Creative Writing
DEPARTMENT: English
DATE: 2021
This course helps students develop their writing skills and creative imagination. Students write
poems of various types; short stories, including creative nonfiction, such as an autobiographical
narrative; and a one-act play. Critiquing, editing, revising, and proofreading are other skills that
students develop. Students are made aware of freelancing possibilities, and selected pieces are
submitted to writing contests. Prerequisite: Teacher approval.
Select one-act plays, short stories and non-fiction
Essential Questions:
- Why do authors write?
- What are the primary traits that distinguish forms of writing from one another?
- How are the various genres of writing structured?
- How does an author develop style and voice?
- Why are audience and purpose important for an author?
- Why is writing considered a craft?
- What are the best practices for refining work for publication?
MODULE 1 - VERSE & DRAMA
Unit 1 - Elements of Poetry
Focus Standards
- RL.11-12.2. Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their
development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one
another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
- RL.11-12.3. Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and
relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered,
how the characters are introduced and developed). Craft and Structure
- RL.11-12.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text,
including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word
choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is
particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (e.g., Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
- RL.11-12.5. Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts
of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a
comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its
aesthetic impact.
- W.11-12.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using
effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
- W.11-12.4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization,
and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
- W.11-12.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing,
rewriting, trying a new approach, or consulting a style manual (such as MLA or APA
Style), focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and
audience.
- W.11-12.6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, share, and update
individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new
arguments or information.
- W.11-12.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and
revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks,
purposes.
- L.11-12.3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in
different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend
more fully when reading or listening.
- L.11-12.4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words
and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range
of strategies.
- L.11-12.5. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and
nuances in word meanings.
Essential Content Knowledge
- Traits of poetry as a genre
- Figurative language (focus on imagery)
- Word choice (denotation and connotation)
- Poetic devices (similes and metaphors)
- Sound in poetry (rhyme & rhythm)
- Structure in poetry (i.e. limerick, haiku, sonnet)
- Songs as poetry
“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
- “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
- “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou
- “Sonnet 18,” “Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare
- “The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams
- “Haiku” @ the Poetry Foundation
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/haiku-or-hokku
- “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop
- “Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Tennyson
- “Casey at the Bat” By Ernest Lawrence Thayer
- Additional / alternate poems as chosen by instructor
Unit Objective: I Can analyze poetry, traditional and non-traditional subjects, imagery, figurative language, connotative words and Critique writing of peers using rubrics.
Assessments:
- Lyric writing
- Imagist poem
- Villanelle
- Sonnet
- Narrative poem
- Free verse poem
Unit 2 - The One Act Play
Focus Standards
- RL.11-12.2. Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their
development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one
another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
- RL.11-12.3. Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and
relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered,
how the characters are introduced and developed). Craft and Structure
- RL.11-12.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text,
including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word
choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is
particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (e.g., Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
- RL.11-12.5. Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts
of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a
comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its
aesthetic impact.
- RL.11-12.6. Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing
what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or
understatement).
- W.11-12.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using
effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
- W.11-12.4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization,
and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
- W.11-12.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing,
rewriting, trying a new approach, or consulting a style manual (such as MLA or APA
Style), focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and
audience.
- W.11-12.6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, share, and update
individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new
arguments or information.
L.11-12.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization,
punctuation, and spelling when writing.
- L.11-12.3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in
different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend
more fully when reading or listening.
- L.11-12.4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words
and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range
of strategies.
- L.11-12.5. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and
nuances in word meanings.
Essential Content Knowledge
- Traits of drama as a genre
- Forms of irony (i.e. verbal, dramatic)
- Figurative language (focus on imagery)
- Varieties of language (i.e. dialect, register)
- Sensory writing
- Types of conflict (i.e. man vs. society, man vs. nature)
Resources
- While the Auto Waits by Walter Wykes, based on the story by O. Henry
- Gray Matter by Jeanette D. Farr
- The First Fireworks by Alex Brown
- Death of a Hired Man, by Robert Frost, adapted by Walter Wykes,
- Teen Angel, by D.M. Bocaz-Larson
- The Boor, by Anton Checkov
- Cindy & Julie
- Sundried
- Abandoned by Laurie Allen
- “How to Write Dialogue,” http://johnaugust.com/2007/how-to-write-dialogue
- “How to Write a One-Act Play,” B. Danesco.
- http://www.howtodothings.com/hobbies/a4248-how-to-write-a-one-act-play.html
- Additional / alternate play as chosen by instructor
Unit Objective: I can read a selection of one-act plays and identify the elements demonstrated in each, then write a scene for a play with specific criteria.
Assessments:
- Scene updating / modernization
- Single scene representing an alternate outcome
- Single scene finishing a sequence of events
- Draft of one-act play
- Complete one-act play
MODULE 2 - PROSE
Unit 1 - Elements of Fiction and the Short Story
Focus Standards:
RL.11-12.2. Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their
development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one
another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
- RL.11-12.3. Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and
relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered,
how the characters are introduced and developed). Craft and Structure
- RL.11-12.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text,
including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word
choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is
particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (e.g., Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
- RL.11-12.5. Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts
of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a
comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its
aesthetic impact.
- RL.11-12.6. Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing
what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or
understatement).
- W.11-12.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using
effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
- W.11-12.4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization,
and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
- W.11-12.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing,
rewriting, trying a new approach, or consulting a style manual (such as MLA or APA
Style), focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and
audience.
- W.11-12.6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, share, and update
individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new
arguments or information.
- W.11-12.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and
revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks,
purposes.
- L.11-12.1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and
usage when writing or speaking.
- L.11-12.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization,
punctuation, and spelling when writing.
- L.11-12.3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in
different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend
more fully when reading or listening.
- L.11-12.4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words
and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range
of strategies.
- L.11-12.5. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and
nuances in word meanings.
Essential Content Knowledge
- Poe’s theory of “The Single Effect” and its relationship to theme
- Implicit vs. explicit
- Point of view
- Plot structure / parts of a story
- Conventions of dialogue
- Tone and mood
- Essential knowledge from Module 1 (i.e. irony, imagery, conflict)
Resources:
- “Hills Like White Elephants”
- “Strawberry Fields”
- “Sixteen”
- “The Card”
- “The Looking Glass”
- “Teenage Wasteland”
- “Desiree’s Baby”
- “The Necklace”
- “Winter Dreams”
- “The Use of Force”
- “Haircut”
- Other / alternate stories based on teacher discretion
Unit Objectives: I can Identify the fiction fundamentals of plot, setting, conflict, climax, resolution, characterization and point of view.
Unit 3 - Elements of Nonfiction Narratives
Focus Standards:
RI.11-12.2. Determine two or more central ideas of a text, and analyze their development
and how they interact to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of
the text.
- RI.11-12.3. Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how
specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
Craft and Structure
- RI.11-12.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text,
including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses
and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text (e.g., how
Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).
- RI.11-12.5. Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his
or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear,
convincing, and engaging.
- RI.11-12.6. Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric
is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power,
persuasiveness or beauty of the text.
- W.11-12.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using
effective technique, well chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
- L.11-12.1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and
usage when writing or speaking.
- L.11-12.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization,
punctuation, and spelling when writing.
- L.11-12.3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in
different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend
more fully when reading or listening.
- L.11-12.4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words
and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range
of strategies.
- L.11-12.5. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and
nuances in word meanings.
Essential Content Knowledge:
- Voice
- topics from previous modules / units (i.e. tone, point of view, plot structure, use of
dialogue)
Resources:
- “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan
- “The Boys of Spring” by Doug Glanville
- Current / topical narratives and essays
http://flavorwire.com/156355/what-are-the-10-best-nonfiction-essays-of-the-past-50-years
Unit Objectives: I can compare and contrast fiction and nonfiction writing and write a personal narrative.
Assessments:
- Short narrative vignettes
- Draft of personal narrative
- Final copy of personal narrative
*Vocabulary
- Figurative Language
- Elements of Poetry
