In My Imagination...

Imaginative writing is a pretty big section of the HSC Area of Study and, for those students undertaking Extension 1, it's 50% of their course work. Whether you teach juniors, Standard, Advanced or Extension 1, I've got a few ideas on how you can engage students in creative writing to develop their ideas into something great.

Piclits
Heard of this website? It has a whole heap of images to prompt creative writing ideas and students can drag and drop words into the image to brainstorm ideas. Alternatively, teachers can choose images and insert a single word that they want students to focus on. A great Web 2.0 tool for visual learners and lots of different ways it can be utilised in the classroom.

3 Minute Images
This was an inspired idea I took away from professional learning at the AIS. Put together a series of images to do with belonging, or whatever topic you so choose, in a powerpoint or keynote presentation- you'll need 20 or so images. You can source them yourself, or ask the students to each email you a picture with the website they got it from so you can ethically reference it. In class, tell the students they will have 3 minutes per image to start a creative writing piece. Each image should inspire a DIFFERENT and ORIGINAL idea. The beauty of this task is that they are writing continuously for the whole period in silence, completely focussed on the development of new ideas. The purpose of the task is for the students to consider many new ideas about belonging- some good and some bad. At least from what they come up with here, they may choose a few to actually write about later on.

Handy Hints
This document is a standard one that I give out to junior and senior writers to assist them with how a short story will differ from an epic novel. It illustrates the importance of starting very close to the complication and other ideas.

Writing Portfolio
This is one of my faves and I thank my colleague Andrew McHugh for giving me this idea! This is a great revision task for HSC students, to get them thinking about different text types, characters, audiences and settings. It requires them to have a 'bank' of ideas that they can mix and match and pull ideas from.

Teacher- Guided Writing
This activity will take the whole lesson, at my school, 55 mins. If your lessons are longer, I'd recommend spending an hour on this and then getting the students to move off and start putting the pieces together. Ask students to each bring in two images around the following guidelines:

Love not Lust
Faith not Religion
Trust not Obedience

These are just to avoid pictures of pets, girlfriends and boyfriends and other teenage nonsense really! But you can put your own guidelines on what you want them to bring in. It's important they arrive with a hard copy as these will be placed on the floor and students sitting in a circle around them. The students sit in silence as you guide them through with the following instructions, spaced out to allow them time to write:

1. Each student should choose an image from the collection- one that is NOT theirs.
2. First, consider the setting of your scene in the image. Where is it? WHEN is it? Students to have a clear understanding of the time and space that their story is going to be set in.
3. Using descriptive language and imagery, write 2-3 sentences to describe the place and time. Play with sensory imagery: what does this place and time sound like? Smell like? Taste like? Feel like? Look like?
4. Next, think about a character for your story. If there are people in the image, who is going to be your protagonist? If there is not a person, how can the setting shape a character for you?
5. Consider the age, sex and back story of your protagonist. Write a character profile for them, about a paragraph. What do they look like? What is their occupation? Family situation? Marital status? Likes and dislikes? etc. 
6. From here, it's important to get the students thinking about the plot. In the context of the AOS, it needs to link to Belonging so plant that seed in their heads at this point. Students should decide what is happening in the image right now and what happened just before this picture was taken. Here, you're trying to get them to decide upon a complication that hopefully has to do with belonging! 
7. Now consider what happens just after this picture is taken. How does this progress the plot?
8. Next, think about other people that are in the image. Who are they? How do they relate to your protagonist? What part do they play in the plot? If there are no others, why not? What does that suggest about the concept of belonging? I don't recommend students develop any more that 2 characters; when they do, the stories become bigger than Ben Hur. 
9. Consider a symbol or motif that could recur through their piece. Is it something from the image- a necklace? Colour? Or is it a phrase that is repeated throughout? Write a paragraph on the symbol/ motif. Describe it's significance and purpose. Analyse it like you would if it were in your core text. How does the protagonist interact with it?
10. Students put their image back into the centre and choose another one. How does this new image suggest a new direction for your story? From here, get the students to start writing if there is time, using all the prompts and brainstorming they have completed thus far.

In my classroom, I establish this task the lesson before and let them know that when they arrive they are to be completely silent and focussed. I reiterate this when they enter the room by putting my finger to my lips and speaking calmly and quietly when guiding them through. It's supposed to be a focussed and reflective activity where the answer to all their questions is YES, so really, there's no point in asking any. 

Hopefully some of these ideas will inspire those of you out there that are looking for new ways into creative and imaginative writing!