Teaching Creative Writing: A Sixteen Week Lesson Plan
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About this ebook
Do you need some yawn-proof and sleep-proof writing exercises to get your students to actively participate? Then this book is for you, as it is very complete and is designed to be taught over 16 weeks. It can, of course, be taught in less, by combining some of the lessons into one week. So it would work with an 8-week or 12-week course schedule.
The book includes many creative writing exercises to get the creative juices flowing, and is a more understandable and comprehensible textbook than those of its competitors. Various types of paragraph development, and stories to rewrite are all designed to get the students’ creative juices flowing, and have proved to be quite beneficial to students of various writing levels.
Learn to eliminate writers’ block and to creatively express one’s thoughts through creative writing.
Valerie Hockert has taught creative writing at a college level for many years, and has a PhD in Literary Studies.
Valerie Hockert, PhD
Valerie Hockert, was born in the Midwest where she has lived all her adult life. She has had much life experience through her various entrepreneurial life. She has a Master's Degree in Liberal Studies, and a PhD in Literary Studies. Dr. Hockert has been teaching at a college level for many years. She was the first publisher of the Writers' Journal and Today's Family, two national publications. She is also a certified personal trainer, great chef, and the Publisher of an e-magazine: www.realitytodayforum.com.
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Teaching Creative Writing - Valerie Hockert, PhD
TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING:
A Sixteen Week Lesson Plan
Plus Hundreds of Writing Ideas
By
Valerie Hockert
~~~
Smashwords Edition
Valerie Hockert
CollProf@aol.com
Copyright: © 2012 by Valerie Hockert All rights reserved
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of author.
SMASHWORDS EDITION, LICENSE NOTES. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Valerie Hockert has numerous books published, over 100 articles, and has worked as a publisher and editor. She is also an English College Professor.
INTRODUCTION
Often I find that people are interested in writing, but don't know how to get started or how to get their creative juices
flowing. While teaching Creative Writing courses in a local community college, I experimented with various methods and obtained some interesting results. I designed the class to help the student get his/her creative juices
flowing.
I presented to the students many sources for ideas, exercises to get them started, rewriting exercises, and how to avoid writer’s block. I designed various creative writing exercises, including different types of paragraph development, and stories to rewrite, all designed to get their creative juices
flowing.
The members of the classes I taught represented various age level--from 18 to 60--and were of various writing levels. Since this was the case, I found that the exercises I used (included in this book) had various results, but nevertheless, were beneficial to most students.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
LESSON ONE
LESSON TWO
LESSON THREE
LESSON FOUR
LESSON FIVE
LESSON SIX
LESSON SEVEN
LESSON EIGHT
LESSON NINE
LESSON TEN
LESSON ELEVEN
LESSON TWELVE
LESSON THIRTEEN
LESSON FOURTEEN
LESSON FIFTEEN
LESSON SIXTEEN
BONUS
CONCLUSION
LESSON ONE
Introductions: First introduce yourself, and tell of your past writing experiences, educational background, and any other writing-related experience.
Then have each student in turn introduce himself/herself. Instruct them to say their name, why they are taking the class, their interest in writing, and any writing experience.
You may discover that most of the students may seem to find writing an outlet and expression for emotions and frustrations.
After the introductions, they will most likely be anxious to start writing and to analyze their writing ability, so start with the basic writing exercise below.
Basic Exercise: Choose a chair in the room for them to write about. Instruct them to use their imagination and write about anything connected with the chair. For example: how it got there, the chair is an antique, or the chair as a childhood favorite. Have them write a paragraph of at least five sentences. Give them 15 minutes to complete the assignment. Then have each student read his/her paragraph aloud, and invite comments from the other students. Since this is a first exercise, you may find that your students may be quite conservative in their comments, as well as in their writing.
Second Basic Exercise. Ask the student to write a paragraph describing where they'd like to live happily ever after.
For example: someplace where the weather is nice, a favorite vacation spot, at home, or even in outer space. Again have the students read them aloud. This time you may find that your students are a little more liberal in their comments as well as in their writing.
Some students may feel at this point that they have had enough writing and sharing for one class session, so the rest of the class time, you can talk of where they can get ideas for writing. As you go through the following list, invite comments from your students.
LESSON TWO
Where and How to Get Ideas
Where and how to get ideas is important for a writer's success, because without new and interesting ideas, it's hard to spark a reader’s interest.
Some places to look for fresh ideas are listed.
Yourself. A special job, a unique personal experience you've had, special interests, hobbies or places you've been, are all good sources for ideas.
Other People. Their special skills, hobbies, how problems can be solved, or an outstanding achievement, can be great topics to write on.
Family. Your family may be a great source for ideas. And many of you may have families that you could write soap operas on. Articles on HIV, coping with HIV within the family and school, step-parent families, teenage suicide, chemical dependency, self-esteem--these are all great topics to write on.
TV. Soap Operas are a great source for ideas and characterizations. Not that you need to get hooked on the soap operas. But even just watching one episode can help, whether daytime or evening (such as: Passions,
but also CSI,
Without a Trace,
Law & Order
). You can get ideas for dialogue, learn what subjects are of great social concern (such as: HIV, abortion, chemical dependency), and how people really do handle these difficult situations, as well as actual related dialogue.
Movies. Movies can be a good source too. Even though some movies are quite unrealistic, watching movies can give one ideas that can help portray a fantasy world.
Work. Many people have work situations, or work with people who have great accomplishments and successes, or work with very unusual people. These people can also be great sources for stories, articles, and books.
Newspapers. There are many ideas that can surface by reading news stories. A follow-up could be written, or perhaps you could present the other side of the issue.
Many times when reading through a newspaper, you may think that the writer or reporter didn't say anything about___________. You could probably present that side of the issue. You could also write follow-ups to many stories. For example: a house fire. We always hear about the fire, but what happens to the occupants six months later? How do they piece their lives back together? A follow-up could be written on that, and would be a great human interest story
Magazines. After reading an article, you may want to write a different viewpoint on the topic. Or write about the topic with a different slant for another market. When you read various articles, you may think that the article could be presented in a different way. You could write that.
Just reading through other magazines of course, can give one ideas for other writing.
Advertisments. Signs, billboards, television, radio, and printed ads may inspire an idea for a story.
Signs. Check out those flashing signs with the flashing message that you see at smaller shopping centers or banks. The ones at banks are of particular interest because many times they advertise interest rates for a loan or a money market, yet the message flashes by so fast that one is almost off the road turning one's neck to read the message. These messages seem to flash at a third grade reading level. Yet, who with only a third grade reading level would be interested in what interest rates one can get on the money market? This could make for an interesting piece, first doing some research to discover what speed these messages actually flash at, and then how the speed is determined. Another perspective could be from an advertising standpoint—are these signs a waste of money?--another viewpoint on the same topic.
Billboards. These can inspire ideas for different pieces of writing.. You could write from an artistic viewpoint, a grammatical viewpoint, or any other viewpoint that you choose. An example is that there seems to be a trend to the two-color billboard from the multi-color one. An essay could be written from an artistic standpoint. Then there were the Kemps cows: remember all the different types of cows? That could inspire an idea for a children's story! Then there are billboards that don't make any sense (like one that says a revolutionary event is about to happen! What event?). Billboards with misspellings!--now there's an idea from a grammatical viewpoint. If you travel to Florida or southern Texas, you may see many billboards with misspelled words.
Television Ad. Remember the Wendy's ad with the woman who said Where The Beef?
There were a lot of follow-ups on that commercial and what was behind it. (If you remember, it gave the Where's the Beef?
woman a lot of publicity). You could select a particular commercial and write