I myself love to read and write in my spare time, and I was able to include this passion into my teaching practicum. I tried to provide diverse open-ended writing activities for my students that enabled them to use their imagination in hopes of sparking their passion for writing as well as exhibiting my own love for writing. One of the assignments that I felt was particularly successful in getting the students motivated and excited about writing while encouraging a great deal of creative thinking was at the end of our fairytales unit. Over the course of the unit I had read them many original and alternate versions of fairytales with accompanying writing activities. The whole unit was very engaging and had my students writing in different genres, such as letters, persuasive writing, character and scene descriptive writing, recounts, narratives, and procedural writing, as well as getting them to write from the different perspectives of various characters. For example, we had read both original and alternate versions of The Three Little Pigs. The alternate version, The True Story of The Three Little Pigs, written from the wolf’s perspective, had the students think critically about whether the wolf was indeed the bad guy, as suggested in the original fairytale, or if he was innocent as portrayed in the wolf’s version. The students discussed with a small group, as well as with the larger class, to decide who they think was more at fault in the story and why. I then gave them a Wanted Poster graphic organizer for them to create their own profile of who they thought the villain was. Most students chose either the third pig or the wolf as the villain, and then they got to draw a picture, describe why this character was at fault, offer a reward for the villain’s capture, and describe what they had found at the crime scene. The students were very engaged and the range of scenes they described really showed how creatively they had been thinking. Two of my students really liked the Wanted Poster concept and decided to make a few more wanted posters describing video game characters and villains they created themselves.
The students were always very engaged during the reading of alternate fairytales and often enjoyed them more than the originals so I decided to use concept of fractured fairytales for a final project at the end of the unit. Finally, after reading numerous alternate versions of fairytales I had them write their own fractured fairytale, using elements from the fairytales they had read throughout the unit. I began this activity by giving the students a graphic organizer to help them plan their stories. This proved to be useful as when it came to writing, it ensured that the students would not miss a part of their plot and gave them a clear idea of where their story was headed once they started writing. For those who have more difficulty with writing, I discussed their ideas with them and then encouraged them to draw pictures instead and try to label or use as many describing words beside their pictures as they could. The students loved this activity and many of them wanted to keep working on their stories in following writing blocks and in free time. At the end of the activity they were able to share their stories with a partner, and the students loved having an audience to show all their hard work and creative ideas too.
