Teaching How to Write a Story

                                               Photo credit: British Royal Class Academy

Getting ready to teach how to write a story means that one knows what a good story is. How is a good story judged then? A good story is one with a strong opening, vivid description, exciting characters, an interesting twist, logical structure and a powerful ending.

Teaching students how to write a story is another challenge for most creative writing instructors. This is because story writing is more of an imaginary writing, than writing from something real. So how does a teacher help a student who has no bearing in story writing?

Before teaching your students how to write a story, you should make sure that a lot of stories have been read to them. Story telling is a major part of the creative writing class. This makes students want to write and share their stories too. Then outline the elements of a story and teach them as mini lessons.

STORY ELEMENT: PLOT 

1.     Begin with the lesson on plot development

APPLICATION: 

Teach about plot first; let your students understand that the plot of a story is more like the skeleton of a story, which captures the events in a story from the beginning, middle and ending. You can also show them a model, preferably, use a story they know so well, so that when you ask them to write theirs, they know exactly what you are expecting from them. Let us consider the popular traditional story of Cinderella.

Cinderella was a poor girl who was maltreated by her step mother and step sisters. One day, it was announced that the prince wanted to pick his bride, but he would choose from the girls who danced at a banquet. Cinderella wanted to go, but couldn’t because her step mother wouldn’t allow her and she had no dress to wear. A fairy came and helped her, but she must be home before mid-night. Cinderella made it to the banquet, but as she was running back home, one of her shoes slipped off. The prince tried to run after her, he picked up the shoe and watched her go. It was announced that the prince would marry the girl who had the other shoe. The prince finally found Cinderella, and she became his princess.

You can ask your students to write the plots of some stories they know so well, paying attention to the conflict and resolution. Then ask them to write the plots of their own story, making sure that they capture the elements of a good plot.

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