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| WRITING | THE ONE-MINUTE
TEACHER | FUN PAGE
QuickWrite—A
Proven Approach for Getting Students to Produce a Story in 10 Minutes
or Less (Page
3)
PHASE
FOUR—See/Edit Rough Text
In this segment the student is given exactly one minute to edit as much
as s/he can of what s/he has written. Issues of capitalization, punctuation,
grammar, spelling or other aspects of good writing can be worked on.
Now the student has at least a partially edited first draft. (Say, "Get
ready to edit your first draft. You may look at capitals, punctuation,
spelling or anything you want to fix in your story. You have one minute.
Ready. Please Begin." After one minute, "Thank you.")
PHASE
FIVE—The Second Draft
As an independent assignment, the student is now given the original
list from Phase One, the re-ordered list from Phase Two, the first draft
from Phase Three and the edited draft from Phase Four and asked to rewrite,
revise, add or edit the story. The finished product is handed in on
the next day's deadline. Now the student has a finished product. (Say,
"Now we will take some time to rewrite our first draft into a finished
story. You have ??? minutes to do that. Then you will hand it in to
meet your deadline.")
The
Final Outcome
Students quickly get into the habit of looking at a topic and generating
20-30 ideas they could use in that story. They just as quickly learn
to order their ideas in some fashion to give the story consistency.
They learn to edit quickly; they rewrite because they can see how to
easily improve the story. All in about ten minutes a day! Soon they
will be complaining that five minutes is not long enough for their first
draft. When you hear that particular complaint, both you and the student
should stand up and take a bow.
Rewriting
Stories
Sometimes students like to do the same story more than once, using their
first finished story as a starting point. They add more plot, more dialogue,
more characters, whatever tickles their fancy. They may simply get more
ideas to add to an existing story so that they are actually writing
for the full five-minute timing.
Cub
Reporters
Pictures from a newspaper can be used as a simulated wire press service.
The picture comes over the wire but it needs copy to become an article
in today's edition. Press time is 20 minutes away. As Editor, you assign
your cub reporter the job of writing the 150-word story without stopping
the presses.
Awards
Every so often the Editor may award prizes for the best story, best
editing, best increase in writing, best description, best grammar, etc.
Students can add their "best" stories to their portfolios.
Students can also read their favorite pieces to others.
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