Week 5 - Creative Writing

So for Week 5 (the first week after the Eid break), I took 2B as my home-class. This was a continuation of what I was doing before the break.

I finished all the presentations on comparatives/superlatives (which was a continuation from me teaching Adjectives before the break) with them first before moving into this new topic. And to wrap-up the presentations, I asked them to vote for the best presentation by writing down which group they thought was the best and why. This was actually to make them use comparative/superlatives individually, and to train them to express their own opinions on a subject (though I doubt they realized that). I SPECIFICALLY mentioned that I will decide on the best group based on the votes and my own observations. And that they should be honest with their judgments. 

(a sample of one of the votes)

After that, I started with the new lesson - CREATIVE WRITING~~~~ (^ w ^)

I did a micro-teaching session in Auckland on creative writing before. So I kinda just recycled the lesson from that one. I made some drawings to explain the essential elements in a narrative. 

I was a bit worried if the kids weren't into these story-telling stuff. But to my absolute amazement, they digg-ed it!! Yay~~!!! 

I remembered how the elementary schools in Auckland have story-telling sessions with the kids to develop listening, speaking and reading skills. I did more or less the same thing but minus the reading. I used the pictures I drew above, and sat in front of the kids (they were sitting on the floor as I did this lesson in the media room - a.k.a LAC) and showed them the first paper. I elicited responses from the kids by asking,

"Now, what can you see in this first picture?"

And they would say stuff like,

"Skinny man!"

"Sun"

"Big circle head!"

I tried to correct them where necessary, like, "big, ROUND head". And of course, praises are useful to get them to shout more creative words out. I reminded them that they did a good job by using adjectives and that adjectives are important in order to make their audience understand more clearly about their writing as they cannot use pictures in essays.

And the session continued with them describing each picture while anticipating what the next picture would unveil. Honestly, they were totally into it (> w <)

And to have them apply these steps, I told them to write a short narrative using the plot that I have drawn. Alternatively, they can come up with their own plot but just be sure that they apply all the steps we've discussed earlier. Before they started writing, I also discussed what sort of language elements they should use in narratives (past tense, adjectives).

And the results were absolutely incredible! These kids really are creative and they like being creative. Here's a sample of one of the products,

Cute, huh :p