Write at Night: Create Colorful Characters **ONLINE**
Description:
In Write at Night, middle school students will expand essential communication skills- reading, retaining, discussing, composing, revising, and even listening and speaking- by reviewing short selections of renowned literature and putting pen to paper! Each quarter, students will write about a popular theme using the elements they observe in the example classics.
A bold, boisterous buccaneer. A lonely little llama. A precocious princess: these are colorful characters! The class will read selections of classic literature to define what makes a strong, interesting character in a good story. Creating characters is a complex, cognitive process, so the class will use character sketching, guided imagery, and other in-class activities to envision new and compelling characters and bring them to life in their writing. Students will complete exercises and stepping stones to determine how their colorful characters fit into the story elements in the construction of an original short story. An anthology of student stories will be published at the end of the quarter.
Imagination and creativity come easily to most young writers, but acquiring technical skills is also important. Each quarter, students will focus on specific skills. The skills are a part of the Writer's Tool Kit that includes: understanding parts and kinds of sentences, plurals, possessives, and punctuation. Across the four quarters of this class, students will also learn how to use a dictionary and a thesaurus, as well as higher-level, middle school level skills such as summarizing, outlining, note taking, writing a book report, or citing sources. In class, students will share drafts and in-progress works to receive peer feedback and promote revising and editing skills.
Homework: Students are expected to write in a journal for a minimum of four minutes per day and respond to prompts that are sent home on an assignment bookmark. They will also be asked to read short assignments such as a chapter or excerpt in preparation for class discussions.
Topics in this Series: Create Colorful Characters (Quarter 1), orge Fantasy Fun (Quarter 2), Chronical Castle Life (Quarter 3) and Pen Passport Pages (Quarter 4).