A good short story grabs you from the first word, has well- developed characters and a plot that keeps you reading. 

In this class, the student will write four different short stories. Everyone in the class will write the four same themes/ genres to give everyone a chance to see different approaches to the subject. 

The four themes/genres are: 

Fantasy
Realistic Fiction 
Ghost or horror 
Historical Fiction 

Each theme will be covered in one hour where we will discuss what makes that genre special and how to write a good short story for that specific theme. We will include things like research, outlining, characters, how to create a certain mood or feeling in a story and hero/villains. 

Then the students have two weeks to write their stories and post in the Outschool classroom the latest 48 hours before the next class. If they need feedback/help during the two weeks they can reach out to me by email and I will help them. I suggest to create a google doc document for the class and invite me to edit. 

Every student needs to read the others stories and be able to give good feedback on the plot, the characters and the feeling in the story. We won't focus on grammar or spelling but the story needs to be readable for everyone. There will be a document with instructions on how to give constructive feedback. 

We will discuss each story for about 10 minutes each.

The schedule will be like this

Teacher-led class

2 weeks to write

Discussion

Teacher-led class

2 weeks to write

Discussion

We will meet live 8 times but with the writing breaks the class lasts for 12 weeks. 

To be part of this class the student needs to be able to work independently, write on a deadline and receive and give constructive criticism.