3 IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT CRITIQUE – We ask the teacher to avoid critique entirely . No “helpful” suggestions”, no”hints”, no spelling or syntax correction, no comments constructive or otherwise! Just allow the student to create, and then your job is to admire their creativity and encourage more. That's it! NOTE ABOUT REQUIRED DRAWINGS – When asked to draw, we only want the student to demonstrate conceptual understanding. This is not an art course. Blobs and stick figures are fine. NOTE ABOUT STRUGGLES READING – When asked to read, please try not to coach very much, or do the student’s reading for him. IF HE STRUGGLES WITH A WORD, help simply, but also write that word on a list of words for the reading program ! NOTE ABOUT WORKING OUTDOORS– There are exercises (called “DO”), where the student must go outside. Access to an outdoor area must be available. NOTE ABOUT WORKING WITH GROUPS – Every step in this course can be done by an individual and by a group. The only steps you need to be concerned with for a group are the steps where the students are expected to read aloud. Select a different student to read each paragraph. If you have more than four students, read through each reading section twice, dividing up the paragraphs. NOTE ABOUT ADMINISTRATIVE CONCERNS – When asked to write down an answer, please have the student write down at the top of his answer the name of the course (Elem Creative Writing III, or El CW III), the lesson and exercise number . The student will need to be able to easily, quickly find his work from earlier lessons, and often! Answers written or typed should be looked over by the teacher to help form spelling lists, per Connect The Thoughts spelling program for Elementary. IMPORTANT NOTE – THE STUDENT CAN PUBLISH THEIR WORKS! This creative writing course provides a link which will take the student to a page on our site, at www.connectthethoughts.com . On that page, the student will be able to enter his name, age, the title of his piece, and copy and paste the piece itself – and we will publish work written for this course on our site for all to see! The work remains the property of the author. We want to provide a way for the student to share his work with others. He’ll see his work surrounded in artwork on a page all of its own, and we will leave it up as long as we have a site! There, your student’s work can be shared with friends and family around the world, for years to come. To have your student’s work published in this manner, the link for this course is: http://www.connectthethoughts.net/student-stories.php? a=1&courseno=25725&type=creativ e Sample file
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IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT CRITIQUE – We ask the teacher to avoid critique entirely. No “helpful” suggestions”, no”hints”, no spelling or syntax correction, no comments constructive or otherwise! Just allow the student to create, and then your job is to admire their creativity and encourage more. That's it!
NOTE ABOUT REQUIRED DRAWINGS – When asked to draw, we only want the student to demonstrate conceptual understanding. This is not an art course. Blobs and stick figures are fine.
NOTE ABOUT STRUGGLES READING – When asked to read, please try not to coach very much, or do the student’s reading for him. IF HE STRUGGLES WITH A WORD, help simply, but also write that word on a list of words for the reading program!
NOTE ABOUT WORKING OUTDOORS– There are exercises (called “DO”), where the student must go outside. Access to an outdoor area must be available.
NOTE ABOUT WORKING WITH GROUPS – Every step in this course can be done by an individual and by a group. The only steps you need to be concerned with for a group are the steps where the students are expected to read aloud. Select a different student to read each paragraph. If you have more than four students, read through each reading section twice, dividing up the paragraphs.
NOTE ABOUT ADMINISTRATIVE CONCERNS – When asked to write down an answer, please have the student write down at the top of his answer the name of the course (Elem Creative Writing III, or El CW III), the lesson and exercise number. The student will need to be able to easily, quickly find his work from earlier lessons, and often! Answers written or typed should be looked over by the teacher to help form spelling lists, per Connect The Thoughts spelling program for Elementary.
IMPORTANT NOTE – THE STUDENT CAN PUBLISH THEIR WORKS! This creative writing course provides a link which will take the student to a page on our site, at www.connectthethoughts.com. On that page, the student will be able to enter his name, age, the title of his piece, and copy and paste the piece itself – and we will publish work written for this course on our site for all to see! The work remains the property of the author. We want to provide a way for the student to share his work with others. He’ll see his work surrounded in artwork on a page all of its own, and we will leave it up as long as we have a site! There, your student’s work can be shared with friends and family around the world, for years to come. To have your student’s work published in this manner, the link for this course is:http://www.connectthethoughts.net/student-stories.php?a=1&courseno=25725&type=creativ e
(Note – The student will need access to the Internet for this lesson.)
1. UNDERSTAND THE WORDS:
Plot - The things that happen, in order, in a story.Plot is “THIS happens, AND THEN that happens, AND THEN this
happens, AND THEN that happens…”)
Action – Anything that happens in a story.
Story – Everything in the plot PLUS all the “details”, all the descriptions of people, places, things and actions. Everything you usually read.
2. READ ALOUD TO THE TEACHER:
The first part of this course, we’ll quickly look at what we covered at the end of Creative Writing II, the last course you finished. At the end of that course, you studied what a plot is, what a story is, and what action in a story is. before we move on to new ideas, let’s make sure you understand these ideas.
A plot is all the things that happen in a story, in order. A plot is just a list of things that happen. The plot for Little Red Riding Hood might look this simple and short:
Red leaves home to take a basket of goodies to Grandma’s, through the woods.In the woods, the wolf talks to her. She tells him she’s going to Grandma’s. Thewolf gets to Grandma’s first, and eats Grandma. Disguised as Grandma, wolflets Red in, and tries to eat her. Red is saved by a woodsman (a man who worksand hunts in the woods). (Sometimes the story is told with many men savingher.)
See how short that is! The plot is NOT the whole story. It’s just a list of things that will happen in a story, in the order that they happen, and that’s all it is.
A story has a plot as a part of it, but it has a lot more. A story is the plot plus all the details. It has all the actions, everything that happens in the story. A story has places in which action happens. It has people (or animals or things) that do actions in the story. Everything in a story is almost always explained. Everything in a story is almost always described. All these things are “details”, little descriptions and things that are a part of the
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story. All the details put together, with a plot, IS a story. So the story of Little Red Riding Hood would have all the details. Here is the whole story as one writer wrote it. Before reading it, here are the meanings of a few words in the story:
Cottage – A small home found in the country, forest or a wood.
Forester – A person who helps take care of a forest.
Scarlet – A bright red color, almost orange.
Errand – A job one is supposed to do.
Violets, Honeysuckle – Kinds of flowers.
Violets Honeysuckle
Ferns – A kind of green, leafy plant.
Nosegay – A small bunch of flowers._____
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ONCE upon a time there lived in a cottage on the edge of a wood a forester and his wife and little daughter. The little girl was a great pet with everybody. Whenever she went out she wore a red cloak with a hood to it, and the neighbors called her "Little Red Riding Hood." She made friends not only with people, but the birds and beasts, too, and she was not afraid of anything, not even the dark.
One day her mother said to her, "My child, take this pat of butter and bottle of blackberry wine to your grandmother. Do not stay too long, for I shall be worried."
Red Riding Hood was delighted to do her mother's errand, so she put on her scarlet cloak, kissed her mother good-bye, and started off to her grandmother's house. The way led through the woods, but Red Riding Hood was not the least bit afraid, and she went on as happy as a lark.
The birds kept her company and sang their sweetest songs. The squirrels ran up and down the tall trees and made her laugh at their funny antics; and now and then a rabbit would come across her path, and sometimes Red Riding Hood would run after the bunnies, but they always managed to get out of her way.
By and by she grew hungry, and sat down on a flat stone to eat the nice lunch her mother had put up for her, and oh, how good it tasted! It was very lonely in the woods, but Red Riding Hood thought only of the wild flowers, which were so beautiful, and she went out of the path to gather some violets, honeysuckle and sweet ferns, which made a very pretty nosegay, indeed. But, dear me! When she turned to go back to the path she could not find it, and she was scared, for she felt she was surely lost in the woods.
The birds knew that she was lost, and as she had been so good to them two of them flew down and called Red Riding Hood led her out of the tangle of brushwood into the path again. While she sat resting for a few moments a wolf came up and spoke to her, which did not seem at all strange to Little Red Riding Hood, as wolves and fairies were quite common in those days.
"Good day," said the wolf; "where are you going by yourself, little girl?"
"I am going to my grandmother's," said Little Red Riding Hood.
"She ought to be proud of such a lovely granddaughter," said the wolf.
Pleased with this compliment Red Riding Hood let the wolf walk by her side, although the birds kept warning her that he was a wicked rogue.
"Where does your grandmother live?" asked the wolf in a sweet voice.
"Just outside the woods. You can see her cottage through the trees," said the little girl.
"Oh, yes," said the wolf, "I think I will call on the dear old lady just for the fun of the thing. Suppose you take the left path while I follow this one to the right, and we will have a little race to see which gets to the cottage first."
Of course the wolf knew he was sure to win the race, for he had chosen the shortest way, but Red Riding Hood suspected nothing. She was so young she did not know that wolves might seem to be mild as sheep, but still be wolves at heart. The wolf took the short road, and soon came to the grandmother's cottage. He rapped gently on the door, and the old lady, who was in bed, said:
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"Is that you, darling? Pull the string and the latch will fly up," thinking it was Red Riding Hood, of course.
The wolf pulled the string and then opened the door and walked in.
"I am very glad you came, dear," said the grandmother, thinking her visitor was Red Riding Hood. "I am more poorly than usual, and it hurts me to turn my head. Take off your hat, dear, and come kiss me."
"That I will do at once!" said the wolf, and with glaring red eyes he sprang on the bed and ate her up. Then he got into the bed and put on granny's nightgown and cap and waited for Red Riding Hood to come.
At last the wolf heard a little rap at the door, and he called out, as the old lady had done:
"Is that you darling? Pull the string and the latch will fly up." His voice was harsh, but not unlike the grandmother's when she had a cold.
So Red Riding Hood pulled the string and went into the house, set her basket on the table and went up to the bedside.
She was scared at the change that she thought had come over her grandmother. What could be the matter with her to make her look like this? She must have some terrible disease.
"Why, Granny," she said, as soon as she could speak, "what big eyes you have got."
"The better to see you with, my child," said the wolf, imitating the grandmother's voice.
"O, Granny!" cried the child, "what a great long nose you have got."
"The better to smell with, my child."
"But, Granny, what great big ears you have got."
"The better to hear with, my child."
Red Riding Hood began to be more scared than she had ever been in her life, and her voice trembled when she said:
"O, Granny, what great--big--teeth--you've--got!"
"The better to eat you up!" said the wolf in his own voice, and he was just about putting his long sharp yellow fangs in poor Little Red Riding Hood, when the door was flung open and a number of men armed with axes rushed in and made him let go of his hold, and Red Riding Hood fainted in her father's arms. He was on his way home from work, with some other men, and was just in time to save his dear little daughter.
With one or two strokes of the axe the wolf's head was cut off, so that he would do no more harm in the world, and his body was tied to a pole and carried back in triumph by the foresters.
Friends from far and near came to see Little Red Riding Hood, and she had to tell over and over again just where she met the wolf, how he looked and what he said, until it seemed as if she never got out of the woods at all, not even in her dreams.
When the children were told the story it was always with this word of warning:
"When you are sent on an errand, go right along, and do it as quickly as you can. Do not stop to play on the road or to make friends with strangers, who may turn out to be wolves
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in sheep's clothes," and they promised to remember, and shuddered whenever they thought of what might have been the fate of dear Little Red Riding Hood._____
That is the story of Red Riding Hood. It is much longer than the plot. The story could even be longer. It could be much longer than it is! The writer could have told us a lot more about how things look. He could have described the woods she walked through, or Grandma, or the wolf. The writer could have made the reader almost see these places and animals and people, if he’d added more about them into the story. Many good writers do that. They add a lot more detail, until we can almost see and hear the places where the story happens, and see the actions and the people.
3. DO: Go on the Internet. Find out what kind of birds live in the woods and forestsof Germany, the country where Little Red Riding Hood was first told. Run thissearch: Birds of Germany. Look for photos. Pick three kinds of birds found inGermany that you really like. Then, in your own words, describe each bird verycarefully. For each bird, use no less than twenty-five words to describe that bird.
Describe each bird well enough that a reader could almost see the bird. Makesure that each sort of bird is described and is different from the other birds.
Save your work, you’ll need it for the next lesson.
4. DO: There are photos above of violets, honeysuckle, and ferns. In your own words, describe each of these types of flowers and the ferns, which are a plant. Make surethat the reader can almost see each flower or plant described, and that they areeach different from the others. Save your work, you’ll need it for the next lesson.Sa
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5. DO: Red wears a cloak with a hood, and it’s red. Here is a drawing:
Describe Red and her cloak, using this drawing as your guide. Use your own words.Make certain the reader can see the cloak when you’re done. Use at least 25 wordsto describe the cloak. Save your work, you’ll need it for the next lesson.
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LESSON TWO: A REVIEW OF PLOT, STORY AND ACTION – MORE RED
1. DO: Again, look at this drawing of Red Riding Hood.
Using your own words, describe Red. Use at least thirty words to do it. Makesure the reader can ‘see’ her when they read what you wrote.
2. DO: Here’s a drawing and photo of what the wolf might look like:
Use your own words to describe the wolf. Use at least 30 words. Make sure thereader can ‘see’ the wolf, as they read what you wrote.
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3. DO: Use all your descriptions, and add them into the story of Little Red Riding Hood.Put your descriptions into the story where I ask you to inside the story:
_____ ONCE upon a time there lived in a cottage on the edge of a wood a forester and his wife and little daughter. (DESCRIBE RED HERE) The little girl was a great pet with everybody. Whenever she went out she wore a red cloak with a hood to it, and the neighbors called her "Little Red Riding Hood." (DESCRIBE THE CLOAK HERE) She made friends not only with people, but the birds and beasts, too, and she was not afraid of anything, not even the dark.
One day her mother said to her, "My child, take this pat of butter and bottle of blackberry wine to your grandmother. Do not stay too long, for I shall be worried."
Red Riding Hood was delighted to do her mother's errand, so she put on her scarlet cloak, kissed her mother good-bye, and started off to her grandmother's house. The way led through the woods, but Red Riding Hood was not the least bit afraid, and she went on as happy as a lark.
The birds kept her company and sang their sweetest songs. (DESCRIBE THE BIRDS HERE) The squirrels ran up and down the tall trees and made her laugh at their funny antics; and now and then a rabbit would come across her path, and sometimes Red Riding Hood would run after the bunnies, but they always managed to get out of her way.
By and by she grew hungry, and sat down on a flat stone to eat the nice lunch her mother had put up for her, and oh, how good it tasted! It was very lonely in the woods, but Red Riding Hood thought only of the wild flowers, which were so beautiful, and she went out of the path to gather some violets, honeysuckle and sweet ferns, which made a very pretty nosegay, indeed. (DESCRIBE THE FLOWERS HERE) But, dear me! When she turned to go back to the path she could not find it, and she was scared, for she felt she was surely lost in the woods.
The birds knew that she was lost, and as she had been so good to them two of them flew down and called Red Riding Hood led her out of the tangle of brushwood into the path again. While she sat resting for a few moments a wolf came up and spoke to her, which did not seem at all strange to Little Red Riding Hood, as wolves and fairies were quite common in those days.
"Good day," said the wolf; "where are you going by yourself, little girl?"
"I am going to my grandmother's," said Little Red Riding Hood.
"She ought to be proud of such a lovely granddaughter," said the wolf.
Pleased with this compliment Red Riding Hood let the wolf walk by her side, although the birds kept warning her that he was a wicked rogue. (DESCRIBE THE WOLF HERE)
"Where does your grandmother live?" asked the wolf in a sweet voice.
"Just outside the woods. You can see her cottage through the trees," said the little girl.
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"Oh, yes," said the wolf, "I think I will call on the dear old lady just for the fun of the thing. Suppose you take the left path while I follow this one to the right, and we will have a little race to see which gets to the cottage first."
Of course the wolf knew he was sure to win the race, for he had chosen the shortest way, but Red Riding Hood suspected nothing. She was so young she did not know that wolves might seem to be mild as sheep, but still be wolves at heart. The wolf took the short road, and soon came to the grandmother's cottage. He rapped gently on the door, and the old lady, who was in bed, said:
"Is that you, darling? Pull the string and the latch will fly up," thinking it was Red Riding Hood, of course.
The wolf pulled the string and then opened the door and walked in.
"I am very glad you came, dear," said the grandmother, thinking her visitor was Red Riding Hood. "I am more poorly than usual, and it hurts me to turn my head. Take off your hat, dear, and come kiss me."
"That I will do at once!" said the wolf, and with glaring red eyes he sprang on the bed and ate her up. Then he got into the bed and put on granny's nightgown and cap and waited for Red Riding Hood to come.
At last the wolf heard a little rap at the door, and he called out, as the old lady had done:
"Is that you darling? Pull the string and the latch will fly up." His voice was harsh, but not unlike the grandmother's when she had a cold.
So Red Riding Hood pulled the string and went into the house, set her basket on the table and went up to the bedside.
She was scared at the change that she thought had come over her grandmother. What could be the matter with her to make her look like this? She must have some terrible disease.
"Why, Granny," she said, as soon as she could speak, "what big eyes you have got."
"The better to see you with, my child," said the wolf, imitating the grandmother's voice.
"O, Granny!" cried the child, "what a great long nose you have got."
"The better to smell with, my child."
"But, Granny, what great big ears you have got."
"The better to hear with, my child."
Red Riding Hood began to be more scared than she had ever been in her life, and her voice trembled when she said:
"O, Granny, what great--big--teeth--you've--got!"
"The better to eat you up!" said the wolf in his own voice, and he was just about putting his long sharp yellow fangs in poor Little Red Riding Hood, when the door was flung open and a number of men armed with axes rushed in and made him let go of his hold, and Red Riding Hood fainted in her father's arms. He was on his way home from work, with some other men, and was just in time to save his dear little daughter.
