Story Magic Class Summary 11/24/14

with Michelle Cameron

Plotfoolery!

This post is a little bit bittersweet – being my last class with your great kids!

To start off with, we took a group shot of our completed Word Art posters. Based on the request to read these stories once again at the end of class, I think the kids are very proud of their word bank stories!

I was also interested in hearing the haikus they wrote for the afternoon class. Clearly they are wonderful poets!

Then we turned to playing Plotfoolery. Thank goodness for my extra scribes – Kim and I would never have managed on our own! The board game consists of situations that are whacky, impossible, improbable and sometimes even grotesque. (This is what the life of a writer is like – the ability to imagine just about anything!) Some examples:

• Dig a tunnel to China
  
  
• Tame Bigfoot
  
  
• Blood is everywhere!
  
  
• While you’re in jail, the planet is destroyed by ________________.
  
  

Once we determined the starting order, the kids rolled and landed on one of these situations. The number on the die determined how many sentences they had to write. The challenge is that the story – crazy though it might be – has to be one continual tale. Once the writer finished his or her required number of sentences (and some of them, taken by where their stories were taking them, begged to add more than the requirement), they were free to roll again. No need to wait your turn!

As the kids landed on the different situations, the room was filled with groans, laughs, and great excitement. We scribes could barely keep up with the flow of imagination! At the end of class, we read our crazy tales, applauding for each one.

If the kids found one part of the story most intriguing, have them expand on that for next week.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and thanks again for sharing your terrific kids with me. I truly enjoyed working with them!