Do you love animals?  Here’s your chance to write your very own Animal Chapter Story! In this 8 week semester course we will pour our love of animals into story writing, all the while learning a step-by-step approach to being a young author and making a short chapter book.

 Every learner will come away with increased creative and practical story writing skills, starting with the extra-important pre-writing phase and ending with an edited and illustrated mini novel which will serve as a wonderful reminder of our time together.

We will be meeting once a week for 8 weeks, but I will be available through the learner messages and the outschool classroom for assistance and to provide feedback whenever needed. Here is a breakdown of the skills and themes we will cover during this creative writing course:

Week One:
-Introductions, sharing about ourselves and the animals we love
-I will share some story starter ideas and read some real life animal rescue stories, students may also share their own animal stories and experiences if they wish
-Graphic Organizers will be shown and modeled to help in organizing story writing ideas, concepts of setting, characters, plot will be included here
-Point of View/Narrator Lesson 
-Homework for next class:  Finish graphic organizer and be ready to share 

Week Two:
-Students will share graphic organizers for their Animal Stories 
-We will break up our plot points into short chapter sections
-Lesson on Developing the setting
-Lesson on Paragraphs/focus will be on opening paragraph


Week Three:
-Share Opening Paragraphs(learners will offer and listen to suggestions) 
-Revise, Revise, Revise(discussion on how good authors are always revising; learners will be given a revising checklist) 
-Titles Lesson(Story Title and Chapter Titles)
-Cliffhanger and Suspense Lesson

Week Four:
-Character Development Lesson
-Writing Dialogue and Quotations Lesson

Week Five:
-Descriptive Paragraph Lesson
-Using Juicy Words(Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs Lesson)

Week Six:
-Images, Similes and Metaphors Lesson
-Alliteration lesson 
-Great Endings Lesson


Week Seven:
-Exemplary Extras(About the Author, back of the book blurb, illustrations, dedication page, facts page)
-Edit, Edit Edit!  We will discuss the importance of various types of editing before publishing our novel for the class

Week Eight:
-Meet the young authors! We will present and share our Mini-Novels!!  Learners will pretend they are at a book signing for their newly published novel and give their adoring fans a “taste” of their novel by reading parts out loud!!