Only 20 mins

[ccgirr]

Hi all
I have an interview on Monday and need to teach for 20 mins on creative writing. Seems very short. My first thought was Halloween but now I'm thinking the school might not mention Halloween as it is secondary. Would loved advice on how to keep it punchy but def show I've taught something in the 20. Help please

Oooh this sounds interesting.

What age are the students?

Make sure it's not a church school if you're going to do something about. Halloween.

Some kind of slow writing? Short but sweet?

Hopefully short but sweet!! Year 8 creative writing. Not a church school but maybe still risky.

What about poetry?

Split them into groups and give each group a page with 3 haikus written on it. Tell them "these are haikus, see what they have in common". 5 mins.

Plenary - ask them "what's a haiku"? Elicit the important points (lines, words, poetry ect). 5 mins.

Individual work - each write a haiku. Wander around and give effusive praise and specific feedback. Volunteers to read theirs out. 10 min.

Could you provide blank newspaper template and some sentence starters

Maybe some rhymes for tricky word spellings / conjunctions etc

I'd stick to teaching one technique (if concerned about the Hallowe'een link, claim it's gothic instead...)

Depends on their ability but you could teach either metaphors or extended metaphors - and Show Don't Tell is always an easy win.

C: What creepy things can you imagine happening on Hallowe'een?
A: Model difference between Showing and Telling description
D: Pupils write own examples - use a picture stimulus of something like a creepy looking door
C: Hear examples

Curtis Brown, a huge literary agency, have a Pitch Day on the last Friday of the month, on Twitter.

People have to use 140 characters to write a plot which would attract an agent.

If you did this, then homework/next lesson could be writing the story.

Or you could have three bags, one with nouns, one with adjectives, one with verbs. Each student takes one from each bag, then writes a story of a set number of sentences.

They get to read them out to the class.

Some fab ideas guys thanks. I love the haiku plan as I think it's small enough that they could demonstrate they'd actually learned so it has a pow and the bags of word types is very very tempting. Feel like I'm doubting myself and ability to demonstrate true ability in 20

What about using the bag of words to write a haiku?

But to fit an explanation of what a haiku is, give them the words, get them to write one, get them to read it aloud and then finish off the lesson is probably too much in half an hour.

In 20 minutes, I mean.

Why not something to do with Gothic writing? Think Dracula, Frankenstein, or even the more accessible for Y8 of nightmare before Christmas, Coralline etc. There's loads on the web about it all (I had to cover an English lesson last year with no real work on this! The kids loved doing a drawing and mindmap to get the ideas for a poem or opening paragraph for a story)

Haiku (about Autumn). They should know what they are so v.quick recap on features. Give them some Autumn images. 5 mins then brainstorming adjectives/verbs/adverbs for the images. Model a Haiku verse based on one of the images. Let them write their own for another image. Share some examples and peer assess. Just done this with Year 4 primary class in 1 hour but 1 verse for secondary should be do able in 20 mins..??

Some my Year 4's came up with

Small, red, round berries
Glistening in morning dew
Like sparkling rubies

Shiny, brown, conkers
Peeking from their hedgehog shells
Ready for battle!

A carpet of leaves
Crispy, crunchy, colourful
Huddled together

Brown sycamore seeds
Gently flutter and float down
Like helicopters

A hungry squirrel
Eagerly gathers acorns
Hibernation time!

I would avoid Halloween. Remember now most schools are looking towards to the new curriculum - in twenty minutes I would look at doing something with sentence construction so that you can constantly check progress - what ability are the pupils?

Yes blether 20 is not long when need to intro and plenary. Wow Tully they are fab. Def should be proud. Pupils mixed but most about old level 5 aiming 6. Gothic sentences could be a good one.

What about war poetry, could be done in haiku form.

I got it guys thanks for help. I used a combination of ideas.

You got it? As in you got the job? OP well done that's amazing!

Well done, OP!

Could you write words on post- its and get pupils to group them or place them on a sliding scale, eg, most scary to least scary?

Yes got the job! 🎉🎉

Congratulations 🎉🎉🎈