Teaching Flash Fiction — Lesson 4 Fleshing Out the Story

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Now that students have ideas, it’s time to flesh out the stories.

With any piece of writing, two parts are critical for students:  ideas and organization.  Both of these, known to many teachers as traits of writing, can be difficult for any writer.  Who hasn’t labored over a first rough draft, trying hard to find a way to pull it together? Writing is hard work, so it’s no wonder students find ways to avoid it sometimes.

When you are ready for students to dig in and write a piece of fiction (or any other piece of writing), it’s important to think about what writers need.  I know I need time – time to think, time to experiment, time to get feedback, time to re-examine mentor texts, time to rewrite, and time to read my work out loud.

That’s a lot of time, especially since teachers are constantly battling the clock.

The only way I know to provide students with enough time and support is to utilize a workshop structure in the classroom.  If you need a quick overview on workshop structure, check out this blog post  from Two Writing Teachers.  Workshop provides students in-class time for all the critical parts writing, including time to confer with me and with peers, rather than setting the expectation that students will write outside of class time without support.

After spending some writing workshop time on thinking, drafting, and conferring, students are ready for narrowing their focus and “reading like a writer” again, but with a specific lens. To limit this activity, I ask students to read their mentor texts for the following:  character, suspense, and conflict.  High school students can handle working on all three, but for middle school students, I would suggest letting them choose one, or one at a time at least.

To provide some structure, I pose a few questions such as these:

  • Character:  What character trait is most important about the main character?  How does the writer reveal it in the story? How do this character’s actions move the plot?
  • Suspense:  Where does the writer build tension in the story? How did he/she build this tension for the reader?  Why does it work?
  • Conflict:  What is blocking the character from getting what s/he wants? Does this conflict escalate/complicate as the story progresses? Does this conflict come from outside and inside?

Students spend time working alone, reading and annotating.  Then students meet with their writing group, or you can re-group students by the mentor text or element they chose to analyze.

All students work on the question “What did you learn about characterization, suspense, and/or conflict that you want to try in your writing?”

I think this is an important question on which to spend a little whole-class time debriefing.  Students can benefit from hearing which techniques other writers prioritized and ways students discuss the elements of fiction.  Clearly, students are developing their reading skills throughout this lesson series, and listening to what other students notice is a low stakes way of developing students’ knowledge of and ability to analyze text.

Armed with ideas and techniques, it’s back to writing time.  Younger students may be adding on to their quickwrite, while more skilled or older students should be deep into their drafts.

Within a workshop schedule, time to write, confer, and revise continues for days. I try to have copies of mentor texts available around the room so students can get “professional” help without waiting for me.

Students are also always working on reading goals – always.

Our classroom expectation is this:  If you are stuck during writing time, switch to reading.  Of course, this was something I dedicated time to at the beginning of the school year, defining and modeling expectations, and even so, I would sometimes need to pull a student to have a behavior conference instead of a writing conference.

For students who come to class without their independent reading books, I always have plenty of books of all genres around the room.  Sometimes, though, students do not want to dive into a new book, so I borrowed a wonderful strategy from my colleague Whitney Keeton.  Whitney provides newspaper stories she thinks students might be interested in, and students are able to pick an article, read it, and put it back before they leave the classroom.  Yes, sometimes a student simply wants to read how a favorite sports team fared the night before, but the student is still reading!

If I notice a student chooses to read rather than to write several days in a row, I make sure to confer with that student.  It could be that the student prefers to write at home.  Or it could be that the student is stuck and needs my help to move forward with the writing. Reluctant writers sometimes need short, specific writing goals for each day, so that might be worth posting each day.  The best determiners of success are making sure students are interested in what they are writing and feel secure in the classroom community.  If these two things are in place, I have successful writing workshop days!

Next, students use protocols to provide feedback to each other.

 

 

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Teaching Flash Fiction – Lesson 3 (Quickwrites)

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“It must be a piece of writing which, even if someone else reads it, doesn’t send any ripples back to you. It is like writing something and putting it in a bottle in the sea. . . . Freewritings help you by providing no feedback at all. ” Peter Elbow, 1973

“A quickwrite is a first draft response to a short piece of writing . . . . This is writing to find writing, but using someone else’s words to stimulate their thinking.”  Linda Rief, 2018

 

Now comes the fun part – gathering ideas for writing!

Every writer can struggle to get started.  Sometimes our commitments demand all of our attention.  Sometimes our worries crowd out every other idea or thought.  For many of us, our inner critic smashes down every inkling of an idea before it blossoms.

If all writers struggle, how does a teacher get a classroom full of students to write at the same time ?  Quickwriting!

I first learned of this concept from Peter Elbow’s work.  I was a new teacher at the time, and Elbow’s “freewriting” not only made sense for use with my students, but also helped me with my own writing through college.  Freewriting as Elbow defines it is writing without stopping for a designated length of time.  Then the writer chooses an idea from the freewriting and writes again. The goal is to keep going no matter what, even if you repeat a word or phrase over and over until a new idea comes.

In recent years, I’ve heard educators use terms such as “writing sprints” or “quickwrites.” Writing sprints increased in popularity alongside NaNoWiMo’s climb into the education world, and writers can even join a writing community of sprinters through Twitter ( See @NaNoWordSprints )Linda Rief uses the term quickwrite to combine mentor text models with writing ideas quickly as she described in her book The Quickwrite Handbook: 100 Mentor Texts to Jumpstart Your Students’ Thinking and Writing.  Lots of educators, including me, use the term “quickwrite” to refer to a variation of freewriting and writing sprints.

All variations of a quickwrite have a few key qualities in common.  They all

  • Increase the amount writing in the classroom
  • Help the writer focus on ideas without critique, either by an inner voice or the teacher
  • Increase fluency over time
  • Help writers of all ages find success, even enjoyment, in writing
  • Utilize little class time
  • Provide starting points for writing conferences

For our flash fiction unit, I used a variation that focuses the writer on brainstorming for a particular writing task.  Although I altered the quickwrite prompt each year, here is an example:

Choose one of the following settings (or one of your own) and build the picture by focusing on imagery:  What do you see? hear? smell? feel? taste?

  • a real or imagined classroom
  • night time in a woods (or city!)
  • a childhood bedroom
  • distant relative’s house
  • an abandoned car on an embankment of a stream
  • a setting of your choosing

My classroom routine for quickwrites looks like this:

  • After I share the prompt and students have written the date in the quickwrites section of their notebook, students have a couple of quiet minutes for thinking. Then everyone, including me, writes for three minutes without stopping.  I volley between writing and “kidwatching” to notice who might be struggling or to note someone to give a shout out to for their work.
  • I quietly tell students when they have 30 seconds remaining. At the end of 30 seconds, I ask students to stop without finishing the sentence they are working on.  If they know they want to come back to this piece, they can put ellipses.
  • Everyone tallies their word count and writes it in the margin next to today’s quickwrite. I ask students to give me a thumbs up if their word count is at least 5 more words than their previous word count, a “thumbs to the side” if their word count is plus or minus 5 words, and a thumbs down if their word count is 5 or more fewer words than their previous word count. I make it clear that everyone is working on fluency at his or her own pace.
  • Depending upon the goals for the day’s lesson, students might do a two-minute share with a shoulder partner, a few whole-group show of hands for who wrote to which choice, or a whole-group workshop session if a writer wanted to share his or her piece to get advice for next steps.

This routine is something I introduced every year, no matter which grade level I was teaching that year,  in the first few days of school, and the classes practiced with high-engagement prompts until everyone knew the routine.

Yes, there were usually students who tried to avoid writing by writing “I don’t know what to write” over and over for the full three minutes, but that often stopped without my intervention.  Students quickly realized how boring it was to write the same thing over and over, or they realized all writing was celebrated and none of it was perfect.  If we were a week into the routine and the avoidance behaviors were still in place, it was time for a one-on-one conference to find out why and to do what I could to take away the student’s fear of writing.

For this assignment, I often chose a whole-group show of hands to get a sense of which settings appealed to each class, and then students shared with a writing partner. The partner’s job was to ask questions so the writer could continue to think about how the setting could be developed. We spent about 10 minutes of partner time, so this lesson was not a whole class period.

Next, students go back to a mentor text to read like a writer with a purpose.

 

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Teaching Flash Fiction — Lesson 2

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After students practice reading like a writer to create anchor charts for elements of flash fiction,  it’s time to apply their learning to new texts.  Again, I like providing several text selections so students have choice, but this time, I give students a very brief text chat, a shorter version of a book talk, and let them come to the table and choose the story they want to read.  I am sure to include information on text complexity, such as a setting that flashes back and forth in time.  Sometimes this challenges students to try a more complex text; other times students choose a safe, easier text structure.  Regardless of their choices, all students hear information about text complexity in an authentic way, and over time, they start to articulate ways in which a text is complex, too.

As students settle in to their text selections, I instruct them to annotate for the elements on our class anchor chart. Some sample questions to focus their work might include the following:

  • Which elements are present in this new text?
  • How effectively does this author use each element in comparison to your previous text?
  • What new information do you notice with this text?

This is an excellent time to walk around with a clipboard and make notes of students who seem to be struggling or who have naïve misconceptions about the elements or structure of fiction.  During independent work time, I ask these students to join an invitational group to review and to shore up their understanding.

When they have finished reading and annotating, students discuss their findings with their table group. (If you have enough time, students could meet with other students who read the same text to discuss first. If the stories are good, students will want to talk about them!) They each share what they noticed with their new text, and as a group, they decide whether anything should be added, changed, or deleted from the anchor chart.

Why do I spend a whole extra class period reading a second text and continuing work on an anchor chart?

The first day students bring their schema to the task, and until they have time to discuss, they do not have new learning.   By the time they read the second text, most have added at least one or two new ideas or more complex ways of looking at structure to their schema, so their experience reading the second text is richer.  Some will hear the same information a second time, but their understanding of that information is clearer and potentially more nuanced.

In the next blog post, students deepen their understanding of these structural elements again as they begin to apply their learning in writing.

 

 

 

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Teaching Flash Fiction Series – Part 1 – Intro Lesson

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A few years ago, our state standards added fiction (Why fiction?) under the narrative mode strands, and in my roles as ELA teacher and instructional coach, I began a hunt for lesson ideas, resources, and research to share with my ELA team.  After all, for most of my career, teaching students to write fiction was limited to creative writing classes. I felt out of my element.

And then I discovered the world of flash fiction.

At the time, I did not find much information from any of my go-to PD professionals, nor did I find much in the way of research.  But I did find an overwhelming number of sites that promoted and published flash fiction, including student flash fiction.  These sites also offered tips and reviews, and I knew that’s all I really needed.

I dedicated our first class of the unit to immersing students in flash fiction.  For some genre studies, I advocate for total discovery, allowing students to search online and in print, but because many of the flash fiction sites are targeted to adult readers, I pulled grade-appropriate examples for my students.

My students were already familiar with the protocols for “reading like a writer,” so I did not need to model the general strategy.  I piled several selections on the center of each group’s desks, and they started by simply reading the piece they chose.  Some students annotated; others chose not to annotate.

Since each person in a table group read a different selection, students regrouped all around the room with other students who read the same text.  I provided time for students to discuss and to ask questions, and then I directed students to “read like a writer with a focus ” while I listened in and guided groups as needed.

Read like a writer with a focus  takes on various purposes for me.  In this stage of the lesson, the focus was to notice elements of flash fiction.  In groups, students wrote notes of what they noticed in their sample flash fiction. Once students wrapped up capturing their thinking, they moved back to their table groups to share across several text examples, discussing similarities and differences.

I think this is an important step.  I know many teachers limit this part of a “notice and note” lesson, to borrow a term from Kylene Beers and Robert Probst, by asking all students to use one model text.  In this way, teachers ensure students focus on the elements they have predetermined as important.  But I think one key to keeping students engaged is to allow for true discovery.  If students know they are simply trying to “find” what the teacher wants them to find, the joy of the hunt disappears.  Other teachers feel their students would be completely lost without a demonstration first. If you determine your students need to see you model the strategy first, definitely work that into the plan.  See a model here.  In my experience, though, if students have done this with any mode of writing, they are able to apply the strategy without a demo.

Another benefit to allowing students to discover elements of a genre themselves is the lesson is automatically differentiated for the students in each classroom.  What students notice and articulate will reflect their current knowledge about the topic.  This can help determine mini-lessons or small group instruction that each class needs.

Which leads me to another benefit – time.

Almost every literacy teacher I know feels the pressure of time; there’s never enough to do all that the students need.  So why waste time presenting predetermined mini-lessons over basic information like elements of fiction or the structure of flash fiction?

Each table group then contributed to our class Elements of Flash Fiction chart.  While there are many methods of creating a chart, my favorites always include time for students to get up and write on the chart (or multiple charts) themselves or to negotiate what I should write on the chart by using a strategy.  One strategy I like is  Four Corners. For this lesson, a group will throw out a strategy, and then students can move to the corner of the room to indicate how strongly they agree or disagree that the element is important enough to go on the chart.  (The four corners are labeled strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree).

The question in a secondary classroom is “How do I avoid ending up with 5-7 charts of the same information?”  Sometimes I use all of the charts, switching them each class period, but I didn’t always want to have to remember to switch charts.  One tactic I used with success is posting all of the charts the second day, and asking students to choose their top 4 per class period, and from these lists, I created one universal anchor chart.  This is a wonderful way to review the information and to ask students to critically evaluate each idea at the same time.

Depending on your school’s class periods, this is either one or two class periods. I was fortunate to finish the class chart, but that’s all the time we had.  If you have more time, you could ask students to reflect in their journals about what they discovered about flash fiction, what element they want to be sure to try when they write, or their main take-aways.  If you prefer, students could jot one thing they learned about flash fiction and one question they have on an exit ticket.  This would provide a quick check for understanding and provide a record of ideas for explicit mini-lessons.

What’s next?  Students apply their learning to new text.

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Why Fiction?

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We have all read the research about the benefits of reading fiction, but isn’t writing fiction a task for the few talented, creative people in the world who will make their living writing novels or children’s books?

Most every English language arts teacher has either heard this question or has posed this question. Many ELA teachers I know have made the decision to avoid or to cut writing fiction from their lesson plans due to the demands of their curriculum.  Perhaps that’s a mistake.  Are there benefits of writing fiction, and is there a place for teaching it in the curriculum?  I decided to spend a little time researching this topic, which led me down a rabbit hole of fascinating scientific information!

In a 2014 NY Times article “This is Your Brain on Writing,” writer Carl Zimmer shared a few insights from a neuroscience study of creative writing.  Scientists mapped brain activities connected with creativity by asking people to participate in a series of writing tasks:  copying text, brainstorming, and writing literary text.  “For the first time, neuroscientists have used fMRI scanners to track the brain activity of both experienced and novice writers as they sat down — or, in this case, lay down — to turn out a piece of fiction.”  fMRI is a process called functional magnetic resonance imaging in which a machine shows blood flow to various parts of the brain. “The inner workings of the professionally trained writers in the bunch, the scientists argue, showed some similarities to people who are skilled at other complex actions, like music or sports.”

This study indicates that practicing writing leads to activation of a part of the brain that “takes over” when actions become more automatic, which has implications for the regular practice of writing, certainly.  What stood out to me more, though, was that both groups of writers showed brain activity during brainstorming and writing creatively that was not present when the subjects merely copied a piece of text. This is enough information for me as a teacher to prioritize creative writing in the classroom. Use this link if you are interested in the specific findings.

While Steven Pinker, the cognitive scientist who wrote How the Mind Works, was skeptical of the findings from this creative writing study, stating that creativity is difficult to define and measure, he does support the idea that fiction provides us with opportunities to learn. “Fictional narratives supply us with a mental catalogue of the fatal conundrums we might face someday and the outcome of strategies we could deploy in them” (543).

Current research on aging and age-related illnesses reveals powerful connections between storytelling and both mental and physical wellbeing, especially resilience.  Writing stories or sharing stories verbally is used as a “healing modality” for the aging.  (See The Effects of Storytelling on Happiness and Resilience in Older Adults and Narrative and identity in Alzheimer’s disease: A case study for more information.) Even digital storytelling  makes the list as a potential therapy to promote healthy brain function in older adults.

While asking adults struggling with Alzheimer’s to remember their own life stories can cause stress and negative emotions, asking aging adults to create stories provides a positive, creative experience that exercises brain functions.  Suggestions for creating a good story in the article Anti-Aging and Anti-Depressant Effects of Storytelling include advice such as adding strong details that show rather than tell, adding emotion and voice, and revealing character through details.

Sound familiar, teachers?

We know from research on reading that different parts of the brain are activated when readers connect with sensory details.  A team of researchers from Emory University found that metaphors like “The singer had a velvet voice” activated sensory parts of the brain that phrases like “The singer had a pleasing voice” did not.  They found “. . . there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life social encounters” (Paul 2012).  Paul Zak’s research tells us that powerful stories cause the brain to release oxytocin and can cause us to empathize with characters, which can lead us to change our beliefs and behaviors.

So, scientific research points to clear benefits of writing (and reading) fiction, but what do some of the leading educators say?

Thomas Newkirk, author of Minds Made for Story, asserts that narrative is the “mother mode” to which all other modes of writing cling.  He also claims “. . .narrative is the deep structure of all good sustained writing.  All good writing’ (19).   He goes on to say “. . . the narrative thread, the anecdote, the story of human interest, the apt metaphor are crucial tools in all forms of discourse . . .” (28).   The entire book is a compelling argument supporting his title, our minds are made for story.

In their recent book 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents, Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle ask the very question I started this blog with, why fiction?  Their response: “The skills of narrative writing are the same in either genre [memoir or fiction] and many of our students love the opportunity to imagine and create.  Writing fiction is neglected in middle and high school.  Each year we see students deeply engage in writing when given the opportunity to imagine a setting, its characters, and a conflict” (139).  For their lesson ideas, see Chapter 6.

My personal conclusions:

If storytelling, both creating stories and sharing stories, is so powerful that it stimulates multiple parts of the brain in ways that help keep our mental capacity sharp, this alone tells me all teachers should take note.  Add this to the facts that fiction can lead people to empathize and take positive action, can help engage students in ways writing purely informational texts cannot, and can provide a structural base for all other modes of writing, then devoting time in the curriculum to writing fiction certainly seems worthwhile to me.

For more information, see the following articles.

How Stories Change the Brain

Researching the Brian of Writers

The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction

Why You Are Wrong If You Think Creative Writing Is a Frivolous Waste of Time

Hasson brings real life into the lab to examine cognitive processing

Why Fiction Matters

Writing Can Help Injuries Heal Faster

Can Fiction and Academic Writing Help Each Other?

 

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