Creative writing lessons and ideas for the classroom

 The objective of this assignment is for students to examine how they view the American Dream and "sell" their version to the audience.  The assignment asks the students to explain the dream and define the pros and cons of following the American Dream.  There are more details on the attached handout.    The Great Gatsby is a novel centered on the American Dream.  It examines everything from the idealized version of the American Dream, how it is achieved, to the corruption of the American Dream.

SCRAPBOOK TO GENERATE IDEAS FOR COLLEGE ESSAY

 The purpose of this scrapbook is twofold: to get to know students as an icebreaker at the beginning of the school year; and to help students generate ideas for college essay topics.

• Use photographs, stickers, great quotations, magazine/internet photos, scrapbooking supplies, etc. to decorate your pages…
• Respond to the following writing prompts. Give each prompt its own page…you may handwrite neatly or word process…
• Feel free to create more pages if you wish for extra credit…
• Be sure to make a decorated cover page with a title for your scrapbook and give each page its own title…

  I assign students an essay after they have read a short (3 page) excerpt of Chistopher Columbus's reaction to the new world.  I assign this after the first  week of school, because Columbus is our first reading in American Literature, and because the assignment gives me insight into the lives of the students I teach.

I ask students to first read Columbus essay, and then write a two page typed essay (size 12 font, double spaced, Times New Roman) describing their own neighborhoods.  I ask them to assume that they are viewing their respective neighborhoods for the first time. 

 One of the biggest challenges I face is some students' lack of ability to write "formally".  It can be hard to quantify problems with the "casual" or "conversational" tone of their essays.  My mother, who taught for many years, gave me this helpful table that compares formal and casual writing styles.  The first page identifies common problems and the second page gives several examples.

This is a two-part project involving research, creative writing and group presentations.  It is a way to generate high-interest research and reading with a purpose.  Students select a historical person or time period they are particularly interested in.

To teach my creative writing students about making linebreak choices in their poetry, we spend a day talking about the differences between end-stopped lines and lines that end in enjambment.  We discuss the use of enjambment to create a faster, disjointed tone, as well as using enjambment in order to create "a line within a line" or double meaning --> this opens up a nice discussion about the difference between a line and a sentence in a poem.  We also discuss how end-stopped lines can create a calmer, steadier flow.  The class prior to this lesson, I have my students write a paragraph using descriptive, concrete details, sensory imagery, and similes and tell them to bring it to this next class.  This will factor in shortly.  I distribute a handout (see below) with a stanza from a Billy Collins poem (a nice, quiet, calm poem) and a stanza from a Rita Dove poem (a troubled, pained, violent poem), both with the linebreaks removed.