Please tell !!

[curieuse]

What's the best writing assignment you've ever had?


I'm trying to think of good things to keep smart kids writing.

Comments

[koreansal.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I always hated writing...even as an English major.

[dreamweaver15.livejournal.com]

After watching Dead Poets Society in 10th grade Mr. Slight put Whitman's O Me! O Life! on the board and asked us what our verse would be. That was probably one of the best assignments ever.

[tiarafetish.livejournal.com]

I had a writing assignment that was to write about an opinion you hold that is unpopular, or a prejudice that you have, and why you feel that way. It was interesting.

[evil-holls.livejournal.com]

in 8th grade we had to bring in song lyrics that were examples of metaphor and simile. It was great to go through my favorite songs and bring in something for the class to listen to. perhaps you could expand upon that?

[bandersnatch-02.livejournal.com]

Somewhat related: I asked each student to think of a piece of music that they found strongly emotionally resonant in some way (preferably an instrumental piece, or one that didn't have lyrics that were too obtrusive or dominant) and then I'd ask them to sit down and start writing as soon as the song started, and write for the entire duration -- whatever scene or image popped into their head (again, preferably not too literal...a breakup scene for a breakup song, for example, would be way too easy or obvious). If they felt moved to keep writing once the song was over, then fine. I was just interested to see what kinds of things were generated. I asked them to write the song title and artist at the top of the page. (Depressingly, not only had I never heard of most of the songs, I'd barely even heard of the bands!)

[tleex.livejournal.com]

Once, my favorite English teacher of all time made us write about our scars and how we got them. It was a fun assignment.

[bandersnatch-02.livejournal.com]

A couple I used for creative writing that were great for generating ideas:

1) Come up with ten outlines for stories. Nothing too detailed...simply a paragraph that summarizes the main action of the story. (As the semester progressed, most students would crib from their lists and the strongest two or three ideas would eventually materialize as stories, in a Darwinistic kind of way.)

2) I (the instructor) would write one-line summaries for characters on slips of paper and drop in them in a box. (Things like "The Immaculately Dressed Man On The Subway, His Nails Bitten Down To The Quick" or "The Girl Who Prays for Everyone Else's Prayers Not To Come True") and then I'd pass the box around and have the students pull out a 'character' and, for homework, generate a more detailed outline of the story that they might eventually write about the character -- beginning, middle, end. A list of scenes. Etc.

[word-herder.livejournal.com]

My favorite writing assignments in high school centered around pictures. My English teacher would cut pictures out of magazines and tape them to the chalkboard. "Write about the picture," she'd say. What do you mean? someone would whine. "Write anything. What's the story in this picture? You can use any style you wish. Now...go."

[need4cognition.livejournal.com]

Errm.

Probably -

"What I did on my summer vacation"

[theoneinblue.livejournal.com]

probably one of my favorites was an exercise in mimicry/satire - taking a poem that I admired, and trying to mimic it, using my own material, or taking a poem or song and writing a satirical version of it...variations on W.C.W.'s plums-in-the-fridge poem, rewriting my high school's stick-in-the-mud alma mater, that sort of thing...I also liked working off other stories and writing a new chapter or an epilogue or a prequel chapter of some sort...or taking a picture and trying to write as descriptive a paragraph as I could about it...um, trying to think of more...what age group are we talking about?

[curieuse.livejournal.com]

7th to 10th grade -- gifted

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the "Story in a Bag" project I did last year. It requires people to write a short story in one hour or less, and the story must use the following elements (randomly grabbed from separate bags):

. An image.
. A plot element.
. A character trait.
. A setting element.

I wrote something that I later turned into a story that I really like! Participants learn about how creativity works and that the magic of writing can be stoked.

Chris

[ellie717.livejournal.com]

Freshman year of college Brit lit - took it 'cause I had already had Brit lit in high school - yes, I voluntarily studied the Green Knight and all that TWICE. For extra credit we were asked to take an issue we were currently experiencing in life and write it with all the elements of a classic fairytale (as defined by the class discussion on famous fairytales). So I, for example, wrote about battling home sickness, the freshman-15, peer pressure, etc but all under the symbolism of dragons and ogres and and evil queens and such.....

[geosh.livejournal.com]

Six sentence autobiography.

[curieuse.livejournal.com]

Six sentence or six word?