Creative Writing Unit Plan

               Creative writing in the classroom provides a constructed, aiding environment for students to explore different genres while stepping out of the normal boundaries of traditional papers. Students often times feel limited and discouraged in their writing because it is taught with extreme structure. The creative writing unit will allow room for error, original ideas, and diversity. It will open up a door for students to test their interest in creative writing, while at the same time providing instruction and guidance.

                The unit will last ten school days, with the weekends available for project editing. It will consist of classroom time for prompt ideas, story development and basic outlining, and brainstorming. The days that are not spent actually writing and creating will be spent learning different techniques and tools.

                The students will also be responsible for reading a selection of short stories. The short stories will be a good demonstration of the work they are producing. Assessment will be determined by the completion of the short story in the two week period of time, as well as basic editing and grammar that will also be taught during this lesson.

                The stories will be put in the students’ portfolio at the end of the term. If the school had any sort of liberal arts magazine, the students would be encouraged to submit. 

Day 1:

Introduction to creative writing unit. I will assign students a short play to act out together in groups; however, the plays won’t have an ending. There will be writing time for the students to write in story form how they think the play ended. This activity gets the students up and moving, and because it is so interactive and different, it will get the students excited about the unit. What we will focus on, though, is their individual ‘endings’. This activity will get them thinking along the lines of what happens in a story, and since they have just seen a visual representation of a story, it won’t be as daunting to write.

Their homework assignment will be to brainstorm possible ideas for a new story. Also, students will be assigned to read a short story of my choice for class the next day. Stories will be chosen according to class dynamic. Each story read will be of a different genre.

Assessment will be class participation. For students who are more shy and hesitant in front of others, they will not be docked for not performing the play with any less enthusiasm. I will be looking more for if the students are responding to the short plays and writing their endings.

1 hour 20 minute class:

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Short intro to day’s lesson / splitting up groups (already prepared by me): 10 minutes

Students preparing plays: 10 minutes

Performing: (3 groups, 5 minutes each): 15 minutes (20 minutes given for transition times)

End writing: 20 minutes

Day 2:

Discuss writing process, breaking it down from finished product to original idea. To do this, I will split the students up into different groups and have them discuss amongst themselves a specific aspect of the short story, including: characters, setting, plot, development, and revision. The students will be permitted to use online resources to better grasp an understanding of their aspect. Afterwards, the students will present to the class what they found and the importance of their specific aspect. After the short presentations, there will be a mini quiz on the short story we read the day before. The quiz will ask basic questions to check for completion. Following the quiz, there will be an open class discussion on the story, exploring the different aspects that we just researched.

Their homework will to be to finalize story idea.

Assessment will be class participation and the quiz grade will be recorded.

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Introduction to lesson / split into groups: 10 minutes

Research: 10 minutes

Presentations: 15 minutes

Story discussion: 30 minutes

Wrap up: 5 minutes

Day 3:

Character development workshop. By now, the students should have an idea of who the main character in their story will be. The workshop will include an in-class activity further examining this character. I will provide different random scenarios, and the students will have to write on what their character would do, how they would react, what they would think, given the different situations. This workshop will open up to the students the mind of their character, instead of just focusing on their surface reactions. The next significant portion of the class will be dedicated to working on their story.

For homework, the students will be assigned another short story of a different genre.

Assessment will be class participation in both the workshop and the in-class writing time.

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Introduction to lesson: 5 minutes

Workshop: 30 minutes

In-class writing: 35 minutes

Day 4:

Scene workshop. This workshop will focus on sensory details. I will give the students different images of rooms or places, and they will have to give the space as many details as possible. This will force the students to take an actual picture and transcribe it into words. The students will work alone on this activity until I split them into groups and they will share what they wrote and then reveal their picture. This activity focuses both on writing but then gets the students up and moving and sharing with each other. They can also see how their peers are writing and learn from them. The second half of the class will be discussing the short story we read the night before. Again, a short quiz will be given to check for completion. Because of the two previous workshops, the discussion will be focused around character development and scene, until the students take the discussion in their own direction based off their interpretation and reaction to the story.

The only homework would be to work on their story.

Assessment will be class participation in the small groups, discussion, and their quiz grade.

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Introduction to lesson / hand out materials: 10 minutes

Workshop writing: 15 minutes

Workshop sharing: 15 minutes

Story discussion: 30 minutes

Day 5:

Dialogue workshop. I will start off by asking the students to read aloud two different scenes that are made up completely of dialogue. The dialogue will purposefully be dry and bland. I will split the class into partners and give them either one of the scenes. As partners, they will recreate the scene using details, expressions, and more emphasis. The pairs will then present these new scenes to the class. After the workshop, there will be in-class writing. The first draft of the story will be due the following Monday. I understand that this will be very rough, but I want to force my students to come to at least a completion point before the next week, so they can spend the following class periods on greater aspects of the story.

Their homework will be to complete their first draft.

Assessment will be participation in both the workshop and during the writing time.

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Introduction to lesson / hand out materials: 10 minutes

Partner working: 15 minutes

Sharing: 10-15 minutes

In-class writing: 30-35 minutes

Day 6:

Intensive work day. I figure many of the students will not be finished with their draft, so I want to give them class time to do so. This will also give the students who are done with their draft time to work on it. This will also allow the students to re-familiarize themselves with their story and the writing process after the weekend. Halfway into the class, we will split up into partners and do partner sharing. The partners will read each other’s story in class and give verbal feedback.

For homework, continue on story.

Assessment will be if they had a completed first draft (by the end of the period), and their participation in both class writing and partner sharing.

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Class writing: 40 minutes

Partner sharing: 40 minutes

Day 7:

Editing / revision workshop. The first half of the class will focus on basic grammar and punctuation pertaining specifically to the short story. I will provide different worksheets to work on individually before we discuss them as a class. The second half of class we will go over what the revision process is and why it is important. Focus on one scene in their story and have class time to delve into it and make changes or additions. Breaking it down by scene will make it immensely easier for the students to revise and figure out what revision means.

For homework, students will work on revising their story, as well as read another short story for the following day.

Assessment will consist of their participation in the workshops.

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Introduction / pass out materials: 5 minutes

Editing workshop: 25 minutes

Revision workshop: 40 minutes

Day 8:

The first portion of class we will discuss the final short story we read in class. The discussion will start off talking about conflict and resolution, since students will most likely be working on that part of their own story at this time (even though the first draft is already done). The second half of class will be meeting up with the same partner they had before and discus the changes they made and the direction they took their story since the last time they had met. This is a time for peer revision and input.

For homework, they will take their partners’ story home and peer edit it for them.

Assessment will be based on the quiz of the short story and their participation in the discussion and partner edits.

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Story discussion: 30 minutes

Partner revisions: 40 minutes

Day 9:

This day will be dedicated to full revision. The students will get their stories back from their partners, and they will spend the entire class working on their stories for final completion. The story will be due start of the period the following day.

For homework, the story will be finalized.

Assessment will be determined on active participation on their stories.

No daily writing activity

Class writing: full time.

Day 10:

Short stories will be due at the beginning of class.

Students will be split up into different small groups and pass around their stories. Groups will consist of three students each, so each story will have time spent on it.

Assessment will be participation, as well as completion of story.

Daily writing activity: 10 minutes

Split into groups: 5 minutes

Sharing: 55 minutes.

Wrap up / tie together lessons of unit: 10 minutes

Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher

Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, is a must read for high school classrooms. I have not found a more impactful novel that teens cannot only relate to, but also learn from. The following analysis will cover the basics of the novel and reasons why it should be used.  

The central theme that I found to be in this book is taking responsibility for one’s actions and the consequences that come from these actions, or in some cases, choosing not to act. This theme is dominant throughout the novel and brings light to many heavy, serious real life situations. This paper will analyze the theme and how it relates to present day adolescent readers. There are many potent scenes and conflicts that relate to this theme, which will be discussed in relation to how the scenes and conflicts can teach readers by evoking emotional experiences. This book was especially powerful in the way that the reader felt changed after having read it, and real lessons were taught through the text. Because this book delves into such topics such as rape, underage drinking, suicide, bullying, and sex, it can be prized as a crucial tool for teachers to use to guide adolescents through a very unstable time in their lives.

Thirteen Reasons Why centers around the suicide of seventeen-year-old Hannah Baker. Through the point of view of her classmate, Clay Jensen, the reader is brought into the rapidly declining world of this young girl. The reader learns in the beginning that Hannah has committed suicide, and she left behind a set of cassette tapes. Each side of a tape is recorded for a specific person, telling them what part they played in why Hannah took her own life. It takes the listener of the tapes, Clay, and the readers through the town and back to the past, starting at Hannah’s first year at her school up until the day before she died. It goes into her first kiss, her friends, parties, hatred, rumors, rape, and why she couldn’t let Clay save her. Through Clay, we are able to see his reactions to Hannah’s tapes as he listens to them, and the reader is able to share the emotional turmoil that Clay experiences.

                    Bullying is one huge category in this book that addresses the theme, which are consequences of one’s actions. As the reader works his or her way through the book, it is very evident that the events that led up to Hannah’s final suicide wasn’t just one thing, but it was a snowfall-effect of various situations. Starting when she first moved to her new school, she quickly became the victim of vicious rumors regarding her sexual activity. What was to her a very innocent first kiss experience got turned into the foundation of a bed of lies. Justin, the man who kissed her, didn’t put Jessica’s rumors of Hannah and Justin’s playground kiss to an end. He instead went along with it, which earned him more popularity, while for Hannah, it classified her aseasy. Adolescents are relentless, and when a title like this sparks among a crowd, it spreads like wildfire, and there was nothing that Hannah could do or say to rebuke it. This eventually led to another night, years later, when she was in the bedroom with Clay at a party. Even he took these rumors of her sexual experience to be truth, and it only further crushed Hannah, sending her weak emotional state onto an even more shaken ground. This was only one way Hannah was bullied, and it gave her scars that went with her to the grave. She was never able to escape these lies, and she didn’t quite know how to deal with them, either. Adolescents are not equipped to deal with situations like this with a sound mind. They are not sure enough of themselves to be able to brush off these rumors. Because their teen years are full of such development and shaping, emotionally and mentally, it could be severely damaging to be a victim of the type of rumors and bullying that Hannah endured.

For adolescents reading this book, they are able to see through the eyes of both Clay and Hannah the effect of this kind of bullying. Even though Hannah’s death was an extreme case, it works for these teens readers. Reading the book and becoming emotionally connected to the characters, especially to Hannah, gives the readers a neutral setting to learn these lessons. Even as I read, I was constantly taken back to my middle school and high school days. Did I do the kind of things Jessica did? Did I not stop a rumor? Was I a victim of one? Where was my involvement? What were the effects of my actions? I graduated high school almost five years ago, and this book still made me think of these questions. I wish I would have read it while I was a teen so I could have changed my behavior, or at least have been more conscious of it.

Drinking underage is another category in which teenagers need to become responsible for the consequences of their actions. Almost every adolescent these days are told of the dangers of underage drinking. There are D.A.R.E. programs in the elementary schools and heath classes in middle school and high school that let teens in on the possible dangers. However, most of the time, those programs do not stop teens. It sure didn’t stop the teens in this book. It wasn’t necessarily the physical drinking that got these characters into trouble, but the situations that they found themselves in by being at these parties. The hot tub scenario, for instance, when Hannah was with Jenny, only fed the rumors that Hannah was easy and sexually active. But an even more serious event that took place at one of these parties was Jessica’s rape. Jessica had too much to drink. Jessica, only being a teenager, did not know her personal limits of consumption. When she passed out, she was put to bed, giving Bryce an easy opportunity to take advantage. The worst part was that Justin let him. And so on, Hannah didn’t stop it. This specific scenario teaches teen readers that rape is not only forcing oneself on another violently, but when a person is not conscious to say no, and even further, is intoxicated and cannot make a rational decision, and another person does it anyway, that is rape. I did not learn that until my later years of high school, and I wish I would have known all the specifics when I was younger. This book is so powerful because it places the reader into such a dominant reality where strong emotional bonds are formed between the reader and the character. Because it felt like such a real world, it was infinitely more shocking than most other books containing this kind of situation. It felt real, and when something feels real, readers instinctively relate the situation to their own lives. If this book prevents even just one more girl from being raped, it would be worth it.

The most important category that this book addresses, in relation to consequences of one’s actions, is suicide prevention. Hannah demonstrated many signs that she was suicidal. She tried to reach out to a variety of people, but in the end, the lack of action led her to do it. Now, I want to be clear, Hannah is responsible for her own suicide. She was the one who took her own life. However, there were many opportunities that others could have stepped up to help her, which they did not. The first one was in one of Hannah’s classes, when she anonymously spoke up to her class about her thoughts of killing herself. Instead of the students, or even the teacher, taking it seriously, it was mocked, rebuked, and then dismissed. Hopefully this shows readers that when someone asks about it, they were thinking about it, and when they are thinking about it, they need help. It is not something to laugh at. Death is not a mockery. The most devastating outcry, though, was to Hannah’s teacher, Mr. Porter. She made it very clear on the tapes that if Mr. Porter didn’t help her, she would take her life. She was desperate, and he let her down. He did not even follow her when she left his classroom. What more does a teacher need? She practically laid it out right before him, and he didn’t do anything. His lack of action will stay with his character for the rest of his life. Even though he was only fictional, this kind of thing does happen. Maybe this book will make people more aware and give them the courage to take action and protect those individuals who are seeking help. Finally, at the end of the novel, Clay was able to take these lessons that he learned from listening to Hannah’s tapes and put them to practical use, reaching out to Sky, who had showed similar signs that Hannah had.

This book is powerful, life changing. It is full of situations that teenagers face on a daily basis. If there should be one book that is taught in the schools, it should be this one. I have yet to read a more impacting adolescent novel.

Purpose and Vision

     Reading literature in a classroom setting is a great way to spark ideas and insinuate deep conversations about characters, culture, diversity, etc. Fiction novels are great for providing opportunities to think about the real world in context to situations that are being read. The main focus of writing in the classroom setting is to organize thoughts and ideas that the student has, and it requires critical thinking and analysis to form connections. Writing in general is important and needs to be taken seriously in English classrooms. I think any book that is read in class should have the ability to spark conversations among the students, and writing out the ideas before speaking them together allows for organization and overall practice of the English language.

     My hope is that this blog will be used as a resource for educators who are looking to work with a new set of adolescent literature in their classes. I will have posts that cover a range of novels and ideas for how to teach them. If there is anything you would like to suggest, please do so. I am open for comments, questions, and criticism. We are all here to learn.