Help for Creative writing unit!

[Lily Ocon]

My name is Lily Ocon. I am a student at Aurora University majoring in English/ secondary education. In the foreseeable future I would like to teach an entire unit on creative writing. My passion for writing has given me the desire to teach students the importance about writing not only to enhance one’s skills as a writer, but to also help them learn how to use literary devices, connections, and interpretations in a piece of non-fiction. For creative writing I was thinking about having students read non-fiction such as, bio’s, memoir writing, and autobiographical material. I believe these types of readings will help students make connections with their personal experiences; locate themes, and literary devices. However, I need assistance in finding a way to incorporate sensory imagery into this unit, because by implementing this type of strategy it will help students become more interested in the subject. I want to develop a lesson that is fun and at the same time educational. Please feel free to give me any ideas.
Thank you in advance!
Lily Ocon

[Daniel Hollander]

I attended the Association for Integrated Studies conference a few weeks ago and Lazlo Onody from Northampton Community College gave an interesting presentation on using backwards design to help teach creative writing. One of his lessons involved having students look at various images/art and discuss how they could represent the themes, forms, colors, composition, etc present within those images with their writing.

I'm sure he would be happy to discuss it with you (and explain it better), or at the least send along a PDF of his presentation materials. His e-mail is: [e-mail] Hope this helps!
Dan

[Lily Ocon]

Thank you so much for the information! I will get in contact with Lazlo Onody for further information.

Lily :)

[Ryan Goble]

Lili - for me I think it is very important for you to look at multi-modal examples of the genre of writing your looking to explore.

Two great examples. Check out This American Life Episode 175: Babysitting, Act II - high school stundent's LOVE this narrative.

Also you might consider short autobiographical films like:

"Something Other Than Other"

Or "Bad Choices" this type of shorts allow kids who are not comfortable/successful with print to enage with the genre in different ways.

As Dan mentiones below - you want to use images to help some kids become comfortable with words/print literacies.

Hope this helps!

Ryan