Day 151- “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Philip Pullman

This is my last day of the week, and it was long since I worked my butt off during my prep to get my grading caught up and my plans ready for tomorrow. My English 12 classes watched a video on tunnel rats (soldiers who ventured into the VC tunnels) during the Vietnam War, jigsawed some articles on the tunnel rats, and discussed chapters 11-12. After all this, we had about 10 minutes of class remaining, which I gave them to start reading their assignment for tomorrow. My last period class thought it would be fun to sleep during the video instead of taking notes like they were told, so I turned the worksheet I had for them into a little quiz over the video. They were none to happy, but neither was I about their sleeping. Guess it ended up being a win-win for us all.

Creative writing was fun, well it usually is, but they seemed to really enjoy the writings I had for them today. The quick write was my favorite as it can be adapted for many different purposes. I'll post it below. After the quick write, they had to write on a family tradition they have with the stipulation that the reader had to feel like the were really there at the event.

Quick Write:

Answer the following questions to make a short story. You must answer them in the order below for the story to make sense. You have 15 minutes to answer these questions in complete detailed sentences.

• How long have you been driving?
• Where were you going?
• Describe the two people who are with you.
• Why did your car break down?
• When you decided to leave your car, how far did you walk?
• What were you looking for?
• Describe the spooky looking house you come to.
• When you knock, who answers the door?
• Why did you go inside?
• Why did you start to explore the house?
• When did you realize that something was following you?
• Describe the creature.
• While you were running away, you tripped and fell. What happened?
• Who all made it out of the house?
• As you run screaming for help, who stops to help you?
• Where did this person take you?
• Why did he take you there?
• What was the big surprise at the end of your story?