In the last week, pupils have been looking at story structures and creative writing. As a child myself, I struggled to think of ideas for my own creative writing. After looking at different techniques to allow children to be both engaged in their writing activities and develop their own distinct style (I found this technique on David Andrew's blog, thanks) I have decided to again look at gaming to inspire children to write creatively.
We looked at one of our favourites, Temple Run 2. The pupils got a 5 minute blast on the app, then looked at writing techniques, story structure and descriptive language. After developing a first draft, the children then used the Book Creator app to write their story, as we will be creating an iBook collection of Key Stage 2 stories.
As an extension of learning I have decided to set a homework below. Children will again use the Temple Run app as a stimulus to post an exciting opening paragraph. Their success criteria is below. Have a look at the comments section for their first drafts.
- Start with an opening sentence with a 'shock' to catch the reader's attention.
- Describe the characters.
- Describe the settings.
- WOW words.
- Mention the character's feelings.
- CORRECT PUNCTUATION - Proper nouns begin with capital letters. Names begin with capital letters.
- Read over your work to see if it makes sense.
