Day+09+-+Getting+Unstuck

** Day Title: ** Getting Unstuck ** Lesson Outcome:  ** Students will be able to: o Learn new activities for generating writing ideas o Work with a group of peers o Practice their improvisational skills o Utilize basic grammar knowledge o Create a piece of writing based on unformed/rough ideas ** Standards:  ** CE 1.1.2 - Know and use a variety of prewriting strategies to generate, focus, and organize ideas. CE 1.2.2 - Write, speak, and visually represent to develop self-awareness and insight. CE 1.3.7 - Participate collaboratively and productively in groups - fulfilling roles and responsibilities, posing relevant questions, giving and following instructions, acknowledging and building on ideas and contributions of others to answer questions or to solve problems, and offering dissent courteously. ** Materials Needed: ** laminated pictures, a handful of the teacher's "bad" poems cut into lines, legal-size paper, writing utensil, blank self-made “mad-libs” ** Launch: ** Class Discussion about “getting unstuck” § Write on the board or on an overhead: “When you have writer’s block, how do you get unstuck?” § Ask students to think for a moment and then talk with the person next to them § Give them five minutes or so   § Come together as a class to share their answers – eight minutes or so    § Introduce the stations that are set up around the room ** Learning Activity:  ** Students have ten minutes at each station. //Storyboard//: Students work together to tell a story through the use of an assortment of unrelated pictures. Each student chooses one picture. A student needs to volunteer to begin, weaving his/her picture into a story. Students do not need to go in any particular order, just jump in when they believe they can effectively weave their picture into the story. //“Bad” Poetry//: Students can work in pairs or individually. The purpose of this activity is to rearrange snippets of a poem to create a new poem. The students may cut up and use “bad” poems they wrote or they may use the snippets of my “bad” poems. // Mad-Libs //: Students fill in the blanks with the appropriate type of word, i.e. noun, plural noun, verb, adjective, etc. // StoryJump //: Students work together to write a short story one sentence at a time. The catch? They can only see the sentence written immediately before theirs. · Step 1: Student A writes the first two sentences of the story then folds the paper so only the second sentence shows. · Step 2: Student B writes one sentence and folds the paper so only his/her sentence shows · Repeat step 2 until each student has a turn. (Students may each go twice to produce a longer story.) ** Assessment:  ** Students may take a rough piece of writing, idea, or some other form of inspiration from one or more of the station activities to develop into a finished piece of writing. § They could expand upon their mad-libs story or their storyjump story, adding information and details. § They could re-write their own "bad" poetry or re-write "bad" poetry from a classmate or poet of their choice. § They can use any genre of writing i.e. short story, poetry, comics, drama, etc.
 * Unit Title: **__Hard Love__ by Ellen Wittlinger

Mad-Libs: A Familiar Fairytale? ( Fill in the first column and then the second column. Some answers are used more than once, I noted these with numbers. For example the same noun should be used for all "Noun 2" blanks.)

Noun ­­­­­­­­­­­_________________________ Name 1 _________________________ Noun _________________________ Noun _________________________ Verb (past tense) _____________________ Type of Liquid 1 _____________________ Type of Liquid 1 __________________ Adjective _________________________ Type of Liquid 1 _____________________ Adjective _________________________ Type of Liquid 1 _____________________ Adjective _________________________ Verb (past tense) _____________________ Adjective _________________________ Noun 2 _________________________ Adjective _________________________ Adjective _________________________ Adjective _________________________ Noun 2 _________________________ Verb (past tense) _____________________ Place/Location _______________________ Noun 3 _________________________ Adjective _________________________ Noun 3 _________________________ Adjective _________________________ Noun 3 _________________________ Adjective _________________________ Noun 4 _________________________ Noun 1 _________________________ Noun 2 _________________________ Name 1 _________________________ Noun 3 (plural) _______________________ Name 1 _________________________ Noun 4 _________________________ Phrase/Expression ____________________ Verb (past tense) _____________________

Mad-Libs: A Familiar Fairytale? Once upon a time, there was a little _____________ named_____________. She went for a walk in the _____________. Pretty soon, she came upon a _____________. She _____________, but no one answered. So, she walked right in. At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of_____________. She tasted the _____________ from the first bowl. "This is too_____________!" she exclaimed. So, she tasted the _____________from the second bowl. "This is too _____________," she said. So, she tasted the last bowl of _____________. "Ahhh, this is _____________, just the way I like it" she said happily and she _____________ it all up. After she ate, she decided she was feeling a little _____________. So, she walked into the living room where she saw three _____________. Goldilocks sat on the first one. "This is too _____________!" she exclaimed. So she sat on the second one." This is too _____________!" she whined. So she tried the last one."Ahhh, this is _____________," she sighed. But just as she sat down, the _____________ _____________! She was very tired by this time, so she went to the _____________. She lay down on the first _____________, but it was too _____________. Then she lay on the second _____________, but it was too _____________. Then she lay on the third _____________ and it was _____________. She fell asleep. As she slept, the three _____________ arrived. They found their _____________, _____________, and _____________, asleep on their _____________. Just then, _____________ woke up and saw the three _____________. She screamed, "________________________!" And she _____________, running for her life. THE END