The Best Writing Assignments: The Real Ones

My 13 year-old son, who attends the small school where I teach, hates homework.  He declared last night, "it's by far my least favorite thing about school."   Yet I watched him eagerly working on an assignment last night.  No, it wasn't the pages and pages of algebra problems.  He was writing an article about a recent change in a studyhall policy our director announced to students the other day. Aside from the excitement and pride he exuded, I loved that he was writing it to fulfill his current events assignment.  His humanities teacher assigns traditional bi-weekly current events: students look through newspapers and choose an article to summarize. They then use these summaries to discuss national or international news in their 7/8th grade classroom.  A fine assignment, but nothing mind-blowing.

However, this week, my son asked his teacher if he could use the new studyhall policy as his current event.  I'm guessing that many teachers would simply tell my sometimes flippant, sarcastic son, no--that's not a "true" current event, and of course, there's no article about it.  However, this wise humanities teacher said, sure you can--but you'll have to provide the article.  So my son has spent the last two days as a journalist.  After he shared an initial draft of his article, his teacher told him he'd need to provide some quotes from actual interviews.  So my son talked to teachers and peers, recording their interviews on his Ipod.  He then came home and transcribed them, while also talking to me about how to work direct quotes into his article.  In other words, he is writing much more than a summary. What could have been an obligatory reading/writing assignment became an engaging, valuable writing exercise.

I commend my colleague for being flexible, and realizing that it can be valuable for teachers to put aside our expectations for an assignment, and really think about what a student will gain from a slightly (or even drastically) different version.  In this case, the teacher quickly surmised that my son would follow through and write an article if he told him that this would be the only way to cover that  current event.  And he also knew that there was already more interest in this particular "event" than a more national event that my son might have chosen, just to get the assignment completed.  In the end,  my son is learning that writing has purpose--and potentially, power.  Afterall, his article is already creating more dialogue about the new policy and he's learning about how to listen to differing perspectives on an issue.  You can't ask for much more than that from a homework assignment.

Once I flushed my wallet down the toilet: Creativity within a Framework

As a teacher, we have lots of options when we ask students to write. We know we want them to write, but what’s the best way to improve this crucial skill? How much structure do student-writers need? Is the five-paragraph format the way to go, or does this format only make them into little robot-writers? How do we make sure that they have a structure that we as readers can follow, and yet also an individual voice--that creative, personalized edge that makes for engaging writing (that we don’t mind sitting down to grade)?   I used to be more in the camp of anti-five paragraph, and even anti-format of any sort because I hated to read the crap that came from those structures. But I’ve learned that there’s compromises to be made, and that giving students a roadmap is crucial. 

Structure is important

I have found that some students really benefit from some structure as they write, like I might need bumpers when go I bowling.  It doesn’t mean I won’t learn to bowl well without them, it just means that I’ll feel more inclined to keep bowling if I have some success; some students will write next to nothing unless you give them a first sentence, a topic sentence for each paragraph, or some other roadmap.

My advice is to balance those structured assignments with plenty of opportunities for students to explore what they believe, to talk about those beliefs with others, and to enrich their writing with those thoughts.  Those five-paragraph essays are boring when students merely write what they think they should be saying, not what they’ve actually thought about (perhaps the SAT writing scorers discovered this, and that drove College Board to make the essay optional). In other words, structure can stymie genuine thought and fresh ideas.

Write outside the box:

Also, make sure to give plenty of opportunities for students to write outside the box.  Ask them to write poems, five- word memoirs, and scripts. Give them the common sentence, “the dog barked” and tell them to write a story with that sentence in it somewhere. Tell them to write the longest sentence they can.  Give them a list of the funniest words in English to use in a story.  Go wild.

   

Balance structure with chances to be creative:

Finally, structure can mate with creativity--and perhaps that's the ideal.  Like Madlibs.  This is a fill-in-the-blank writing exercise, yet I’m amazed when I challenge kids to come up with words beyond the pedestrian they come up with a very creative, often hilarious little story (something involving a butt).

I've also come to realize that there's structure everywhere, and that this doesn't mean it's not creative. Look at a snowflake, for goodness sake, or a flower garden.  And all stories hold a very similar structure.

Yesterday in my 11/12^th grade film-making class, I wanted to suggest that a story is a simple matter, and that for their screenplays, all they need is: a character who wants something and can’t get it.  Until he or she does.  My purpose was to slice through the fear I felt in the room—fear of writing 5-8 pages of stage direction and dialogue.  To make my point (and to trigger ideas), I gave them this framework, insisting that all stories are basically this format:

Once. . .

Then one day. . . .

But suddenly. . .

And next, unfortunately. . . .

Then it was discovered that. . . .

Luckily, in the end. . .

Now, I said, fill in the blanks, and you’ve got your story concept and plot.  I know, it could result in crap, but I tried it anyway as an experiment.  One of my students came up with this:  

“Once, I flushed my wallet down the toilet. Then one day, I found it in my garden. But suddenly, I realized that it was actually my neighbor's! And next, unfortunately, I maxed out all his credit cards. And got pulled over with his license. And got into an argument with the cop, who set me up with a court date. And I liked her, so we went out a few times, at least until I realized that she was a Satanist. Thankfully, I had given her my neighbor's name, so just as things were getting to serious, I was able to

fake my own death by vanishing into the labyrinth of the sewers! And wouldn't you know it, but I found my wallet down there! And I all lived happily ever after.  The end.”

And there you have it, creativity within a framework.  And a chuckle to boot.

(Note: I think I stole the prompts, but I have no idea from whom.  Sorry I haven’t given credit where credit is due)

 

Snow Globes and Writing

Triggering Creative Writing

Sometimes, inspiring a student to write involves a simple object—like this silly little penguin snow globe.  Let me explain . . .

I co-teach a film-making elective for 11/12^th graders.  In this six week course, students boldly venture through each stage of the film-making process, including the creation of an original live action short film of about 6-10 minutes. The first task is to write a short screenplay that can be produced in the final weeks of the class.  I have struggling writers as well as “natural” writers in the group, and it’s often a challenge to get them all to write a complete 5-10 page script, which they then pitch  to the class. In the class of anywhere between 10-17, they decide on about four scripts to produce.  We’re also challenged by time; ideally, the class would be at least eight weeks, and there would be time to draft the scripts before production weeks.

So, with a couple weeks and a diverse group of writers, I’ve tried many things to inspire the screenplays.

I’ve tried music.  I play various songs (everything from jazz to Vivaldi or rap), and ask students to close their eyes until they start to see a scene or a person.  I then ask them to open their eyes and describe what they see, embellishing if they want.  We go through 4-6 songs, followed by a brief writing time.  Those scenes sometimes result in at least a character, if not a story concept or location idea.

I’ve also tried pictures, and I’ve tried shoes, which I tell them I found along the side of roads.  I ask, who lost this shoe and how?  Today, I brought in a bag of random objects from my house, including an old cowboy boot, a dusty 1950’s camera, a bracelet from the Dominican Republic, a box of cheerios, and a penguin snow globe that is part of my daughter’s old collection.  I spread them out on the tables in front of the students, and told them to see which object calls to them.  My instructions: Examine it and then decide who it belongs to.  Imagine this person, in as much detail as you can, and then describe that person.  Once they’ve got their character, I ask them to look at the list of prompts on the board to help them think more deeply about him or her.  They use these prompts to further learn about/create their character, and possibly even think of a conflict for a story.

Prompts to develop character:

A person who . . .

likes. . .  (i.e.: cheerios, Beethoven, belly dancing, or her 5^th grade teacher, etc.)

hates. . . (i.e: beets, his mother, people who lie etc.)

spends every afternoon . . . (i.e: knitting, riding a bike along the beach, filing, etc)

wants . . . (i.e: a girlfriend, attention, to be able to fly, etc.)

forgets . . . (i.e: most things, his students’ names,  his keys, etc.)

eats . . . (i.e: rye toast and cheese; popcorn without butter, etc.)

needs (i.e: a new robe, a job, a ride home, etc.)

Today in class, one of my students was intrigued by the snow globe, and quickly came away with an idea not only for a character who owned that object, but also for a whole story line.  After class, she chattered excitedly to me in the lunch line about her story about a young girl who loses her favorite object, even thanking me for doing that activity.

It was one of those gratifying teaching moments.  And all it took was a few objects from my closets.

I look forward to reading the scripts that students will write in the next week.