Once Upon a Writing Prompt….
I am a big fan of Laurie Halse Anderson, and have been avidly following her Fourth Annual Write Fifteen Minutes A Day© Challenge. I haven’t joined the challenge, and don’t write along with her, but I am savoring her advice and filing each morsel away for a time when I have a spare fifteen minutes a day!
A recent post to Ms. Anderson’s blog reminded me of one of my favorite writing exercises for younger children. When given the chance to create stories, many youngsters cannot seem to get a storyline started; they wait for inspiration, as if the whole story will leap, fully formed, onto their paper.
To help them overcome inertia, we often turn to Fairy Tales. Many fairy tales, some new and some old favorites can be found in BigUniverse, under the category Fairy Tales and Fantasy. After reading a few classic tales, we challenge the students to “revise” the stories by changing the characters or setting. For example:
- What would happen if Goldilocks re-visited the bears’ house the next day? What if the bears visited her house instead?
- What if Cinderella lived in the present? The future? Under the sea? In space?
- What if the Three Little Pigs were dogs? Or lived in the city?
There are some very interesting fractured fairy tales in BigUniverse as well, but it may be best to share them after the students have written their own stories. For example, the Three Little Pigs story is updated and given a robot theme in Watch Out for Wolfgang. Two bullies who chase a young lady called Red through the woods are taught a lasting lesson by her Hopi grandmother in Little Ruth Reddingford and the Wolf. Multiplication of whole numbers and fractions helps Peter undo the damage that Rumpelstiltskin wreaks in Multiplying Menace: The Revenge of Rumpelstiltskin.
Giving the students a familiar framework and a direction often helps them be more creative, and gives them the confidence to write a complete story. Try it with nursery rhymes, too! I wonder if the Itsy Bitsy Spider was smarter the second time around? Or what the King’s men would do for Humpty today? Or if Little Miss Muffet ever learned to deal with her pesky arachnid?
Third graders presented some of the most interesting stories ever when I asked them to tell the tale, “Jack and The Beanstalk”, from another character in the story’s point of view. These stories were displayed in the classroom for all of us to enjoy. i was extremely delighted by their responses. I have used this lesson, using this tale and others, with older students as well and have never been disappointed in the written results.