Out of this World! Class Summary 2/1/2016

with Michelle Cameron

Welcome to everyone who is joining us for our newest writing class, where nothing is too fantastic and we’re all heading Out of this World! I have to admit it warmed my heart when I walked into the dining room to hear a chorus of “Hello, Mrs. Cameron!” It’s great to be back at Mosaic!


We started class by dividing into two teams:

• Team Aliens-Monsters: Noah, Julia, James, Gabriel, and John
• Team Dragons-Unicorns:Kaitlyn, Caleb, David, Gabriella, and Emily

Teams were each given a sentence to begin a group story. Team Aliens-Monsters started with “The Man from Mars climbed into his spaceship” while Team Dragons-Unicorns started with “The dragon roared, belching out a plume of smoke and fire.”
Each team then took turns writing their stories, which I’m happy to share with you. Have them tell you what they contributed. Note that I’ve corrected their spelling and any other grammatical issues they might have – I’m more interested in the story than focusing on the technical aspects at this point:

---

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!