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Topics - Sophie

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Creative Writing / Critiquing Short Stories
« on: May 01, 2012, 02:31:30 AM »
      We've been writing critiques for a long time, however in almost all cases, we critique academic papers instead of stories. In this class I want to introduce students how to critique short stories, and target students could be intermediate or higher level EFL or ESL learners.
      Generally speaking, critiquing short stories can seem to many people like an entirely subjective exercise, because people might judge others' stories only by their own preference. While it is true that different readers are likely to react to stories differently, the fact of the matter is that there are technical, objective criteria you can use to analyze and critique short stories.
       I found an interesting website introducing the techniques of critiquing short stories, and I want to apply this in this writing class I might teach in the future.
      The website is: http://www.ehow.com/how_4421613_critique-short-story.html
   
     ;)


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General Writing Resources / Creative Writing: Short Stories
« on: April 29, 2012, 07:43:11 PM »
    Creative writing is anything where the purpose is to express thoughts, feelings and emotions rather than to simply convey information. Since creative writing could be a general term, I think it's better for teachers to focus on one aspect every time when training students' creativity in writing. I'll focus on creative writing of short stories.
    Apparently, some techniques of story writing could be very different from other academic writings. I found a website on which 10 tips of writing short stories are listed. They are:
       
  • Get Started: Emergency Tips
  • Write a Catchy First Paragraph
  • Develop Your Characters
  • Choose a Point of View
  • Write Meaningful Dialogue
  • Use Setting and Context
  • Set up the Plot
  • Create Conflict and Tension
  • Build to a Crisis or a Climax
  • Deliver a Resolution
  On this website(http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/shortstory/), it also shows the detailed tips to help creative writers making their short stories more attractive. These could be useful instructions for students to get acquainted with short story writing. The target students are intermediate or higher level  ESL or EFL learners.
  Writing stories could be a good way to train students' creativity. Furthermore, teachers could give students some classic short stories to read in class , which will not only improve students' reading ability, but also let them learn writing techniques from these classic works.  :book
 

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Creative Writing / Practice Day:Creative Writing with Visual Images
« on: February 28, 2012, 01:46:07 PM »
Main ideas: Using students imagination and creativity to raise their interest in writing.

Target students: Intermediate or higher level EFL or ESL students (That depends on the materials we use.)

Materials we use: 
The Dark Knight- Joker Interrogation Scene Spoof
         
                           
                              http://pacejmiller.com/guide-to-creative-writing/
                               
                              http://creativitygames.net/random-word-generator/randomwords/4

                              Snow White: Dramatic Death Plot (The video's owner prevents external embedding)

The creative writing activities could be used frequently in writing classes and last for 5 minutes for each class. In that way students could practice their creativity and free writing skills step by step.  :book

-----Evance and Sophie




                     
                             

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Harry Potter Lessons! / Harry Potter lesson: reading and thinking together
« on: February 02, 2012, 02:37:53 AM »
    Chapter one of Harry Potter is only the beginning part of the whole story, but it’s already attractive enough to draw readers’ attention to this special boy and the mysterious things around him. J.K.Rowling is very good at using suspense: she leaves a lot of hints for readers to guess what kind of unexpected things will happen on Harry. The reading class based on this chapter could make use of the hints, and practice students’ creative thinking ability through reading.
    Reading is not only seeing through the words, sentences and discourses. Effective reading should be along with readers’ own process of thinking. In this class, we could use “What might happen?” as a possible topic. Students can be separated into groups of 4 or 5, discussing how to use the known information to imagine or guess what will happen in the following story. Before the discussion part, teacher could give students some suggestions about how to connect the small parts together, and how to make predictions from a general point of view. And in that way, students will also cultivate the ability of reading and thinking coherently.   :D

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