Creating Believable Charecters.

At the heart of every great story is an amazing character. The students spent three days developing their characters. They gave characters struggles that they had to overcome. Heidi’s character a one legged cat is constantly teased at school. Kai’s character is kicked out of his house and has to find a place to live. We also spent time discussing how writers put pieces of themselves in their characters. So some of our characters share similar traits or struggles that we ourselves share.

The piece you see is Jack Frisbie’s. He was working on developing the outside and inside of his character. The outside characteristics are what he/she looks like on the outside: brown shirt, freckles and handsome. The inside characteristics are who the character is as a person. Jack’s character is nice, respectful and helpful.

These writers job is to take these characters on a journey. The characters will experience challenges and setbacks until eventually they overcome their obstacle and become a different person.

WRITING FICTION: BIG DREAMS AND TALL AMBITIONS

In Writer’s Workshop the students have been writing non-fiction stories. Writing make believe stories is challenging for students. In their mind their stories are rich, creative and feel pages. Getting these larger than life moments down on paper is overwhelming. The major focus of the unit is to move kids away from telling stories to showing them. A telling story reads, “There was a kid who was fighting zombies. Than the zombies attacked the kids became president and the zombies were destroyed.” The story zooms by. Showing requires students to zoom in on powerful moments and describe them in detail. The writer than puts these small moment scenes together in order to create a story.

WRITERS WORKSHOP

We have started a unit on writing non-fiction stories. We have been looking inspiration in small moments. The idea is that stories can be hidden in the corner of our lives. Students are writing stories based on unusual shadows, mysterious footsteps and even family stories. Students are than plotting out story outlines that string small moment scenes to tell a story. The class is excited about their work. We cannot wait to share are writing with you.

PROJECT TIME

The class has been looking at the concept of activism. We are currently looking at Animal Activism and more specifically the issue of big cat extinction. The students have been looking at the problems facing Big Cats. We also have been working on understanding some possible solutions. We are trying to devise a plan on how to spread are message and intact change on the issue.

Discussing activism has also been connected to many interesting current event topics. The occupy movement in the United States and the current issues in Egypt have been discussed. Students are also looking at the different forms of Activism-Violent and Non-violent.