Clase FLEX: El Club de Escritura, Sesión 1

In this pre-recorded FLEX class, the goal is to foster in students a love of writing while developing critical writing and communication skills through creative writing. Please note that this is a FLEX class and there are no live meetings, although the instructor does communicate with the students through messages and classroom postings. 

Each week, students will watch an engaging video, complete the in-video exercises, and then submit their assignment to the instructor for feedback. During the week, the instructor will communicate with the students in the Classroom by posting activities and questions designed to facilitate communication and interaction among the students. 

WEEK 1: Can you think of a clever oxymoron (assuming you know what an oxymoron is!)? After this class, you certainly will! We'll have fun describing places like Poor Health Hospital and Boring Amusement Park in class, and for the assignment you'll have the chance to create your own oxymoron world. 

WEEK 2: We'll be creating advertisements for holidays, but not just boring holidays! How about Lost Sock Memorial Day or Polar Bear Plunge Day? Maybe Festival of Sleep Day? But here's the catch: We have to use hyperbole in our advertisements to really capture the reader's interest. 

WEEK 3: What would a sloth want from a zookeeper? Maybe a boa constrictor just wants a hug! But they'll have to use alliteration -- and strong persuasive writing! -- to get it! 

WEEK 4: Fractured fairy tales! We all love fairy tales, but if Walt Disney can fracture them (do you know what originally happened to the Little Mermaid?), so can we! By examining the elements of a story, we will take a fairy tale, fracture an element, and rewrite it. Maybe Snow White becomes Snow Yellow and refuses to clean. Maybe The Prince and the Pea finds a hammer instead of a pea. Maybe the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood goes vegan. Who knows? 

Each video-based class begins with a warm-up activity, followed by three vocabulary words that students should try to integrate into their assignment. Then, the instructor introduces the literary device for that class and gives students opportunities to practice it creatively. All activities lead up to the final assignment, and the instructor gives examples every step of the way. 

Because learner interaction is an integral part of a FLEX class, interaction between learners and the instructor will occur in the following ways: 

1) Students are encouraged to post their weekly assignments in the Classroom and to constructively comment on their classmates' work. 

2) Mid-week activities that encourage interaction, such as Nearpod games, a quizlet (updated weekly) that uses the vocabulary words, and instructor posts that challenge students to write and think creatively. An example post, for the week on fairy tales, is that the instructor will summarize her favorite fairy tale. The first student to respond must change one thing in the summary (ie, the Big Bad Wolf becomes the Big Lazy Sloth). The second person must change one additional thing (ie, the Big Lazy Sloth is going to McDonald's instead of grandma's house), and so on, until the fairy tale summary is completely rewritten. 

Learners will improve their writing skills, learn and practice literary devices, study vocabulary words, and have fun in each class!