Writers know that the first idea isn’t always the best one.  In this lesson, students are challenged to come up with three different ideas for writing about the current Mystery Picture.  They then follow through by writing a story based on the option they think has the most potential.

Instructions:

1.  Share the most current Mystery Picture with students.  It can be found by clicking on the Top Link Mystery Images and then on the Mystery Image link near the bottom of the page.

2.  Ask students what the image is about.  Student responses must include setting, a character, and a source of conflict.  For example:

• This picture is about a middle-aged artist from Pennsylvania who suddenly discovers that she can no longer paint anything except trees.
• Or, this picture is about a boy from India who woke up every night just in time to see the shadow of an unusual insect crawl across his window.

3.  You can generate ideas like this during a class discussion or you can ask students, after a couple of examples, to generate lists of their own.

4.  Students record the three ideas they think have the most story potential.  Then, they write a 10-20 sentence story based on one of the ideas.

Download Student Response Sheet for this Lesson:  Looking for Options

Comments about this lesson or ideas for extending it are welcome below.

In this lesson, students read the background information for the picture Dragon Path, found on the Picture Gallery page.  Then they brainstorm kinds of conflicts suggested by the picture.  Next, they write a 10-20 sentence story that tells what this picture is about, using conflict as an essential ingredient.  Finally, students write a two-sentence note explaining why John Macpherson sent this story to Anna Stolyarski.

Instructions:

1.  Share the picture Dragon Path (found on the Picture Gallery page) with students:

Dragon Path Picture

2.  Remind students that conflict is at the heart of any story.  Ask students to brainstorm the kinds of conflict the picture suggests.  Make a list of student ideas.

3.  If you’d like, you can discuss with students the difference between a vignette and story.  Explain to them that their assignment is to write a vignette or story based on the picture.  It should include one or two kinds of conflict that are suggested by the picture.  The writing should also be in the spirit of the other stories on the web site, written as if it might have been penned by John Macpherson.

4.  When students have finished the story, they complete the assignment by writing a two-sentence explanation for why this story was sent to Anna Stolyarski.

5.  Finally, when students have completed the explanation, they may pair/share their work with others or with the entire class.

6.  If desired, during a follow-up lesson, students may go through the steps of the revising/editing process and then post their stories online.

Download Student Response Sheet for this Lesson:  Using Conflict

Comments about this lesson or ideas for extending it are welcome below.

Good writing evokes emotion.  This lesson helps students focus on the emotional impact of text.  Students are asked to read three selections and list words that describe how the selection makes them feel.  As an optional activity, students select an emotion they’d like to focus on and use that emotion to write a story for a picture in the picture gallery.

Instructions:

1.  Introduce the lesson by reading passages from books or magazines that evoke strong emotional responses.  Ask students what the passages have in common. Help them understand that the author is purposely evoking feelings such as fear, exhilaration, sadness, apprehension, etc.  Help students understand that this is one of the characteristics of good writing.

2.  Brainstorm, with students, a list of emotions that readers might feel while reading a passage.  Besides the emotions listed above, the list might can include feelings such as fear, anger, guilt, pride, depression, anxiety, envy, jealousy, love, hope, gratitude, happiness, shame, and frustration.

3.  Hand out copies of student response sheet W2: Get Emotional.  Review the sheet with students.  Let them know they’ll be reading several short passages and identifying the emotions the passages make them feel.  Students may list from one to four emotions for each.  If there are more, they should try to choose the four predominant emotions.

4.  Give students about 20 minutes to work on this part of the lesson.  Then, have them pair/share.  Finally, you can have a few students share their responses with the class and see whether the captions/stories evoked the same kinds of emotions in most readers.

5.  As a followup activity, have students pick out one picture they’d like to write about.  After they choose an emotion they think is appropriate for the picture, they can write a caption/story for one of the picture.  Then they can share their writing with a partner and see if the partner can guess the emotion they were trying to convey.  After the writing is peer edited and represents the student’s best work, the student may go ahead and submit the post online.

Download Student Response Sheet for this Lesson:  Get Emotional

Comments about this lesson or ideas for extending it are welcome below.

Good writing is sometimes described as “writing that someone else wants to read.” In this lesson, students read several writing selections.  Then, they rank  the selections in order from the one they liked the most to the one they liked the least and write about the reasons for their rankings.

Instructions:

1.  Introduce the lesson by having a short class discussion to develop a working definition for good writing.  Keep track of student ideas on chart paper, a whiteboard, or document camera.  If you’d like, lead students to a definition along the lines of “good writing is something that someone else wants to read.” Then, ask students to develop a list of ideas that makes writing something “someone else wants to read.”

2.  Hand out student response sheet (W1) and review the sheet with students.  Let students know that today they’ll be looking at several short writing selections.  Student task is to:

• Select five favorite selections
• List the selections, in order, from the one they like best to the one they like least
• Write about the top two selections and explain why these two are at the top of their list.

3.   Direct students to the Picture Gallery page.  Tell them they’ll have 30 minutes to look at the pictures and complete the response sheet.

4.  At the conclusion of the writing time, have students pair/share with a partner. Then, ask students to share their responses in a full-class discussion.

5.  Take a poll to determine class favorites.  Discuss how the selections at the top of the poll did or did not match the criteria the class established earlier for “good” writing.

Download Student Response Sheet for this Lesson:  Choose a Favorite

Comments about this lesson or ideas for extending it are welcome below.

The stories on mysteryemail.com provide students with many opportunities to evaluate writing.  Here are some ideas for getting started:

• Lesson W1:  Choose a Favorite.   Good writing is sometimes described as “writing that someone else wants to read.”  In this lesson, students read several writing selections.  Then, they rank order the selections from the one they liked the most to the one they liked the least.  Finally, they write about their reasons for ranking the selections in this order.

• Lesson W2:  Get Emotional.  Good writing evokes emotion.  This lesson helps students focus on the emotional impact of text.  Students are asked to read three selections and list words that describe how the selection makes them feel. Then, students select an emotion to focus on and use that emotion as the basis for a story they submit as a post.

Doing Writing

• Lesson W3: Using Conflict.  In this lesson, students learn about conflict as an essential ingredient in telling a story. First they read the background information for the picture Dragon Path. Next, they discuss sources of conflict suggested  by the picture. Then they write a 10-20 sentence story that tells what this picture is about.  Finally, students write a two-sentence note explaining why John Macpherson sent this story to Anna Stolyarski.

• Lesson W4: Looking for Options:  Writers know that the first idea isn’t always the best.  In this lesson, students are challenged to come up with three different ideas for writing about the current Mystery Picture.  They then choose the idea they think is most promising and write a story based on it.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Notes:

• I’ve generally set lower and upper limits for the length of student writing assignments.  The idea was to keep text relatively short and focus on high quality writing rather than quantity.  You can, however, adjust the suggested assignment lengths to suit the needs of your students–or not specify any length at all.
• Throughout these lessons, the word story is used to refer writing passages.  In fact, many of the passages could more accurately be described as captions or vignettes.  So, stories is a catch-all phrase to refer to various kinds of text passages.  It would probably be worthwhile, however, to go over the differences in these kinds of passages with students.
• Once you’ve gone over the differences between a caption, vignette, and story, you might be asked whether it’s possible to write a story in 10-20 sentences. That would be a good chance to share the (perhaps apocryphal) story of how Ernest Hemingway won a bet challenging him to write a story in six words. His story, written on a napkin:  For sale.  Baby shoes.  Never worn.

Hemingway six-word story

Image copyright Elen, 2011.  Used under license from Shutterstock.com.

Image copyright Ann Mei, 2011.  Used under license from Shutterstock.com

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Image copyright Unholy Vault Designs, 2010.  User under license from Shutterstock.com