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Read It Here First! Mining for Stories at Chabot Elementary


Inspired by the popular world of Minecraft, our 3rd-5th grade writers at Chabot Elementary in Oakland "mined" for stories earlier this year!


Students worked from prompts to create their own story in a world of their choice, choosing 1 of 3 dimensions
Hanisuhs
Hanisuhs was an ice dragon. She was born in a place called Orsavya. Suddenly a drought came and all the water and snow evaporated. She decided to find a new home, so she got into a boat at midnight and set sail. The next day was hard. There was a leak in the boat and it kept overflowing with water. When evening came a crash of lightening struck, barely missing the boat. When she looked up she saw a dark figure hovering in the clouds. It was a lightning dragon! Lightning dragons are the enemies of ice, water and snow dragons. A snarl pushed its way onto the lightning dragon's face as he swooped down onto the boat. When he was face to face with Hanisuhs, he hissed, "Goodbye!" Lightning flashed toward her but she dodged it. The lightening hit the boat and smoke bulged into the air, leaving a massive hole. More water flooded into the boat. After a few moments the water was up to her haunches...
-Alma


Students explored "point of view" in worlds of their own creation using descriptive writing
The Point of View
Once there was a robber sneaking quietly around the city. He came to a bank and climbed onto the roof where he found a trap door. He jumped through the trap door and when he landed inside the bank, he saw stacks of money. "Bonus!" he thought to himself. He looked up and saw a sign that read "All this money is 7.6.97 billion dollars!" It took him five minutes to gather all the money into his bags. He bought famous cars and was never caught.
-Emerson


Here are two stories-in-progress from an exercise on building a story arc through narrative writing
Minecraft Adventure
One day I was walking and saw a village. Every inch of the village was dark blue and was surrounded by crops that were as black as a chalkboard. There were about 50 houses full of MPC's. I was really hungry so I stole some food from the black crops. The food tasted like hamburgers. As I went on exploring, I found a lime green enderman. All I had on me for a weapon was a wooden sword. I hit the enderman with the sword. It flashed purple and then disappeared. Behind where the enderman was standing was a strange red and purple portal. I jumped through it... 
-Lucas

The Bandit
One day a helicopter crashed into an unknown place. It was all forest and far ahead there was a village full of people, The bandit (who was flying the helicopter) decided he wanted to spend his life there. Sadly though, he was kicked out. Nobody trusted him because he set loose 3,000,000,000 zombie pigmen. He lived in a shack about 7,000 feet away from the village and snuck back every night to steal supplies.  
-Jonathan


Students built characters using narrative writing techniques
The Story of Zooy Dooy
Madness. Fear. Destruction. Zooy ran from the forsaken battle (Elkite vs. Sanartrol). Senartro was losing hopelessly and her planet was slowly dying. Zooy ran as fast as she could until she ran completely off of her planet and ended up in deep space. Behind her, the planet (with her entire family on it) exploded into bits. Zooy is now the last Murflow-- tiny little Zooy Dooy with her ragged purple fur...
-Rocco

Felix
Felix is 17. He is son the of Posiden. He can heal a cut just by touching it to water. His last name is Wood. He decided he wanted to go to training camp, so he took ten days to build a chariot. His best friend is named Jack. He has a scar across his left eye from a mountain lion. He really likes crystals and rocks. His favorite food is pork, and he loves to play hockey. 
-Charley


Students were given a prompt ("a monster is coming at your character") & wrote stories from a 1st person perspective
The Forest on Mars
I am in an unknown forest on Mars. My name is George. I can see rust colored rocks. There's a huge, legless alien coming right for me! I jump into a nearby lake to escape, and KABOOM! it explodes because its full of bombs and grenades! Now I am left hiding in a big hole in the ground... 
-Serhan

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Read It Here First! A Potpourri of Writing from Benito Juarez Elementary

Over the past few months, our 3rd, 4th & 5th graders at Benito Juarez Elementary in Richmond, California took their inspiration from letter writing (to their future selves), Mad Libs, portraiture and more! Sample some of their work below!

Students wrote from a prompt: "When I woke up this morning..." (work from Alondra, Chris D. & Abdiel)

Students "painted a portrait" - with words AND drawing! (Work from Ximena, Nataly & Rem)

Students wrote letters to themselves - in the future. (Work from Victor, Eli, Diego & Celeste)

Students wrote 10 interesting things about themselves, then chose one to turn into a story (Work from Shanae, Supreet & Itzel - 2 parts)

Students explored "Things I Know to Be True" (Work from Miguel & Christopher C.)

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Read It Here First! Taking flight with our John Muir Young Writers

For the past few months at John Muir Elementary in Berkeley, our third and fourth grader writers have focused on flight. They’ve learned about Amelia Earhart, bees, Daedalus and Icarus, and more. Explorations have included making movies in their minds of what it would be like to fly and imagining themselves up high in the blue sky, buzzing around as bees, airplanes and more.

Enjoy a sample of their work - get ready for take off! (Pictures are enlarged so you can read the work in the writer's own hand.)

Crash Landing!
Paloma imagined she was Amelia Earhart and wrote a letter to her sister as her plane crashed to earth.

The Phoenix

Aeris wrote a poem describing the flight of the phoenix featured in the Harry Potter series.

Where’d Everybody Go?

Nohelia wrote a story about a bee who woke up one morning to find that his friends had left him behind.

DEAR PLANE

Simon imagined he was Amelia Earhart and wrote a letter of appreciation to his plane.

How Do They Do it?

During a free write period (when writers may choose to write about anything s/he wishes), Sophie wrote about the power the color pink has over some people.

Choose Your Own Adventure

T.J. wrote about a bee who wakes up to find all the other bees are gone!

Bees!

After learning about bumblebees, Bodi explored the world outside the hive.

The Wonders of Childhood

Gavi wrote about why she loves childhood so, so much.

I love being a kid. Maybe its that bouncey feeling where you feel like jumping of the walls. Or maybe it's hearing your parents complaining about stuff you don't have to worry about. But I think its the wild, out of control way of living. Just runing and breathing in the fresh air.

No limits. No one to draw the line. No rules. But most of all no rages.

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TMWFI! After School: Brave Writers at Bret Harte

This year "Take My Word For It!" began a partnership with Oakland Leaf to create an After School Writers' Workshop for Bret Harte students. The students are embracing their creativity, taking some risks with their writing and writing here, there and everywhere.

To learn more about Oakland Leaf and their important community work check out their website.

 

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Read It Here First! Peek into words at King Harrington School

Although snow delayed the spring session at King Harrington School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, our young writers are off to a great start! They've begun to show their love of writing through 6 word messaging, poetry & Valentines!

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Mill Creek Elementary's Secret Writing Society!

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Mill Creek Elementary's Secret Writing Society!

This fall, young writers in 3rd and 4th grade at Mill Creek Elementary in Geneva, Illinois became part of a secret writing society and entered the world of all things untold! We had a wonderful time exploring and writing about all kinds of secrets - secret codes, secret identities, secret recipes and more. Here are some of their writing projects - click on each picture to see the work in his/her own writing!

During "Secret Recipes", students came up with their own recipe of themselves by thinking of themselves as an ingredient list. They shared what makes them special in terms of ingredients like personality, talents, likes, etc.!

Recipe of Me by Olivia

We talked about characters that have secret identities (like Clark Kent/Superman), and how these characters change from their "ordinary" selves to their super-human selves. The students created their own character with a secret identity, then created imaginative stories about those characters!

 

Pickles and Boo by Aggie

 

Darth Starkiller A.K.A Master Ark! by Nikita

"He is the Padwan of Darth Ren. He has a blue and red light saber. He would have an oxygen mask on. And he has a gray face and has no hair, beard or mustache. Also, he has a giant scar on the right side of his face. Darth Starkiller turns off his red light saber and takes off his oxygen mask and turns it off. Also, he turns of a special computer on his chest so he would be able to breathe. Also, he is hunting a Jedi named Ajjaie Ventress. Later he finds Darth Ren choking Ajjaie Ventress and he gets his light saber and fights Darth Ren but at the last second his robot arm was chopped off and his computer was damaged and he couldn't breathe and was thrown off the 1,000 story building!!!!!!!!"

-Nikita

Mill Creek Elementary Writers!

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