Three Powerful Story Starters for Creative Writing
Tuesday September 2, 2008
You know it's gonna be a long night when you pick up a pile of student writing and every paper seems to start just like this:
"One day I went to the beach"
or
"Once upon a time a little girl lived in a castle."
Boring! Instead, teach your students to use these three preferred story starting techniques and watch as their writing goes from cliche to compelling in three seconds flat.
Comments
I’m so glad to hear someone else enjoys “ideas” to motivate students to write.
My favorite was encouraging first and second graders to think of the four ways to start a story that would “GRAB” their reader. They
learned four ways, two beginning with “s” and two with “q”. They are 1.SOUND EFFECTS 2. SETTING 3. QUESTION (ask a question to begin) 4. QUOTATION (ex. “Shut that door”, shouted my brother.) They remembered these mind joggers and loved sitting down to writing.