Narratives
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?
Let's go roller skating in a Halloween costume! What could possibly go wrong?
What if... Edgar Allen Poe wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?
We tell students to "show, not tell" in their writing, but this advice isn't effective until they experience the difference. In this video, we'll put a famous character (of students' choosing) into a mundane situation and develop a fun scene to show off their main traits.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.