Last year, I tried out a creative writing activity with my 4th year students. During the week leading up to Halloween, I asked them to write a horror story set in school, the reason being that the creepiest stories are always those that happened near the place where they are being told. I gave the students a few pointers, asked them to get into groups of three, and gave them a bit of time to work on a basic horror story. They were a fairly strong class, and they delivered the goods.
This year, I have a slightly weaker class in the same year level. Weaker in their language skills, but really imaginative and with a high level of commitment to any 'different' activity I bring to class. I pitched the task to them by first reading a horror story set at school (with some characters they recognised even after a name change, and some locations they could identify without trouble). Then, I explained the basics of story writing (rising action, climax, denouement), and gave them a target of two pages. This time they would work in pairs, and just like last year, I gave them time to work on their stories in class.
Their response was amazing. They threw themselves into it- they weren't just completing an assignment, they really wanted to create scary stories, and they really wanted their classmates to picture their characters and what they were going through in no uncertain terms. They researched vocabulary I would never have dreamt of teaching them at their skill level, they used grammar structures we had just been working on the week before to express uncertainty and speculation (and if I may say so, successfully as well), and they even were a bit worried they would have to go over the 'limit' of two pages because their story just needed that extra bit of development, or to create a certain effect on the reader.
To them, this was a writing assignment, yes, but it was also a chance to imagine something and bring it to life.
To top it all off, we read the stories in class, curtains drawn and creepy music playing in the background.
The general comment? "We should do this more often!"
You can check their stories (with some minor editing and corrections) clicking here.
