Fantasy Writing Workshop: Other Stars, Other Worlds (Semester Long)
Is your society violent or peaceful? High tech or primitive? A multi-week online workshop where we first create a world collaboratively, but then each student creates their own society and writes a new story about that society each week.
Leeyanne Moore MFA
Average rating:
4.8
Number of reviews:(228)
What's included
8 live meetings
6 hrs 40 mins in-class hoursMastery Evaluation
1 hour per week. Students have the option to continue their writing after the session is over each week. They can read what they wrote at home as well as what they wrote in class.Assessment
Students are keenly aware of their peer's reactions to their work. They know when everyone is listening breathlessly. They know when everyone is excited about their writing. Positive reinforcement for strong writing from the group encourages students to write at a more challenging level. I like to message parents with questions about what I'm noticing with the learner. This may be related to the way in which they are engaging in class, or ways in which I can more effectively work with them. I also like to share mostly positive feedback with parents, including specific strengths but can also include challenges.Class Experience
US Grade 5 - 7
Beginner Level
FOR STUDENTS: What if there was a world with clashing rings? Or a dark moon few dare to visit? We’ll create an unusual world that’s all our own and people it with a made-up societies. What do the people look like in the land you create? Do they have strange features? Will your society be high-tech or low tech? Peaceful or aggressive? Is your land full of cities or have strange deserts where monsters roam? In addition to creating our own world and writing stories about the people in it, we'll listen to the stories that other learners write, and comment on those stories. FOR PARENTS: This class meets the Common Core Curriculum Standards for writing narratives in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades. (See below.) This is a process based workshop. Each week the clear and simple process is the same. This allows for maximal creative freedom in a familiar and cozy routine for students. At the same time that students are comfortable and creative within the format, the class is teaching excellent writing, listening, and analytical skills. In every workshop: 1) Students will be given a writing prompt to help them create a speculative fiction story. 2) They will read their writing out loud (if they want to). 3) Others in the group will listen and then comment on what they like about the story or recall in terms of details and writing craft. 4) We'll finish each class by discussing a core curriculum issue such as point of view, transitions, conclusions, shifts in setting or time, etc. COMMON CORE CURRICULUM FOR WRITING NARRATIVES: This class meets the Common Core Curriculum Standards for writing narratives in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades. Students who master this class will also find that they have been practicing and demonstrate the skills needed to execute the standards for Speaking & Listening and Language in the common core curriculum for 5th, 6th, and 7th grade. These are the core curriculum standards that this class meets: Overall goal: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. W.7.3.A Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically. W.7.3.B Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters. W.7.3.C Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence and signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another. W.7.3.D Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events. W.7.3.E Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events.
Learning Goals
Every week students practice:
• Organizing their thoughts with pre-writing exercises
• Writing for a sustained period.
• Reading their work out loud
• Listening to their peers in an engaged and respectful way
• Giving articulate, respectful, and helpful feedback to their peers
• Developing focus and concentration on a task
• Letting their creative ideas flourish
• Exciting collaborative engagement with other students
• Annotating readings for greater comprehension
Other Details
Supply List
Students should have access to writing paper and pen for each workshop class. We want to put our inner critic away--it's too easy to erase words on the computer. Tip: have a folder on hand so you can put stories from the workshop together at the end of each day.
External Resources
In addition to the Outschool classroom, this class uses:
Joined May, 2020
4.8
228reviews
Teacher expertise and credentials
I've been teaching this writing workshop since 1993. I've seen how much this workshop can iron out grammar mistakes, as well as improve a learner's writing and their attitude about writing. Most students naturally fall into longer writing patterns. They employ many narrative techniques, driven by their imagination and exploration of their ideas. They There's so much to write about--new characters, new creatures, new adventures. I'm not kidding: most teens won't want to stop even after writing time is over. The collaborative world building element of creating their own planet creates a bond between students that they won't forget. I have an M.F.A. in creative writing from Syracuse University '07, went to Smith College, 2000, and have taught creative writing and rhetoric at different universities and colleges on the east coast.Reviews
Live Group Course
$21
weekly or $165 for 8 classes1x per week, 8 weeks
50 min
Completed by 9 learners
Live video meetings
Ages: 11-13
3-6 learners per class
