Narratives

Are students’ characters a bit flat? Archetypes give them a strong foundation on which to build their own characters as well as a tool to analyze existing stories.

We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.

We tell students to ‘show, not tell’ — but that advice is useless until they experience the difference. This lesson makes it click.

Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!

Let’s go roller skating in a Halloween costume! What could possibly go wrong?

A typical student narrative includes plot and characters but lacks a larger idea to hold it all together. This is where a lesson on themes comes in…

If your students’ stories are packed with endless ninja fights or arguments between frenemies, it’s time to expose them to a wider range of conflicts.

What if… Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?

What if a capybara and a kangaroo rat switched homes? Would their adaptations be helpful at all?

What if we rewrote a story’s climax into a totally different genre?

Ever read a student’s story that was just event after event after event and then a very sudden ending? They lack an understanding of a plot’s structure. With the help of Finding Nemo, I break down how to set up a well-structured plot.

When we try to solve a problem, sometimes we end up creating new problems. Which lead to new solutions. Which lead to new problems.

What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?

How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?

We open our unit on narrative writing with a big idea: “structure increases creativity.” I show how this is true by bringing in examples from across all disciplines.

Every fantasy story has patterns hiding underneath the magic. Once your students see the elements, they’ll spot them everywhere — and use them in their own writing.