sense dwelling on them, I guess.
For fun, you could have them do an exercise where they intentionally write something that stinks. Have them throw in every example of poor writing they can think of. Kids would probably have fun doing this, and it would be fun to see who could do the worst and funniest piece of writing.

Of course, they might also learn something and remember it along the way.

[Provrb1810meggy]

I'd recommend against doing any collaborative type of writing. With different skill levels, interests, and ideas, it can feel pretty much impossible, not to mention limiting. Give plenty of time for students to work on independent projects. Also give students the chance to critique each other's stories, do readings, etc. Revision and editing techniques might also be helpful.

[kuwisdelu]

Introduce POV, tense, and show vs. tell.

My experience has suggested though most kids will probably already know what POV and tense are from English, they won't necessarily be able to apply that well to fiction writing.

And show vs. tell is just important for any writer. (And be sure to bring up examples of when "tell" is appropriate...no one wants to read in detail about the MC's whole trip walking to the story if nothing interesting happened...)

[sadron]

I would like to learn how to be more describing? I have that problem and show vs. tell could be great help.

[Zombiestare]

When I took creative writing in high school we had a cool project of going out every morning and sitting around a newly planted tree and just describing it (like, 5 or so minutes outside). The idea was to see how our sense of description changed over the semester and to see what would happen when we got bored of just describing the tree (which we all did at the beginning of the semester) and started to describe the tree in its actual surroundings.

The thing I hated about that class was the random, forced out loud readings. I still have nightmares.

[alleycat]

Bethany,

I tried to send you a private message, but it said your inbox is full.

Anyway, I mailed the book we discussed. You should get it sometime early next week. The cover is bent slightly; that's the way the book came to me. Other than that, the book is in "like new" condition.

Let me know if it helps. I think your students might find it interesting to do some writing exercises suggested by quite a number of well-known writers.

ac

[Dale Emery]

About story: Plot structures, conflict, how to identify and develop story ideas.

About style: The effect of style choices on the reader. In particular: the effects of word choice and order, of sentence structures, and of different ways of connecting each sentence and paragraph to the next and previous.

About process: Techniques and exercises that writers can use to get started, to jiggle themselves loose when they're stuck, to give themselves more choices (about any aspect of process, story, and style), and to select among the available choices (about process, story, and style).

Dale

[darrtwish]

I really like character exercises. I think that's probably because of the fact that I feel that's what I struggle with, making characters unique. When I first started taking writing seriously, when I was about 11, all my female lead characters had the same basic personality, and story line was pretty much the same. And even nearly six years later I still find overlaps of personality traits from project-to-project.

I also like plot exercises. Also, probably because I feel plot is something I struggle with a bit. I have this nagging feeling that my plots are complex enough, and are rather boring.

Also, the occasional refresher grammar lesson wouldn't hurt. ;) I don't know how big you guys are on grammar in your English classes at your school, but I know it's non-existent here. It's just assumed that you learned it in elementry school. To be honest, I haven't had a grammar lesson since first grade when they explained the parts of speech and punctuation and what they were...not how to use them, just what they were.