Powerful Fiction Techniques offers passionate writers the opportunity to explore revision techniques and foundational skills of rewriting. Revision, the finesse work that leads to artful writing, adds power to writing as students study a story from new perspectives.
Each week includes two writing assignments:
- A prompt that asks the student to explore their characters and story in a new way
- A technique exercise that encourages a re-thinking (and re-writing) of the earlier prompt
Students rework a short piece of writing through numerous variations, including setting changes, narrative styles, experimentation with point of view and voice, character development, exploration of the five senses, language experiments, and focus on beginnings and endings.
Syllabus
Week One
Students begin with a writing prompt to explore the sense of taste. They then apply a new technique to the original writing as they rewrite in a different narrative mode.
Week Two
After a writing session where students explore the sense of hearing, they’ll rewrite the piece with a new element of their choice: as if it were a dream, in the passive voice, or using extended metaphor.
Week Three
The sense under examination this week is touch. With that freewrite accomplished, students will explore a variation on the piece using animism or a character/landscape as animal. Imagination abounds here!
Week Four
Exploration of the sense of smell will lead students to new arenas of vivid writing. They’ll end the week with a rewrite using language play. Think spoonerisms and anagrams!
Common Core and Academic Standards Support
What follows is a word bank and set of skills associated with this class. Use them to craft your own learning narrative for use in year-end evaluations, charter school reports, or any other accountability source.
Word Bank
- Animism
- Character
- Description
- Language play
- Metaphor
- Narrative styles
- Point of view
- Revision
- Sensory writing
- Vivid detail
- Vocabulary development
- Writing craft
- Writer’s workshop
- Writing voice
Core Skills
- Convey narrative using animism or character/landscape as animal
- Describe setting and characters with vivid detail
- Engage in narrative writing in a variety of styles
- Rewrite original piece in novel voice (dream, passive, metaphor)
- Rewrite original piece from a new point of view
- Revise writing for clarity, flow, order, interest, and economy of language
- Utilize distinct writer’s voice
- Utilize language play as revision technique (spoonerism, anagram, jargon, or word composition)
- Utilize metacognition to reflect on the writing journey
- Utilize various senses as focus of writing
- Write detailed, organized, structured original narratives
