with Michelle Cameron

 Today once again we began by reading the stories the children wrote – or revised – at home.  One issue that I’m sensing is that – in their enthusiasm to write, which I’d never want to curtail – your young writers are writing A LOT and they love commenting on everyone else’s work. This is making it a challenge to listen to everyone’s story in the time we have. So this week I initiated a new rule – three children only can critique any one writer. Of course, we’ll rotate who gets to critique, so that everyone gets a chance to be heard. 
In addition, there may be weeks where we can only hear half of the stories. I hope not have to do this, but I do want to leave enough time for new prompts and give the children a chance to write in class. 

Among today’s stories, we identified a few more issues – as well as things the children are doing well:

• There was some good use of onomatopoeia – lots of bangs, clashes, and creaks.
• It was very clear in many of the stories what the characters wanted and what obstacles they faced.
• Some stories could have benefited from more connecting details. You can help your writers improve by asking them more “why” questions.
• We don’t always need the day-to-day details, such as getting up, eating breakfast, going to school. These can bog the story down.
• It’s better to take a single conflict and build on it than to present a character that goes from one adventure to another in just one line or two.

Building Worlds

Our world building class was quite short because we only had about 15 minutes left after everyone read. The students were asked about particular aspects of life on Earth, and then told to compare them to life on their own imaginary world. Because I don’t believe they had enough time to really imagine the new world, I’m providing a link to a PDF of the form we used (HERE). Please look this over with your student and encourage them to dig a little deeper.

Once they’ve done that, I’ve asked them to write a letter home from the world they’ve created, describing it. Some things to keep in mind as they write the letter:

• Your students are visiting the world from Earth. They should write it as themselves.
• They should use descriptive terms to really paint a word picture of the world.
• So we can hear everyone next week, let’s keep the letters short – maybe one-two pages.

I can’t wait to hear how they describe their worlds!

with Michelle Cameron

Today we began by reading the stories the children wrote – or completed – at home. The enthusiasm to read was overwhelming and the stories were universally terrific. There’s a lot of great imagination and some terrific wordsmiths in this class.
Before we started reading, we set down some guidelines for both reading and listening:

• Read slowly, loudly, and with expression.
• While listening, don’t fiddle with pencils, notebooks, or anything else. (This is hard for kids of this age and I won’t call them on it unless it’s clearly distracting.)
• After reading, the author should try HARD not to talk during the critique – because if you’re talking, you’re not listening.
• When giving critique, it’s important to start with something positive.
• If you have something constructive to say, make sure you say it in a constructive way.

Your young writers offered excellent critique and often pinpointed issues that could help improve the work. Among these were:

• Dialogue – both too much and too little. Dialogue is best when it is “grounded” by setting and action. And it always brings a story to life, rather than “he told her this,” “she explained that.”
• Moving too fast from one plot point to another. We talked about the need to slow the action down and to add in smoother transitions.
• Reading too fast, too softly, and without expression. I explained that the students would have a chance to work on this as we continue to work on their stories.

Building Character

We then discussed that creating compelling characters are a critical part of any story. Each student was given a large sheet of paper and told to begin drawing a character. There were a couple of caveats about what they could and could not draw:

• Because we are “out of this world,” the character could not be human or an animal we would find on earth.
• They needed to create a character out of their own imagination. No derivative characters, please!

As the students drew their characters, I asked them the following questions:

• What’s the character’s name?
• How old are they? (can be just born, can be a zillion years old…)
• Do they have parents? Brothers and sisters? List them.
• What color is their hair? (If they don’t have hair, what color is their fur, or scales, or skin?)
• What color are their eyes? (How many do they have?)
• Where does the character live? (It could be an imaginary place or planet.)
• What do they like MOST to eat?
• What do they HATE to eat?
• Do they have a best friend? What’s the best friend’s name?
• Do they have an enemy? What’s the enemy’s name?
• Do they have a secret? What is it?
• What do they WANT?

The last of these questions is where a story starts, and it should inform the entire narrative arc of a story. We talked about what Harry Potter wants (a family), and Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz (first to leave home but then to go home). 
The children then presented their characters to one another and – wow! – it was already time to end class.
For homework this week, since we’re not back for 2 weeks, I asked them to do two things:

• Improve or add onto their first story, based on what they heard during the critique.
• Start a new story about their character.

Happy Valentine’s Day and President’s Day weekend – see you all in two weeks!

with Michelle Cameron

Team Dragons-Unicorns
The dragon roared, belching out a plume of smoke and fire. The fire set the village on fire. The villagers ran in fright. The dragon let out a roar of triumph. But one brave villager turned around and went back to fight the dragon. With a mighty sweep of his tail, the dragon knocked the sword from his hand. Then the villager took a bow from his backpack. He hit the dragon and killed it. The dragon hit the ground with a “thud!” A unicorn emerged from the woods and thanked the villager for killing the dragon. At that moment, an evil wizard was testing his “life spell” and the magical wave hit the dragon and brought life to the dragon. The villager tried to hit the dragon but the evil wizard used his shield potion. The unicorn fought the wizard and destroyed the shield potion. And the unicorn turned its head and destroyed the dragon, too. The villagers thanked the unicorn, and they honored the unicorn for its bravery.

Alternate ending: Or did they? With a mighty roar, the dragon spit a fire ball which destroyed the unicorn in a gory way.

Team Aliens-Monsters
The man from Mars climbed into his spaceship and few up into space. He left Mars and went to crash into Jupiter. His name was Zineycolzackaless but many people called him Ziney. Ziney’s spaceship ran out of fuel, then crashed into an alien-populated town called Allacka. The Mayor of Allacka was cruel to Ziney; he didn’t know what to do to Ziney and gave him a cheat trial, then put him in jail. The maid who brought him his food was named Lazelya. She started to like Ziney and she helped him out of jail. Now they had one problem: there was a monster guarding the jail door. Lazelya pulled out a laser bazooka. Then the monster saw them coming. Before Ziney and Lazelya knew it, the monster jumped on Lazelya. Ziney was so mad he grabbed the laser bazooka and shot the monster. The monster fell dead and Ziney grabbed Lazelya and they ran to Lazelya’s father’s spaceship. Lazelya stole her father’s spaceship. They climbed in and flew off. Then Ziney and Lazelya – at the same moment – kissed.

At this point, each team was given the other team’s story, so they could pick out their favorite line. This line is the inspiration for their own story that they began writing toward the end of class time, which they are supposed to finish this week for homework.

Some suggestions for parents to help the writers finish their stories during the week:

• Don’t worry too much about spelling, punctuation, or paragraphing. Right now I want to focus on their ideas. As long as they can read what they’ve written, it’s fine.
• But of course, if they ask you how to spell a word, please go ahead.
• Ask them questions about their stories, especially if they get stuck or if they don’t include details. Questions like: why did he do that? What did she feel when that happened? What happened next? are all helpful as they’re writing.
• But try hard not to tell them what you think comes next. You can suggest ideas, but resist writing the story for them.
• Finally, if they are writing a derivative story – taken from Harry Potter, Frozen, or any other book or movie they’ve read or seen – gently ask how they are making the story their own. I’m going to work on moving them away from derivative work, but sometimes young writers feel more comfortable starting with something they know.

I’ve already heard the beginning of their stories and am looking forward to hearing the rest next week!