USING LITERATURE TO TEACH WRITING...

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USING LITERATURE TO TEACH WRITING... or ...USING
WRITING TO TEACH LITERATURE
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Agenda

• Writing Exercise (in Four Hurried Steps) and
  Discussion (30 min.)
• Show-and-Tell What Your Students Do in Grades
  11-12
• IB World Literature Papers
• Poetry Chapbooks
• EIHS Literary Magazine Swansong

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Step 1 Brainstorming

• Free-write for 3 minutes about an adventure you
  have had. (This could be an exotic travel
  storyor it could be what happened to you on your
  way here today!)

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Step 2 Sharing Stories

• Find a partner. Take turns telling your adventure
  stories (tell your story dont read it!).

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Step 2 Sharing Stories

• Find a partner. Take turns telling your adventure
  stories (tell your story dont read it!).
• As you listen, pay attention not only to what
  your partner says, but the environment, the
  storytellers appearance and mannerisms, etc. You
  may jot down some notes if you wish.

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Step 2 Sharing Stories

• Find a partner. Take turns telling your adventure
  stories (tell your story dont read it!).
• As you listen, pay attention not only to what
  your partner says, but the environment, the
  storytellers appearance and mannerisms, etc. You
  may jot down some notes if you wish.
• Please be back in your seat in 8 minutes (you
  have 4 minutes per story). Ill ring a warning
  bell at 7 minutes.

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Step 3 Writing the Frame

• On your desk is a piece of paper with a frame
  drawn on it.
• On the frame itself (the shaded area), write a
  description of everything you observed as your
  partner told his/her story your partners
  appearance and vocal tone, details of the
  environment, etc. You have 3 minutes for this
  task!

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Step 4 Writing the Story

• Inside the frame (the unshaded area), write down
  the story that your partner told you.
• Your partner was talking about his/her own
  experience, so put the story in quotation marks
  and use I (this part has been started for you).
  
• Try to be as faithful to your partners story as
  you can! You have 3 minutes for this task.

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Discussion

• Who is the narrator (the I) of the frame?
• Who is the narrator (the I) of the story?
• How faithful were you to the original story your
  partner told you? If you changed things, why did
  you do so?
• If a third person were to read what you have
  written, how far removed from the original story
  would he/she be?

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Heart of Darkness

• Sample pages 66-67 and 102-103. Which parts
  would go on the frame? Which parts would go
  inside it?
• Think about your own experience of writing a
  frame narrative. What questions does it raise
  about Marlows story?
• Quotation mark confusion clarified!

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Other techniques Ive introduced through writing

• Metered poetry (to introduce Robert Frost)
• Free verse (to introduce Walt Whitman)
• Stream of consciousness (to introduce Virginia
  Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway)
• Gothic style (to introduce Nathaniel Hawthorne
  and Edgar Allan Poe)

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Show-and-Tell

• What your kids do when they get to high school2
  samples
• World Literature Papers
• Poetry Chapbooks
• Literary Magazine Swansong

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Show-and-Tell

• What your kids do when they get to high school2
  samples
• World Literature Papers
• Poetry Chapbooks
• Literary Magazine Swansong
• Thank you, elementary and middle school teachers,
  for laying the foundations so that our students
  can do the amazing things I see every day.