Judith J. Katz
Every teacher does not have the luxury of teaching a creative writing class that is structured in a double block period, five days a week. That is a lot of time to have with one group of students who have an admitted interest in writing. Even if they chose writing simply because they couldn't read music and get into the band, they still chose it.
This unit in total will probably take five to six weeks, which for some of us is a full marking period. Having said that, if you are interested in dipping into this lesson without making a commitment of that magnitude I would make the following two suggestions of where and how to best contract the unit.
Lesson One (Wallace and Gromit) makes a charming stand-alone lesson that could easily lead to reading and/or writing short story or essay. Lesson Three (
Smoke Signals
) is deeper in terms of CCR, CPC, Causal Logic, and Theme. It too would make a strong stand-alone lesson that could easily lead to reading and/or writing short story, novel, or essays.
In addition the formal essay is a complex, thought provoking, piece of writing that will require a minimum of three edits. It is a product driven piece, but the rubric presented at the end of this unit could work just as well for any other essay you would like your students to work on at any point during the year.
