Characters’ Faults Can Also Be Strengths

Strength and weakness are often two sides of the same coin. Students will explore how a character’s flaw can be a benefit.

St. Patrick and Other Legends

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

Comparing Characters’ Bedrooms

What item’s in a character’s bedroom would reflect their deepest desires? And what if they toured a similar character’s room?

Holiday Emoji Story 🍪

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Holiday Emoji Story 🎅

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Halloween Emoji Story 🌕

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Halloween Emoji Story 🕷️

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Emoji Stories 🦁

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Emoji Stories 🚚

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Emoji Stories 🏟️

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Emoji Stories 🕰️

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Emoji Stories 👁️

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Emoji Stories 🚗

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Emoji Stories 🤖

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Emoji Stories 🏰

Five emoji. One story. Where will your imagination take you?

Bobbing for Apples

What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?

Story Starter: A Magical School

Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place in at a magical school.

Story Starter: Somewhere In Space

Students use 12 random phrases to create a story that takes place in space!

Virtue or Vice?

Aristotle noted that positive traits and negative traits are often the same thing, but just in different amounts. The right amount is a virtue, but too much or too little and it’s a vice.

Do Narrators Have Too Much Power?

Imagine being a character in a story. Are you worried that your story’s narrator may inaccurately describe you? What if they reveal something you wanted to be kept secret? Do narrators have too much power!?

The Personalities of Rocks

What would an igneous rock be like? Would it get along with a sedimentary rock? Could they handle the hot personality of a metamorphic rock?

More Specific than “Smart”

When students are told that they’re “smart”, what does this word actually mean to them? (Psst. It isn’t what we intended.)

Showing A Character’s Trait

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

Historic Social Media

How would people from history have interacted online? Students will develop a conversation online between people involved in the same event from history.

Literary Technique: Juxtaposition

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

Better Stories Part 4: Character Archetypes

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.