Teaching Resources
Every teacher can feel a bit in the dark sometimes about how to impart the fundamentals of writing. These resources offer tips, lesson suggestions, and pedagogy insights to bring a little sunlight between the trees.
This resource is about planning out the plot of a story. The article breaks down the elements of plot into seven questions to prompt students with. I think it's valuable because most discussions of plot in Literature class seem to be just defining the elements. This list of questions uses applied knowledge in a practical way.
In my own secondary education, teachers would usually instruct us to "remember to include" the elements. But this list of questions prompts the students to have a reason for each of their choices. For example, it isn't just "who is your protagonist," but "what do they want?" The tension that creates a conflict is not just in the character's actions, but in their motivation. Students would learn a great deal about fleshing out their writing from questions like this. That's especially true of the question that asks, "why should readers care?"
The only change I would make to this list is to the question about the antagonist. I would ask the students to consider the motivations of their antagonist, assuming it's a person. Students should learn that their antagonist is not just there as a foil, but as a whole being with desires and needs that are at cross purposes to the protagonist. Kurt Vonnegut said something about every character having a goal they want to achieve on every page, even if it’s just getting a glass of water.
Other than that, I think this is a great classroom tool for streamlining the plot development process. It will help students stay focused and their writing will likely be more concise.
I think this resource has a great focus. Its main value in the classroom is how narrow the "slice of life" assignment is that's suggested in the article. Many secondary students might find it difficult to write a macroscopic view of their lifespan, but they can easily take a significant event -- or even a mundane one like in the example the resource offers -- and enhance it with imagery and rich details. Always wanting to include a biblical worldview, I like to take assignments that are introspective and add a spiritual dimension. Adding that encourages students to think of themselves as a multi-faceted being; they are physical, emotional, and spiritual all at the same time.
The article does lack a specific plan for the writing steps, but any good writing chart or similar tool could supplement this. I would probably give the students a specific prompt to help scaffold the work, especially for freshmen.
General Writing: Revision
I found this resource that addresses several different elements of a story that can be enhanced through revision. Students can analyze word usage, imagery, figurative language, and character development in their stories using these tools. My favorite exercise was having them write what their character thinks about other characters in the story from a first person point of view. Having an exercise like this would expand their thinking about the complexity of their characters: no one is “good or evil,” because all have temptations, sins, trials, and aspirations.
I could see using this resource as a map for a whole unit on revision. The only thing I would have liked to see that's missing from the resource is more application of some of the exercises. For example, the one about imagining an object from their story and making observations about it using the five senses should also cover how they would take those observations and apply them to improving their piece. That said, I could see leaving that as an open-ended question for the students: "Having done this, how can you add or change details in your story to make it more lifelike?"