"The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" Writing Project

Our second writing project is well under way.  We began by reading The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  It is a very unusual book, in that it only contains pictures.  Each picture comes with a title and caption, however, the stories are missing along with their creator, Harris Burdick.  We thought we were up to the task of creating our own stories that could explain the pictures.  So far, we have done some brainstorming.  We carefully looked over each illustration, before choosing two favorites.  Ultimately, we narrowed it down to our one favorite!



Some of the illustrations are scary...

Some are mysterious...

And others are just plain crazy...

After carefully considering each option, students made a quick list of ideas about their favorite illustration.  Then they shared those ideas with a peer partner.  

With the feedback from their peer partner in mind, students were introduced to the concept of a story mountain.  All narratives follow this basic pattern of five story elements.  Each narrative begins with the exposition, before rising action builds to a main problem, or climax.  Suspense is created in the falling action, which leads to a final resolution.  Our story mountain template helped us plan out our stories to make sure we had all the pieces of a narrative story.  This summary of each story element will serve as a guide when we draft our stories.  So far, we have written an engaging beginning.  Ask your child to share their beginning with you.  Notice the details they have used to set the scene, introduce you to the characters, and pull you right into the action.  We know you'll be hooked!

Here are a few samples:

Miguel-
"Mom, Mom, Mom!" I yelled coming down the stairs.
"What?" she answered.
"I saw two eyes staring at me while watching t.v.  I swear, mom!"
"Fine!  I'll go check it out."
But when we went to investigate and opened the door, the two eyes that Archie saw were gone!  Dun, dun, dun!

Elijah-
It was quite a day out on the cruise ship.  Sunny, no clouds, and the old captain was having the best day of his life.