100 Top Picks For Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy

Author:Cathy Duffy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2009-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

Create-A-Story

Create! Press

P.O. Box 2785

Carlsbad, CA 92018-2785

(760) 730-9550

www.createpress.com

Create-A-Story game—$44.95, workbooks—$21.95 each, Writing Adventures Game Pack—$24.95

The folks who came up with this board game deserve high praise for incorporating some of the best story-writing strategies into a game format.

The game actually has two parts: the first, moving around the game board and collecting cards that will become components of your story; and the second, putting the pieces together into an actual story, writing, and scoring the story according to how many of your game cards were incorporated into it.

Part of the difficulty for young writers is figuring out what to write about. It is difficult for them to come up with characters, plot, theme, setting, conflict, climax, and resolution, all while using elements of style, such as description and dialogue. This game makes the process much easier by providing a number of these elements for the writer.

There are decks of cards that have topic sentences, settings, characters, plot elements, resolutions (as in how the story turns out), lessons (the moral of the story is …), descriptions (e.g., hairy, cold and rainy, majestic), and dialogue (words like “laughed,” “questioned,” and “roared” that are to be used after direct quotes). Some blank cards are included so you can add story elements of your own.

Every player selects a topic sentence card before play begins, then as they move around the board, they land on other story elements and draw a card each time from the dialogue deck if the space says “Dialogue,” from the description deck if the space says “Description,” etc. There are some “Free Choice” spaces so players can select a story element they are lacking.

When they reach the end of the game board path, they are ready to put their story together. They need not use all story element cards they’ve drawn, but they get points for those they do use. They will generally have some cards that just won’t fit with the others, but they should still have plenty with which to work.

Each player takes an Outline Sheet from the pad provided with the game and begins to write down story elements he or she plans to use. Players decide which characters will be good guys or bad guys. They choose which plot to use, then write down the key plot elements—what is the conflict, then four steps for what happens first, second, etc. All of this has to lead up to the resolution shown on one of the cards they have drawn.

After they’ve written down these story elements, they actually write their story. The length of the story should depend upon the age and ability of the child. With a younger child, I might require them to sort through all their cards and limit their selections to fewer than I would allow an older child, just to keep the story brief. Generally, I would expect stories to be anywhere from one to two pages long, but it certainly is possible for students to write much longer stories if time permits.

Once

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.