This session the students worked on character and plot. They learned to make use of each of their five senses as a source of inspiration. The students did listening activities that led to poems, worked collaboratively to interpret photos, and used details from their own lives - both mundane and personal - as details to enhance character. See sa couple of the excerpts below!
From a photograph of a Scarecrow dressed in a fine suit and hanging in a cornfield:
Ballad of the Scarecrow in a suit.
I am a scarecrow. It’s a lot harder than it seems. For one, it’s a pain in the neck to re-stuff yourself everyday. Oh and, hey, wait, please don’t leave. I’m not going to complain the entire time. Maybe ten percent, but not more. Besides, I’m getting off topic, and before I do, I should tell you about my appearance. No really, it’s essential to the story. Like I said, I’m a Scarecrow, an average Joe, straw-filled, rough, canvas skin. But it’s the outfit that really catches people’s eye. I can see you’re filled to the brim with questions, and being the Scarecrow that I am, I am happy to answer them.
-Sam
I am supposed to be scary. But not that anyone thinks I am. Everyone thinks I’m funny. It makes me sad. I hope someone will understand.
-Estella
From an exercise in collaboration called the exquisite corpse, where the kids each wrote a line of the story, without having seen the line that came before:
Bob R. Greedy
Bob R. Greedy Planned to smuggle a bald eagle into Spain. At the top of the Empire State building. In the middle of 223 BC. Because of the atomic matter in your mother’s favorite teapot. But she became so excited that she drowned. And this caused the cow to run circles around them.
-Adam
