Since the beginning of this year, I have been teaching Creative Writing classes at the Brentwood Library for children ages 8-12! I’ve loved writing since I was 8 years old, and I’ve picked up a lot in the past 8 years. So I wanted to organize these classes to share what I’ve learned to young writers, or even spark an interest in writing in others. We have classes once a month, from 1 to 2 pm, with around 15-20 kids coming in each time. The sign ups for the classes are usually posted on the Brentwood Library’s calendar (here: https://brentwood-tn.libcal.com/)! If you have any questions about these classes you can contact me at diamanoj2120@gmail.com . I also wanted to put up what I’ve gone over in these classes on my website, so that all that content is available. Here’s a general overview of a few of the classes we’ve had so far, and some worksheets that might help you:
CLASS 1: VIVID IMAGERY + THE FIVE SENSES
For the first class, I wanted to go over something simple but very essential- descriptive imagery. We’re usually taught to analyze this in other stories, but it can be difficult to write up vivid details on our own. As an activity, the class thought up of their favorite place to be at- like the beach, or the mall, or something like that. Then we used our 5 senses to try and describe this place without ever saying what the place was. For example, if you chose to write about the beach; you could talk about how you can hear the waves crash on the shore, how you can feel the sand in between your toes, etc. Then, we read aloud our descriptions to the rest of the class and tried to see if they could guess what place we were describing. Descriptive imagery in your writing can be important to grab your reader’s attention, and really make it easier for them to be able to picture your setting.
CLASS 2: WORLD BUILDING (WITH WORKSHEET)
For class number 2, I wanted to go over one of my favorite parts of planning a story- world building! World building can be more essential for some genres than others- especially Fantasy. Many popular Fantasy books are popular for their deeply thought out, magical worlds. To be able to more easily write a story in a made up place, you have to really know that place, and by that I mean you need to know everything about it. You also have to make your world believable to your reader. And how can you make a place believable if you don’t even know enough about it? Many books have maps of their worlds on the first few pages (one example is Cruel Prince by Holly Black). To help the students make their own, I brought giant posters and some markers, and split the class up into groups of 3-4. Each group came up with their own world name, and then drew a giant map of their world on the poster. They added mountains, and cities, and forests. At the end, they had a beautiful, detailed map of the world they just created together. Then, to plan even more specific things about their world, I gave them this worksheet (that I made myself, actually!):
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1mq47FAlQHVLUUX9Qro4gFSVqq48tuIQio8i5xJhgMuU/edit?ths=true
Of course, this is a very simple worksheet, because it is for younger writers, and we only had about an hour of classtime. But I encourage you to look up some more detailed world builders online. At the end of the class, we wrote stories from the perspective of someone important in their world.
CLASS 3: GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS
At the end of the previous class, I asked the kids what they wanted to go over in the next class, and a large majority voted for comics and graphic novels. The reason why comics are probably so popular, especially with children, is the artistic freedom that comes with it. Writing in large amounts with long descriptions might not be for everyone, and graphic novels give you the option of instead drawing out the details. For the class, we folded up our own comic books with some printer paper, and grabbed inspiration from story prompts we found online. We learned a lot about the process of making comics- how the comic panels/ boxes don’t always have to be rigid squares. And how dialogue can pop out of the boxes. There really is a lot of freedom in the style. We ended up with many superhero comics- and most notably “Sumo Baby”.
CLASS 4: CHARACTER BUILDING (WITH WORKSHEET)
Similar to class number 2, in class 4, we went over building- but this time we built characters. The reason why some of our most beloved characters are our favorites is because they make us care about them. To care about a character, you have to be able to truly understand them and their situation. Bland characters with no moral dilemmas and no dreams will make your reader give up on your story immediately. External conflict is definitely important, but internal conflict can be argued to be much more important, because it can also bring some relatability from your character for your reader. If not relatability, at least empathy or a will to root for your character. For the activity in class, I let them come up with their own characters or use a character they previously created. Then I let them plan out all the details about their character on this Character Builder!
HERE is the child-friendly version that I edited for my class (with 60 questions):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VnUcR8ywp6Go8ARQcjtnbvSrb5lOZvsQJOUhdaEAD34/edit
and THIS is the incredibly helpful website where I found the questions (with 100 questions):
https://www.miniworld.com/adnd/100ThingsAboutUrPCBackGround.html
At the end of the class, we wrote diary entries from the perspective of their characters. Not their actual stories with any drama or major plot, but a simple diary entry of a day in the life of their character! I find this to be very helpful in getting to know your character, and it can be pretty fun to do.
I hope this was helpful or interesting in any form. Thank you!