A Prompt Entry

About a week ago, our class pushed pause on our current writing project to assess our writing through a district prompt.  The prompt asked students to write for 60 minutes about the following:  

Situation:
You are a letter in the alphabet.  You are tired of being up on the classroom wall.

Directions:
Think about an adventure that you could have if you were down from the wall.

Now, write a story about being a letter in the alphabet set free in the classroom.

Students were then given an hour to write on that topic.  They had two sheets of paper:  one was for planning, and the other was for writing the actual narrative.  This was a great opportunity for both teachers and students to see what students could produce on their own in a 60 minute time period.  It illustrated our understanding of narratives stories (beginning, middle, and end with some type of climax).  It also showed our strengths and weaknesses in following the conventions of writing (punctuation, capitals, etc.).  We were excited to see many students shine, but we were also worried when some students turned in stories that were wonderful narratives, yet they had nothing to do with the prompt given, and thus had to be scored as a zero. Luckily, this was just practice and we will have several other opportunities to improve this school year.

Here is a great example entitled, "The G Slingshot":

(This piece was copied as is, with no modifications to spelling, punctuation, and so forth.)


     It was 8:30 A.M. they would be there soon, the children.  But all of a sudden the letter G fell off the wall!  

     "Oh my that was a long fall from the tipity top of the wall and to the bottom of the floor."  she said softly.  Then she looked at the clock it said 8:40 A.M.  "How am I going to get back up there?"  the letter G questioned.

     "What if I climb" she exclaimed looking at the wall.  When she tried to do it she would fall back down.  She tried 5 times!  Some clumsy little kid spilled glue on the counter and so the 6th time she fell she got stuck!

     "Help me!" she cried  "Someone help me!"  But then she had a genius idea!  "What if I put this sling shot around me and the other side on the door handle that way when they open the door and close it behind them I would be able to stick because of the glue." she yelled!

     It was 8:50, time to put her plan into action!  "Slingshot check, me in glue check, let's do this!" she yelled.

     She heard the childrens footsteps coming to the door.  "Operation sticky slingshot active." she exclaimed to herself.  "I hope this works," she said!

     It was 9:00 A.M. "Here they come!" she yelled!  She flew acrossed the room!  But when she landed on the wall she was upside down so she looked like this (Author included drawing of upside down G).  All of a sudden a great wind blew the letter G around from this (Author included drawing of upside down G) to this (Author included drawing of sideways G) to this G (Author included drawing of G in correct position)!

     Just then the kids walked in and had a wonderful school day.  With all that glue on the letter G she would never fall off again but she always will remember her amazing adventure!  And remember that there is always a solution to a problem.

Wow!  What great narrative flow this story has.  Obviously, even this example has some "next steps," but it is a great goal for many of our students.  It has interesting vocabulary, a creative concept, a nice balance of action and dialogue, and it follows many writing conventions (most of the time), and this work was produced in one sitting, with no help.  Some of our writing doesn't match up to this when we work on it for weeks with assistance!  This is certainly something to be mindful of as we continue to work on our writing this year.

Last week, we continued our Harris Burdick writing project, focusing on adding suspense to our falling action and wrapping it all up with a great closing.  Several different techniques for adding suspense were discussed, using the handout we pasted into this post as seen below:

Suspense

What is the most important part of every story?  Suspense!  It won’t matter how much you hook the reader with your engaging beginning, if you don’t have suspense.  So what is it?  It’s what makes a reader want to keep reading until the very end.  There are several different techniques for adding suspense.

Suspense Technique	Try this…	Example
Strong Emotional Reaction	Have your characters show strong emotion.  How are they feeling about the problem?	Art and Max:  Art explodes in rage and we aren’t sure what will be left of him afterwards.
Create Conflict	Include a battle or fight scene.  Don’t let it end with one punch.  Make it go back and forth, so the reader isn’t sure who the winner will be until the very end.	Transformers:  We witness a giant battle scene where audience is unsure who will win…battle goes back and forth several times.
Build Expectations for Trouble	Hint at a problem or more problems that will be coming.	Mr. Linden’s Library:  Vine grows out of book.  Nothing bad has happened yet, but it seems menacing because it’s unusual.
Surprise!	Shock the reader with a surprise.  It can be a good or bad surprise.	Books of Elsewhere:  On the boat, Annabelle reveals to Olive that she is actually evil.
Limit Time	Add a looming deadline so the reader feels like the clock is ticking.	Percy Jackson:  The author refers to a calendar deadline as Percy continues his mission.
Vivid Description	Add oodles of details to slow down the story’s pacing.  Describe key characters or events in extreme detail.	Strega Nona:  There is a detailed description of the pasta invading the town…it goes on for pages and pages!

Here is a student sample where suspense is being introduced using a looming deadline technique.  This is an excerpt from the middle of the story.

“Time to get up.  It’s 7:00 AM…time for school,”  Lindsey’s mom shouted from the kitchen, the next morning.

 

            “Okay,”  Lindsey shot back annoyed.

           

            After Lindsey ate breakfast, she grabbed her backpack and rushed to school.  When she opened the door to her classroom, she blurted out loud, “Where are my friends?  They’re always here.”  Their backpacks are here.  With ghosts in her house she was suspicious.  She zoomed to her house and stumbled down the stairs to the basement.

           

            Lindsey heard her friends shouting, “HELP!  Someone help me!”

 

            Lindsey burst down the stairs and screamed, “Let them go right now.”

 

            “Oh no.  Lindsey is trying to save her friends,” snorted one of the ghosts.

 

            “Let them go,” Lindsey repeated. 

 

            “You come with us and we will release your friends,” said one ghost.  “Or you can run away and we take everyone you know and love,” said the same ghost.  “We’ll give you till midnight and if you don’t choose, we’ll choose for you,”  said a ghost.

 

To be continued…

We've utilized many tools throughout this project and it was fun to see some writers using those tools to produce better writing.  

Here you can see Sanari's notebook is out, as well as the handouts from her purple writing folder.  As she busily works to develop her falling action, she has her character map handy, as well as her suspense chart and story mountain.  The story mountain will help keep her on track with the intended direction of her story.  You can also see the illustration she is focusing her story on in the lower right corner.  Great work, Sanari!