Last Monday was the first day for Writer's Quest, CYOA. Students are excited to work on Choose Your Own Adventure Stories this term. Students took turns reading aloud from a CYOA book called Colonial America: An Interactive History Adventure by Allison Lassieur. As a group they decided their own fates in the character of a young man in Colonial Philadelphia just before the American Revolution. Students gasped when they thought their decision might result in their own demise.
Later students did a writing exercise where they had to come up with a story starter then work with a classmate to end another student's story starter (they weren't given their own). Each team was charged with writing a different type of ending. Here are a few samples from last week (more to come next week). Spelling and punctuation have been edited for clarity. We'll get more into language mechanics as the term progresses.
The Twist Ending: completely unexpected turn of events
There was a boy. His name was Mike. He was ten years old. He went for a walk in the park and I must say he had the worst walk in his life. But then there was a portal and he thought, "Should I go in or not?" Then he just ran into the portal...
But he just bounced back out of the portal, like there was a glitch. But then he had a brain overload from too much magical information. Later in the hospital, he has gotten gray hairs and turns into a 100-year-old man. But then, he gets out of bed, learns he can do the Moonwalk and ends up in the portal. The End.
The Resolved Ending: everything answered with no loose strings
Your shimmering scales are unnoticeable in the sky. You all of a sudden see an island with a rainbow over it. Or rather 50,000 rainbows! "Oh no!" You think, "Unicorns!" You thought you could land on the island after you've been flying over the ocean, diving in and out of the freezing ocean attempting to catch fish and...
The rainbows were protecting the island. The dragon tried to get into the island, but he could not get in because the rainbows protected the island. Then the dragon gave up. He went back to the ocean and tried to catch the fish. Then, oh no! A shark jumped out of the water and ate the dragon's head.
Crystal ball Ending: explains what happens to the characters far into the future
I thought it would be a regular old summer doing regular things until the day I found a completely awesome, totally magical secret path. By the way, my name is Maddie. But that's not important. So this path magically opened when I said the word "circle" and have no idea why. Who cares. But I got so obsessed with figuring out different passwords to connected paths that I lost track of time before I suddenly remembered to go back home and I found myself in a mother-yelling-and-you-try-to-explain-but-she's-still-angry situation. Whatever. So I had to do a bunch of work for two hours before I was allowed to pack and have a normal mother and life again. I really wanted to go back to my private paths but I was busy so I came back to them after the beach. But the best part is, I found a secret cave! And some other things. BUT MY PRIVATE, AWESOME CAVE!...
21 years later, Maggie goes home from her 72nd adventure. After finding a puppy in her cave, she asks her mom if she can keep the puppy. Her response wasn’t pleasing;
"You go OUTSIDE WITHOUT TELLING ME! And you THINK that gets you a PUPPY! NO! IT DOES NOT! DIE! DIE! DIE! DI…”
She was so displeased with her daughter that she took out her pocket knife and started jamming it into Maddie’s skin. She killed her and ran out into the streets.
But did you know Maddie’s mom was a murderer?
Later students did a writing exercise where they had to come up with a story starter then work with a classmate to end another student's story starter (they weren't given their own). Each team was charged with writing a different type of ending. Here are a few samples from last week (more to come next week). Spelling and punctuation have been edited for clarity. We'll get more into language mechanics as the term progresses.
The Twist Ending: completely unexpected turn of events
There was a boy. His name was Mike. He was ten years old. He went for a walk in the park and I must say he had the worst walk in his life. But then there was a portal and he thought, "Should I go in or not?" Then he just ran into the portal...
But he just bounced back out of the portal, like there was a glitch. But then he had a brain overload from too much magical information. Later in the hospital, he has gotten gray hairs and turns into a 100-year-old man. But then, he gets out of bed, learns he can do the Moonwalk and ends up in the portal. The End.
The Resolved Ending: everything answered with no loose strings
Your shimmering scales are unnoticeable in the sky. You all of a sudden see an island with a rainbow over it. Or rather 50,000 rainbows! "Oh no!" You think, "Unicorns!" You thought you could land on the island after you've been flying over the ocean, diving in and out of the freezing ocean attempting to catch fish and...
The rainbows were protecting the island. The dragon tried to get into the island, but he could not get in because the rainbows protected the island. Then the dragon gave up. He went back to the ocean and tried to catch the fish. Then, oh no! A shark jumped out of the water and ate the dragon's head.
Crystal ball Ending: explains what happens to the characters far into the future
I thought it would be a regular old summer doing regular things until the day I found a completely awesome, totally magical secret path. By the way, my name is Maddie. But that's not important. So this path magically opened when I said the word "circle" and have no idea why. Who cares. But I got so obsessed with figuring out different passwords to connected paths that I lost track of time before I suddenly remembered to go back home and I found myself in a mother-yelling-and-you-try-to-explain-but-she's-still-angry situation. Whatever. So I had to do a bunch of work for two hours before I was allowed to pack and have a normal mother and life again. I really wanted to go back to my private paths but I was busy so I came back to them after the beach. But the best part is, I found a secret cave! And some other things. BUT MY PRIVATE, AWESOME CAVE!...
21 years later, Maggie goes home from her 72nd adventure. After finding a puppy in her cave, she asks her mom if she can keep the puppy. Her response wasn’t pleasing;
"You go OUTSIDE WITHOUT TELLING ME! And you THINK that gets you a PUPPY! NO! IT DOES NOT! DIE! DIE! DIE! DI…”
She was so displeased with her daughter that she took out her pocket knife and started jamming it into Maddie’s skin. She killed her and ran out into the streets.
But did you know Maddie’s mom was a murderer?
Comments
Post a Comment