1. 1st Junior High School of Mandra
Autonomous Ways into Creative Writing
an ongoing project
Maria Barberi
for the 34th Tesol Greece Convention
mabarberi@gmail.com
2. The Warm up Stage
• Discussion on students favourite book title ,
whether it was the plot or the characters or
both that attracted them most in the
particular book
• Asked them if they had ever imagined
becoming writers themselves
• Time was dedicated to
- individual automatic writing
- collaborative writing
3. Second Stage
Your hero: The neural system of your myth
Elements determining your hero:
• his/her background (biography)
• personality traits, life attitude
• appearance
• his/her need (internal or
external)
• his/hers actions (external or
internal)
• students are assigned to build a
character
4. Third Stage
Plot development
Reference to the important elements of a story:
• The conflict which brings about dramatic
action
• Climax ( the peak of the dramatic action)
• Falling action
• Resolution
5. Fourth stage
World building
Starting off with general
description of places
students like or hate , they
move on to create their
own imaginary world
through a series of
questions referring first to
general laws governing
their new world and then
to more specific details of
that world.
6. Combination of character and setting
• Putting your character
in an unusual setting is
a good way to generate
a story.
• You can suggest an
unusual setting for the
characters the students
have created in stage 2
or invite them to put
their characters in a
painting/photo/video
7. Fifth Stage
some activities to improve your students written
descriptions
• change the sentence
• encourage them to build metaphors
• Use a photo as a stimulus. Name some details in the image. Use each of
these words to build similes, metaphors, personifications
• Encourage them to transform their heroes feelings into vivid images
taking examples from their own writings
• Encourage them to start keeping sensory word lists
8. Enhance motivation by:
• Keeping a prompt library (verbal prompts, visual:
paintings , photos, videos, sounds, music, real objects)
• Encourage them to read an interesting book
• Watch a movie together
• Go to a place with them
• Publish your students’ short stories either in a printed
form ( bind them in a book) or electronically (create a
wiki)
• Organize that your young writers are interviewed by their
readers
• Start a short story competition
9. Pedagogical implications of the creative writing
project
• Students enhanced their creative imagination
• In their effort to create persuasive situations and
credible characters they had to employ their
selective skills concerning both content (images,
concepts) and form (the necessary linguistic means
to express their ideas)
• Reinforced their autonomy since they were free to
choose how to work collectively or individually, how
long to work on their own myth and how to develop
it.
10. • Travel through time with Michael the half
robot man, and join his effort to find how
the bullfighter was killed. Perhaps you could
Join our wiki use detective Ignatius’s magic ring to solve
the mystery. Meet Arianna Mc Vain the
blind champion swimmer. What would you
do if a killer of a Santa Claus entered your
home on Christmas Eve? How will the twin
boys use the magic powers Santa Claus
offered them as present? Susan is dying
leaving a message to her mother with two
words in it…Can tears become diamonds?!
Will Mr Thomas the florist return to his
family and four kids and give up on his bad
habit, losing his money playing cards? See if
Lif the kind dog is going to survive the
harshness of people and snowy Christmas
weather and see how Stephanie the
neglected girl turns out to be a fine and
famous fiction writer. Meet many more
exciting characters and travel to new worlds
by joining our project as readers. Feel free
to post your comments!
