Mystery Door Writing

Have you ever sensed frustration when you ask your students to write a narrative fiction story?  Yes, they understand that their stories will need a beginning, middle, end, AND there should be some characters.  However, once they start, their stories start sounding a bit "flat."  How could you spice up their writing?

When we returned from the winter break, our first staff meeting dealt with ideas to encourage creativity in writing while meeting the Common Core standards.  In these collaborative talks, I walked away with a quick and easy strategy to encourage creativity.  I have to give credit to one of our fabulous long-term subs, Ms. Sawyer, who provided the ideas...thank you Ms. Sawyer!

One of the main takeaways from our staff meeting was the need for students to "rehearse" their stories before they even start writing.  This rehearsal involves language opportunities with peers in order to have interactions of ideas.  As I left our meeting, I began to think how I could structure my next writing lessons with this in mind.

The next day, as a class, we spoke about how a door can tell you a lot about the owners of the door or what could possibly happen inside a house or building with that door.  I showed the class a variety of pictures of different doors. 

If you click on this file you will have access to an array of door pictures:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S_vuno5Gnlg-2jqqsXvtrzMMnDumPjuu/view

I paired students to begin "rehearsing" possible story structures.  I randomly scrolled the file and stopped at a door.  Using Kagan structures, partner A would talk about who might live in the dwelling and what might you see inside if you walked through the doorway.  Partner B could add a few more details about the story.  Scroll through a few more doors using this activity to encourage creativity ORALLY.

I printed the doors on lined paper as you can see in the picture.  If you resize the pictures to about 50%, you should be able to print it the way I did in the picture.  Randomly hand out pages to students.  They partner up again with different students and begin "rehearsing" their narratives with a partner.  I encouraged them to use the backside of their pages as a note-taking space where they can bullet interesting ideas in order not to lose those precious details!  You can have them partner them again with someone else if you wish.

At this point, students have had at least four different rehearsals with a variety of partners even before they start writing.  Depending on what you want to do with this activity, the following days you can tailor it to fit your needs.  You can complete the activity using your normal writing routine!  Have fun!!

Happy Writing!
Gus Macuil