Years ago, when I was doing contract negotiations for a small advertising agency, the CFO gave me some good advice at the start. Always know what you’re talking about, she said. If you do, you’ll do fine. I’d never negotiated contracts before but nevertheless, was placed to work for their biggest client, JCPenney. I renewed […]
homeschool
Writing Activity: Stories about trust, truth and lying
The Mother’s Day Gift by Mathew Thompson, age 11, Dallas, Oregon
The Clay Pot by Naomi Wendland, age 12, Lusaka, Zambia
These two stories deal with the same problem: the tempation to lie to hide a mistake. The temptation to lie to cover up a mistake is a common one, and most people, at some point in their lives, give in to the temptation to pretend they haven’t done something that, in fact, they have.
Writing Activity: plot a story on a graph with the brilliant, funny “Shapes of Stories” talk by Kurt Vonnegut
This writing activity is based on a very funny Kurt Vonnegut lecture on the shape of stories. In this project, students learn to develop compelling narratives by graphing the plots. American author Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is best known for his book Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). In this very funny, very brilliant talk on the fundamentals of the narrative arc, Vonnegut […]
