Can a boy dancer be cool? Yes he can! And yet Alex, the main character in “Standing Alone,” is teased mercilessly by his classmates because he likes to dance. They call him “ballerina,” even though he actually does contemporary dance, not ballet. They make his life miserable every chance they get. Nobody likes to be made fun of. Nobody likes to be bullied. Everybody wants to be liked and appreciated. In our modern world, we think of ourselves as open-minded. Boys and girls can follow their dreams, no matter what they are. But some stereotypes persist from the past, like the one that says it’s unmanly for a boy to be interested in dance. It’s important to look at those stereotypes and see how wrong they are, how much they hurt people. Then maybe we can get rid of them and become better people. Eleven-year-old author Erin Trefny helps us do just that in “Standing Alone,” the featured story from our May/June 2014 issue. She shows us the world through Alex’s eyes – his love of dance, the cruelty of his classmates, how he deals with his problem. Some of the best stories we receive are stories in which the author is writing about his or her own experiences. In Erin’s case, though, she is a girl writing from the viewpoint of a boy. How does she do it? Maybe she knows a boy like Alex, or maybe she is really good at using her imagination and observations to put herself in someone else’s shoes (or bare feet, in Alex’s case!). Whatever her secret, Erin has created a believable character. She has placed him in a story that holds our interest from start to finish. The story teaches us an important lesson, not by telling but by showing. Read Erin’s story twice, then read it again. Each time you will notice more little details and bits of dialogue that make the people and places come to life. Most of all, notice how Erin shows us, through her well-crafted story, that it is wrong to tease, wrong to bully, and wrong to stereotype.
Homeschooling
Character, Plot, and Setting, Oh My! (Part 3)
Developing the Elements of a Story, Part 3 I can’t even count how many times I have read Thomas’s Christmas Delivery or Little Bear’s New Friend. My children never tired of hearing about Thomas’s and Little Bear’s adventures. Though as adults we may not read the same book as many times as our children reread their favorites, we can appreciate the draw of a good story. It’s that connection we have with the story that keeps us up to the wee hours of the night turning page after page and lingers in the periphery of our minds, wooing us as we go about our day. But what makes a story one to treasure, and how can we help our kids develop a tale beyond a sequence of events? The glue that holds a story together is character, plot, and setting, and when children understand and develop them, a great story is born. Have you ever imagined strolling along the paths of the shire or sitting in potions class at Hogwarts? The authors of these worlds have so craftily described the settings of these places that it makes it easy for us to fall right into the stories alongside our favorite characters. The setting of a story can set the mood, influence the characters, and affect the readers’ emotions. Although setting is an element children tend to forget, developing it can add interest not only for the reader but also for the writer. First, children need to understand the different aspects of setting: time, place, and environment. When and where does the story take place? What does the place look like? Who lives there? Is it a suburb, city, or countryside? Is it a rich or poor area? There are free lesson plans available online for teaching about setting. “Using Picture Books to Teach Setting in Writing Workshop,” by ReadWriteThink.org is a useful guide and easily adaptable to the homeschool classroom. Second, developing the setting is more than just telling the reader the where and when. Like the rest of the story, the writer should show rather than tell the reader the setting. This is not an easy task, but Teaching Ideas provides a wonderful lesson sure to help kids see and practice how this is done. Finally, once the children have a better understanding of what setting is and how it is projected, they can have some fun developing the setting for their own story. A simple way to do this is to have them list the aspects of time, place, and environment on a sheet of paper and brainstorm ideas for each category. For example, have them attach sensory descriptions to the environment category. Primary Paradise, however, has free graphic organizers that both upper and lower elementary aged students would find useful for this purpose. Story writing should be fun for kids. When they also understand and develop the elements of a story, they not only become better writers, they also go on an adventure, exploring their characters, plot and setting—oh my!
Character, Plot, and Setting, Oh My! (Part 2)
Developing the Elements of a Story, Part 2 I can’t even count how many times I have read Thomas’s Christmas Delivery or Little Bear’s New Friend. My children never tired of hearing about Thomas’s and Little Bear’s adventures. Though as adults we may not read the same book as many times as our children reread their favorites, we can appreciate the draw of a good story. It’s that connection we have with the story that keeps us up to the wee hours of the night turning page after page and lingers in the periphery of our minds, wooing us as we go about our day. But what makes a story one to treasure, and how can we help our kids develop a tale beyond a sequence of events? The glue that holds a story together is character, plot, and setting, and when children understand and develop them, a great story is born. “You may wonder where plot is in all this. The answer—my answer, anyway—is nowhere,” according to Stephen King. He, along with few other famous writers, claims that plotting a story hinders creativity. Our children though, like most of us, aren’t Stephen King and aren’t experienced enough writers to just throw plot out the window. You might be asking, “But what is this plot you speak of?” It is the map of a story. A basic understanding of plot can help children organize, develop, and focus their writing. In the simplest of terms, plot is what happens in the story. Pretty simple right? Not really. Children often get sidetracked while writing. They might include irrelevant details or add more and more ideas until the story goes off the rails on a crazy train. It’s also a challenge for them to isolate their main details and sequence them in a logical and interesting way. However, plotting can help them take control of what happens in the story. Plot includes exposition (beginning), where the main character and primary conflict (his or her motivation) is introduced; rising action, which is the series of events that affect the main character and his or her achievement of a goal; climax (middle), where the main character succeeds or fails at his or her goal; and falling action and resolution (end), where the story wraps up and provides closure. A plot diagram is a great way to help children see this progression, and they can use it as a guide to plan their stories. Basic mapping of their story will help them organize their thoughts as well as develop and focus their ideas. They can write in their story points on a larger copy of the diagram or use the interactive plot diagram at ReadWriteThink.org. Here kids can type titles for their scenes with a brief description and place them into the diagram to be printed when through. The graphic organizers at Teaching Ideas have a user-friendly format for younger children. Another fun way for kids to plan their stories is a storyboard. These planners have comic strip-like blocks where writers provide a brief description and sketch of their scenes. Many children like the old standby—outlining, where the first main topic represents the exposition, the next few main topics represent the rising action and climax, and the last main topic represents the resolution. Once the story has some focused scenes, characters can be developed further as children decide how they will respond to the situations within the story. But where does all this take place? Next week we’ll have some fun with setting.
