Explore Storytelling With Avatar: The Last Airbender

There's a reason both young and old enjoy watching Avatar: The Last Airbender - the writers did an excellent job of presenting a captivating storyline with complex characters, a beautiful balance of drama and comedy, and life lessons we can all learn from. As a class, we will be analyzing what makes this tv show such a fascinating study in the realm of storytelling. The ultimate takeaway from this class will be to add a few new skills to add to our writing toolbelt when it comes to our own creative writing and reading analysis skills. 

This class will meet 3 times a week for 2 weeks. Each 45-minute class will focus on a unique storytelling element for us to study, discuss, and practice. At the beginning of each class, we will introduce the day's topic and have a guided class discussion of how the writers of the show used that element in the series. Students will be encouraged to provide examples from the show, as well as briefly explain their reasoning in response to our discussion. Upon our analysis of the day's writing element, we will do a brief activity together to add to our final project. 

The final project will be introduced in the first class and we will add bits and pieces to it throughout the course. On the second to last day, we will go over the structure of the final project which will be worked on together on the last day of class. For the final project, students will create an outline for an original episode of the show, starring a character they create, a storyline they design, and a unique blend of the remaining writing elements we will discuss in class. Students will be encouraged to share their outline/summary on the last day along with their classmates. 

Week 1-
Day 1: Settings
Day 2: Characters
Day 3: Plots & Conflicts

Week 2-
Day 4: Themes
Day 5: Points of View, Moods, and Tones (Introduce Final Project)
Day 6: Final Project - Outline an original episode

Knowledge of the show is strongly encouraged, especially for the final project, but students do not need to binge (or re-binge) the series in order to participate in the class. Students may be asked to respond to group discussion questions prior to the following class day on our Classroom.