Learning from my mistakes: an English teacher's blog: Deconstructing writing - character. Last week, I described how my Year 8 class struggled with their descriptions of a setting.
The approach I used in my last blog was one that stemmed from Alan Peat’s work on teaching students to write effectively. I have just marked a third draft of their settings and they are much better. The one problem, I think, students have with descriptions in writing is the use of plot detail. It is so hard for them to put the plot on hold, which is, to be honest, what most setting descriptions do. They put the pacing and plot on pause and let you admire the view. I think in the past of being too blasé about writing key aspects of fiction.
Creative Prompt for Kids - Start with LEGO. Creative Prompt for Kids - Start with LEGO by Susan Stephenson, www.thebookchook.com.
6 iPad Apps for Creative Writing. Creative writing can be a daunting task for students who struggle to think of story ideas or who don't love the writing process.
For kids who have trouble putting pen to paper, there are a handful of fantastic iPad apps that just might inspire them to tell a story. Your students will be able to gather ideas, brainstorm and publish writing straight from their tablet. For students at all levels, creative writing is an important part of English language arts curriculum. Not only do the Common Core State Standards specifically outline the expectation that students should be able to express themselves through the written word, but this is also an essential real-world skill. TED Talks for Writers and the Writing Classroom. Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories.
Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. In Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication about the Biafran war. "When she turned 10 and read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, about the clash between Igbo tradition and the British colonial way of life, everything changed: ‘I realized that people who looked like me could live in books.’ Short Story Teaching Resource Guide: For Middle & High School Teachers. Don’t Just Tweet, Create Something! I have been fortunate enough to see many resources created by the thousands of willing educators using Twitter.
However in my opinion there is a strong case for using hashtagging more systematically, so that we better organise and structure the resources, ideas and thoughts we all have. A Twitter hashtag uses this symbol # folllowed by a unique word, abbreviation, acronym or phrase that defines the subject or theme of the tweet it is included in. Dickens 2012 – Celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. Visual Dictionary, Visual Thesaurus. Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts.
Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate. Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree. Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom. Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections. The Group Storytelling Game. Visual Dictionary, Visual Thesaurus. Funny. Banksy pictures.
Alma. The ‘write’ to choose. I have just been speaking to mum on the phone about a boy she works with at school.
She wanted some advice on a situation that occurred with him last week at school. My Mum is an integration aide (or an ESO in the new language) and is currently working in a grade 4/5 class. She described the situation to me and it turns out it was a scenario that is no doubt played out in schools every day around the globe: A boy has been asked to write on a specific topic, he wants to write about something else, he is told he must write on the chosen topic and in the end he cracks it with the world and ends up writing next to nothing for the entire lesson. Does this scene sound familiar to you? When Mum finished describing the scene I asked her to ponder the original aim of the lesson. “Boys crave choice when they write. The Writers. Creativity and Imagination. '29 Ways to Stay Creative': Video by To-Fu on Vimeo with tips for students and teachers about simple every day things they can do to keep their creative juices flowing.
Australia is an excellent site to use in deconstructing websites. It is well designed and user friendly. It is a great resource for images with particular reference to Australian images. You can search cultural institutions for Australian images, see pictures of Australia’s past and present including: photographs, objects, maps and works of art and request print quality copies. This site - Inside a Dog - by the State Library in Victoria is brilliant. J.K. Tag Galaxy. Make a Video. Amazing Animated Video Maker - GoAnimate. Get Inspired: Using Smithsonian Images for Creative Writing.
The other day I noticed the following tweet from Hettie Ashwin about the Smithsonian Flickr Commons, which immediately caught my eye:
Creative writing tools. Writing prompts. Welcome to Kate Grenville's website. Storytelling. Tips for Young Writers. What Should I Write About?
I'm not a big believer in "story starters". I believe that the best ideas are living inside you.