Teaching Units - writing Short Stories

Teaching Ideas and Units - Teaching Units

Writing Short Stories

Lynne Collidge designed this unit for year 11 students but many of the strategies she uses could easily be adapted for younger students. Below are the instructions Lynne gave to her students.

In this unit you will be writing your own short stories. The aim is to improve your skills in writing narrative fiction. You will have opportunities to

Refine your ideas and planning
Improve your editing and revising skills
Publish your work in a format for sharing with others.

Introductory activities

These activities are designed to help you with various aspects of story telling.

1. Write a story in exactly 50 words.
This story must follow a standard story structure, that is, it must have a beginning, a middle and an end, include at least one character and one event.

If you have too many words, you must edit your story until it meets the requirements. (Often a way to do this is to delete conjunctions such as ‘and’ and ‘so’ and replace them with punctuation, such as a full stop or comma.)

If you have too few words, you must revise your story until it meets the requirements. (A way to do this is to add adjectives and adverbs that help with description, emphasis or creating atmosphere.)

This exercise helps you with your editing skills.
2. Write a story that links the following objects:
A pen a boot a $5.00 note

The aim again is to write in standard story structure, a beginning, a middle and an end.

Choose characters and events that link the three objects in an interesting way. Aim to write about 100-150 words, although there is no set limit.

This exercise is to help you with planning and sequencing the story so that events are linked and put in an order that makes the story interesting and appealing to an audience.
3. Plan a story around the following central idea:

A person fails to turn up to an appointment. When they are found the next day, they remember nothing of the last 24 hours.

You could do this exercise as a diagram, but include details of the following:

Characters

Setting, including time and place

Events, and the sequence in which they occur

Genre, or story type, such as realism, science fiction, adventure….

Style, such as first person, flashback, chronological narrative….

Mood or atmosphere

Audience.

You do not need to write this story. The aim is to identify the various aspects you need to consider when planning and writing narrative fiction.

Your own story

This is the major component of the unit. The aim is to plan and write your own story, editing and revising it to a form that can be included in a class publication. (This may have implications for the decisions you make about audience and language.)

1. Plan your story

Use the model in the Introductory activities to plan your own story.

2. Writing beginnings
The beginning of a story is very significant. It is the piece that engages your audience and entices them to read further. Good beginnings are not a matter of chance, they are a product of careful, systematic planning.

For the purposes of this exercise, write three possible beginnings for your story. Use the same story idea, but three different ways of beginning. Some ideas you could consider are:

First person account

Third person account
An event as the beginning

The setting as a focus

Introducing a character

Beginning with a single short effective sentence

Focussing on establishing the genre
Stating the main idea of the story

Beginning with dialogue or conversation.

When you have written three possible beginnings, share them with a group and with their help decide which beginning seems to be the most effective. Use this beginning to start your story, and continue to write the body of the story, through to the conclusion.
3. Writing conclusions
When you have finished your story, read over it. Consider the ending.

Write two alternative endings, in addition to your original ending.

Share your story again with a group, discussing the possible endings and which your audience found most satisfying.
4. Editing and revising your story.
Editing is the name we are giving to checking written accuracy. When you edit your writing you will be checking:

Spelling

Punctuation

Sentence structure

Paragraphing
Revising is the name we are giving to making changes to writing to make the piece more effective. When you revise your piece you will be looking for aspects such as:

Creating mood and atmosphere

Introducing characters

Outlining and describing main events

Audience interest and appeal
The structure of the piece, and how events are ordered

Language use and the style of your writing

Consistency and sense

Revise and edit your story, so that it has a high level of written accuracy and is the most interesting, well-structured story you can tell.

You can work with a partner on this section of the work. Most professional writers work with an editor in the refinement of their work for publication.
5. Publish your story.

Check your draft with the teacher, then publish your story.

The stories from the class will be published in a booklet, and distributed to all class members at the end of term.