This workshop provides grammar school and middle school students with a simple, step-by-step approach to creating and developing a short story.
Three separate story ideas are explored and in each one, the students are lead through a process to develop the characters, the plot and the story setting. Text boxes are used to record the student's ideas and these text boxes are then used to develop and write the story on their own.
In the first story, the students will write about a pet that has superpowers. The second story involves the characters going on a quest. The third story uses superheroes as the characters.
These stories form the backbone of several lesson sessions that will reinforce and amplify the process and increase the students awareness of the story writing process.
The first lesson is called Lessons Learned and it uses the pet story to illustrate that a story can’t be developed from a singe idea: many ideas are required. Other lessons are also provided such as a story-telling guide and a tutorial on how the students can develop a writing voice that is distinct from their speaking voice.
Finally, there is a lesson on how the students can create their own stories. The students then use a set of blank text boxes to support and collect their story ideas prior to writing the story,