Writing Short Stories

Because it was the week before mid-winter break, my mentor teacher asked her juniors to write short stories as a wrap-up to the quarter. These stories were required to be based upon the idea of time travel and include a literary element. Time travel was the main requirement in the students’ plots because it acted as a nice reflection on the story of Kindred, which is based upon time travel also. The students were allowed to pick any time period to begin the story in, any time period to travel to, and any circumstances upon which to do this traveling. By doing this, the students learned first-hand what it’s like to write a story with a science-fiction element, and it caused them to stretch their creative minds a little bit.

A lot of students wanted help with their stories, and this was probably the most consistent contact I’ve had with the kids one-on-one so far. When they were in the computer lab typing up their stories, I went around and talked with all of them individually about what they were writing. They excitedly told me about their story ideas, and asked for guidance in terms of setting, characterization, and other literary elements. It was really exciting for me to be able to understand the way all of them think and to see their writing skills come into play. This was one of the first times that they all directly asked for my help, which gave me hope. Because I had been doing more “intern” duties than “teacher” duties with the juniors, I was afraid they would always see me as a figure in the background, rather than a reliable teacher-figure who they could come to with questions. This week I really got to know a lot of the students even more than before, and it was a pleasure to be able to guide them through the story-writing process every day.