2. EXQUISITE CORPSE
a. Each table will be given a blank
piece of manila paper.
b. The first person holding the
paper will write a single line of
poetry at the top and folds this
part of the paper.
c. He then passes the paper to the
next person.
d. Without unfolding the paper,
the next person will write his
own line of poetry.
e. The procedure repeats until the
last person in the group has
written on the paper.
f. Once the poem is complete,
each group will read their work
to everyone.
4. Any writing, fiction,poetry, or non-
fiction,that goes outsidethe
bounds ofnormalprofessional,
journalistic,academic,and
technicalforms of literature.
6. Creative writing isguided more by
thewriter’s need to express feelings
and ideas thanby the restrictive
demands of factualand logical
progression of expository writing.
7. The best way to define creative
writingis to give a list of thingsthat
are and thatare notconsidered
creative writing.
8. Things that are “Creative Writing” Things that are Not“Creative Writing”
novels, poems, epics, short stories, screenplays,
songs, television scripts, etc.
academic writing, textbooks, journalism, and
technicalwriting
16. Whenyou first start teachingthe
class,it isbetteroff givingthe
students a short quizto determine
what they know andwhat you must
teach them inorder for them to
succeed.
17. You should be careful about how
you issueassignments.
18. Start with the small projects and
then work your way up.
30. write a letter to their
future self
write a letter to their
past self
31. how the world began
write about an
emotion without
stating the emotion
32. Choose two topics from the
curriculum guide. Create an
activity for the topics
reflecting any of the
strategies or prompt
presented. Create also an
assessment to measure the
performance of your
students.
Editor's Notes
Memoirs
Feature
Essay
Coz of description, vivid imagery and that calls for creativity
High school students in particular will feel more comfortable expressing themselves in an informal environment. Set up the desks in a circle. Allow your students to choose whether or not they want to share their writing. Let the students lead the discussions as much as possible.
For a fiction assignment, you could have your students rewrite a favorite story from the perspective of a different character. For a poetry assignment, you could have them describe a favorite place by its smell, sound and texture
Bring in a favorite poem or an excerpt from a story to demonstrate the kind of writing you assign.
Do the assignments yourself, and share your own writing with the students. By opening your own writing to the students, you can make them feel more comfortable sharing with you. They will also benefit from having the voice of a more seasoned writer.
When the class is first starting, the goal is to make your creative writing students feel comfortable expressing themselves. Once they feel comfortable, you can teach them lessons about writing tighter prose, using more creative imagery or whatever other writing techniques you may want to include.
Your curriculum and lesson plans should reflect the age and comprehension levels of your students so that you don't over-challenge them or fail to challenge them enough. Adults can have more freedom with what they write about while high school students will need to be monitored more closely.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when teaching creative writing is assuming that everyone in the class knows what a dangling modifier is -- or, even worse, what a noun is.
If you give your students specific assignments -- such as, Write about your favorite summer vacation -- you're going to stifle that creativity and your students won't have as much fun. This doesn't mean that you can't have any structure.
Even if the course is supposed to be geared toward writing short stories, you might want to begin with short-shorts to cover the basics of structure and storytelling. From there, you can make the assignments more complicated so your students can grow. Word of caution Keep the assignments flexible but not too open-ended. If students are given too little writing guidance, they will have trouble starting. If, on the other hand, they are given too formal a structure, they will not be able to loosen up and get creative.
Although plagiarism is never acceptable, derivative writing is. Some students may need to feel comfortable with a style of writing before making it their own.
1) Literary Telephone: Have each student write a brief descriptive paragraph, then pass it to the person on their left. Have that person translate the paragraph into boring, non-descriptive language, and fold the sheet down to cover the original paragraph. Pass to left; have the person fill in the descriptions. Wash, rinse, repeat, etc until it’s gone around the entire circle and is back to the original author. Have them read the first paragraph and the last one, and see how things have changed.
2) Mixing Up Metaphors: As a class, put every overused metaphor or simile you can think of on the board (quick as a fox, strong as an ox, cold as ice, swift as a river, etc). Then, erase the last word and replace it with something unexpected (quick as an ER waiting room, strong as a diamond, cold as a doctor’s hands, etc). It’s a fun exercise and teaches students to avoid cliches.
3) Raising Voices: Write down a character’s name, age, and occupation; give a character to each student. Have them write a first-person monologue in the voice of that person. (Example: Lisa Topaz, 46, Green Peace Organizer; what does this character sound like? What about Susie Johnson, 4, preschooler, or Jonathan Miller, 63, preacher?)
#1 – Exquisite Corpse
You will need at least two writers for this exercise, and the more the merrier. Feel free to mix ages—that can liven things up!
Start with blank sheets of paper. Ask each writer to write a single line of poetry at the top of the page. You might want to remind them not to worry about rhyming. You also might want to time them. A short amount of time will encourage creativity and discourage self-doubt.
Once everyone has written a single line, everybody needs to fold their papers over so that no one can read what they’ve written. They then pass their papers to the next person in the group. Receiving a new piece of paper, without unfolding anything, each writer adds one line to the poem. Again, fold the paper over and then pass it to the next person.
If you have a small group, you might want to go around more than once. If you have a large group, you do not need to go all the way around, especially if you are working with young writers and short attention spans. Once the poems are completed, have someone read them aloud. This usually leads to laughter, and once in a while, you get a poem that makes some sense, eerily enough!
#2 – Description and Connection
This can be done with one or more writers!
Choose two objects. Try to choose two objects that don’t have any obvious connections with each other: worm and crayon, cucumber and hat, doll and phone book.
Show your writer(s) one of the objects, and ask them to describe the object in as much detail as possible. You might want to time them. A time limit adds a sense of adventure to the exercise.
Once they’ve finished with the first object, show them the second object and ask them to do the same, beginning with a new paragraph.
Then, give them a new sheet of paper, and looking at the two paragraphs they’ve just written, ask them to write a third paragraph about how these two objects are connected. This may be easy for some writers, and some writers will claim that there is no connection, but encourage them that there is always a connection!
Once everyone is done writing, it can be fun to share those third paragraphs with the group, to see how many different connections two seemingly unconnected objects can have!
#3 – The Last Shall Be First
This is a great exercise to do with one writer, but of course, it can be done with a group too!
Give your young writer a sheet of lined paper, with a single line of poetry written on about the 12th line. This line can be from a famous poem or something you make up. It doesn’t matter! Then, ask your writer to write a poem that ends with this line. He or she can work backwards, or start at the beginning and try to steer a poem toward that ending line!
#5 – Grab Bag
This is one activity to keep on hand to pull out on rainy days! Write or print many words on small pieces of paper, and put them all in a hat, bag, or envelope. Use unusual words, ones that your young writer knows, but doesn’t necessarily use on a daily basis.
Examples could include: axe, daisy, moon, bury, candle, skip, flicker, sting, and knot. Ask your young writer to, without looking, choose three words from the hat. Then give him or her sixty seconds to write a poem using those three words.
#5 – Grab Bag
This is one activity to keep on hand to pull out on rainy days! Write or print many words on small pieces of paper, and put them all in a hat, bag, or envelope. Use unusual words, ones that your young writer knows, but doesn’t necessarily use on a daily basis.
Examples could include: axe, daisy, moon, bury, candle, skip, flicker, sting, and knot. Ask your young writer to, without looking, choose three words from the hat. Then give him or her sixty seconds to write a poem using those three words.
4) Bait and Switch: Write a flash fiction piece about an argument between a mother and a daughter. Almost every time, students will write about it from the viewpoint of the daughter. Then, have them re-write it from the viewpoint of the mother.
5) Life is Not Like a Box of Chocolates: Replace “chocolates” with something they do think life is like, and write about why.
6) Red Bicycles, Blue Seas: Pick a color and write about a memory associated with that color.
7) Triptych: Choose three physical objects you own, and write a flash piece about why each one is important to you. Don’t try to connect the flash pieces to one another.
8) Found Poetry: Have students bring their cameras to school and spend a class period walking around the campus (or surrounding town, if possible), taking pictures of signs, labels, notes, etc that they come across. Compile the words and phrases into a list, and have them construct poems using nothing but those words and phrases. For an extra challenge, give them a topic their poem has to be about (love, the environment, passing of time, loss, etc). Also optional: Creating a collage from the pictures they took that tells the poem.
9) Four-Sense Food Sonnets: Blindfold each student and hand them a plastic sandwich baggie with food in it. (I used kiwi slices, peanuts, chocolate-covered raisin, pickles, and stuff like that– be sure to check for food allergies and restrictions first.) For five minutes, they should taste, smell, feel, listen to their food items without knowing what they look like. After five minutes, they can take off the blindfolds and write sonnets about their foods, being as descriptive as possible but without including a physical description.
10) No-Send Letters: Write a letter (or letters) to someone (or someones) that you know you’ll never send.
11) In Transit: Write about a time you (or a character) were walking, flying, running, or biking somewhere, why it was important, and what you (or the character) were feeling as you moved.
12) This I Believe: Write an essay, fiction piece, or poem based on the NPR series.
15) Something Beautiful, Something Ugly: This one takes about three class periods. For the first one, freewrite on what you think makes something beautiful and what you think makes something ugly (half the class period for each). For the second one, let loose in the school or go outside, and turn on your “macro” lenses to look at as many tiny details as possible, taking extensive notes as you do so. For the third, focus on the objects you took notes on and write two creative responses, one on something beautiful and one on something ugly that you found.
16) Write About Names: Where yours came from, or where you wish it came from. Who you’re named after. Who your father, mother, neighbor is named after. Odd names. Nicknames. Street names. Family names. What you wished you were named. Why they’re important, why they’re not important. Write about names.
23) How the World Began: Peruse animated creation myths from around the world via The Big Myth website, then write your own.
24) Write about an emotion without stating the emotion. Avoid stereotypical responses to the emotion as well; if you character is sad, convey it in a different way than making them cry, or if they’re happy, show it some way besides them smiling or laughing.