Not the End of My Tale

 The second stop on our Around the World Virtual Tour was Hawaii. My students read and watched information from a native Hawaiian. They were especially fascinated to read about her favorite snack- dried plums and her favorite food-poi. Besides picking coconuts and using them, the students liked hearing about pineapple plantations. Food seemed to be the biggest interest in Hawaii, although some students wanted to swim or hike, too. The students were able to make a short video about their visit using adobe spark. This was done while online with me. I shared the page with the film and asked what picture they chose. Then they typed their text in the chat box, an I pasted it into the film. The students I still get to meet in person will make the audio recording for the whole film.  This week we are continuing our trip to New Zealand with a new host who shares quite a bit about the Maori people.

 To help my older students start writing fiction, I used a prompt generator at  diyMFA . I also added a word of the day from NextStepEnglish:  https://nextstepenglish.com/word-of-the-day-conflagration/ .  Our word was conflagration, a very large fire that destroys buildings or large pieces of land. As we shuffled the prompt generator, we picked...  "shopping mall Santa, lost something important, has bullets but no gun and a picture of a modern building". We discussed these elements together and wrote both together and individually. Each of the students wrote their own version of this story while I wrote one, too.  I do believe that an English teacher should be able to write anything they ask their students to write and to proudly demonstrate their craft. I realize that there is the risk of the teacher's work being judged harshly, but how can we expect the students to be brave enough to write and share with others if we are not willing to write and share wit...

 While my younger students are on their Around the World Virtual Trip, my older students are working on various writing assignments. We decided to try out Six Word Stories this week after discussing Flash Fiction. Is it really posibble to write a story in six words? After reading many samples, we realized that what you write is just enough for your mind to fill in the blanks with the rest of the story. Even if it is only six words, it still needs a character and conflict. And the best ones also have a twist.  After writing both together and individually, we thought this was a fun genre of writing. The next step up from this is called Dribble, with max 50 words. After that comes Drabble with a max of 100 words. As a natural progression, I plan to have my students turn one of their six word stories into a dribble for our next lesson. What will enhance the story and head the reader in the right direction? For the picture on the right, here is a sample of a six-word story:  P...