I never let my kids write fiction in class. Perhaps it's a personal hang up. I know all my adolescent experiments in fiction were filled with stereotypes and cop-outs like "And then I woke up. It was all a dream."
But they beg and beg. So this week, I finally gave in...a bit. We've attempted spurts of fiction. For example, when working on describing setting, I gave them the following prompt:
"A group of teens are exploring dark woods when they stumble upon an abandoned village."
Here are some of their sentences:
"The trees in the woods looked like skinny arms grabbing for lost visitors."
"The grass acted as spikes on the ground, protecting the land from intruders."
"The woods were so dark, it was as if God forgot to turn on the lights."
(Another variation of this one was, "It was so dark that it was as if someone had forgotten to pay the light bill.")
"The dark clouds swirled above them like moths as they stared at the abandoned village."
"The radiant moonlight skimmed over their heads like flashlights in the trees."
"The animals were as terrified as two-year-olds at the dentist."
"You could almost hear the forgotten hum of the villagers."
They make the hard work of original writing look so effortless.
Basically, I issued up the fiction challenge, and they responded with a, "Ain't no thang, lady."
Yet again, they prove me wrong. Each day, they show me how very little adults, like myself, truly understand about their capabilities.
Slack-jawed,
Ms. P
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