Creative Writing For Yearbook Production

Creative Writing for Yearbook Production Lesson Plans

Purpose That the students would: enjoy writing creatively and become more self-aware; produce the writing component of their personal yearbook pages

These lesson plans were used with groups of six middle and high school students for three 40- minute class periods (once a week for three weeks).

Week One: Writing Can Be Fun

Goal: to help students get over any fear or apprehension of writing they may have while enjoying a fun, collaborative writing activity.

Materials:  Sheets of lined paper – one per person  Pens or pencils – one per person  Timer or stopwatch

Procedure: 1. Seat students in a circle. Explain the yearbook project and that this writing class will help them to write about themselves for their page in the yearbook. 2. Introduce the activity: Collaborative story writing. Explain that this will help the students get used to writing and enjoy doing it, in preparation for writing their piece for the yearbook. 3. Give each student a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil. Instruct students to each begin writing a story about whatever they want. Set the timer or stopwatch for 2 minutes. 4. When the time is up, everyone stops writing and passes their paper to the person on their right. Allow a minute for students to read the new story they have just been given. Then give them two minutes to continue writing this new story. 5. Continue this procedure, passing the stories around until each person get their own story back. Once each person has the story that they started, allow them two minutes to write an ending to the story. 6. Allow each person to read aloud “their” story. 7. Note: if you have a large group or a shorter amount of time for this activity, you may need to split into two different story-writing groups. Also, you may need to set some boundaries about what topics/kind of language are appropriate to use in the stories. Week Two: Learning About Me

Goal: to help the students grow in self-awareness and give them ideas for what they can write about themselves in the yearbook

Materials:  “Who Am I?” Lesson Plan (one copy for you) from: http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/profbooks/whoami.pdf  “Who Am I?” Activity sheets (pages 3-4 from the above pdf document) – one copy per student  Pens or pencils – one per student  Sheets of paper – one per student

Procedure: 1. Explain to the students that today they are going to explore who they are as individuals, what made them the way they are, and some of the unique characteristics they have. 2. Follow the “Who Am I?” lesson plan and activity with the students, feeling free to adapt as needed. Have students share some of what they learned about themselves or some of the things they wrote in the different categories. 3. If you still have time left, pass out paper and pens or pencils. Instruct students to start thinking about adjectives that describe themselves (you may need to remind them what an adjective is, give examples, and/or provide a list of positive adjectives to get them started) 4. Adjective Option A: Make a Name Acrostic. Have students write their first names vertically on the sheet of paper, then think of one adjective to describe themselves for each letter of their names. 5. Adjective Option B: Make a Bubble Chart. Have students draw a bubble chart on their sheets of paper. In the center, they should write their names or draw self-portraits. In each of the surrounding “bubbles” (we used eight bubbles) have them write an adjective that describes them. 6. Note: you can let students who finish early do both of the adjective options. Week Three: Writing About Me!

Goal: to complete the two writing sections for each student’s yearbook page

Materials:  List of “About Me Categories” for yearbook page – one copy per student  Starter questions for students to answer in their article about themselves – written on poster board or a whiteboard and mounted where everyone can read them  Pens or pencils – one per student  Sheets of paper – one per student

Notes: The “About Me Categories” is a list of 10 categories compiled by our student leaders on the yearbook staff team. The sheet we put together is included at the end of this lesson plan as an example. The starter questions were a list of questions we put together to help the student think of ways to write about themselves for their yearbook pages. The questions we used are included at the end of this lesson plan also.

Procedure: 1. Tell the students that this is the day they finally get to write about themselves for their yearbook pages. Have them take out the activities they did last week (“Who Am I?” Activity and the Adjective Activities) to remind themselves of some of the things that are unique about them. 2. Pass out the “About Me Categories” sheets and explain that this list of categories will appear on each student’s yearbook page. Have them fill in their own preferences/answers to each of the categories. Make sure they write their names on the lists. 3. When they finish, pass out blank paper. Direct students to the starter questions on the wall and explain that they will be writing two paragraphs about themselves for their yearbook pages. They can choose to answer one or more of the starter questions in their paragraphs, or write about themselves without using the prompts at all. Explain that the purpose of this section in the yearbook is to give them an opportunity to share with everyone who reads it who they are as individuals and how they want their fellow students to remember them from this year. 4. Again, make sure students write their names on their paragraph sheets. 5. When students finish, you can have them exchange their paragraphs with another student for peer reviewing. Have them point out to each other anything that is unclear, doesn’t make sense, is illegible, etc. 6. Note: at some point, you will want to proofread all the students’ paragraphs and categories sheets. You probably will not have time to do this during this writing class, just make sure to allow time in your bigger timeline of the yearbook production to do this proofreading and get back to the students with any questions you have about what they wrote. If you edit their writing, you will also want to give them a chance to read, approve, and/or make changes to the finished copy before putting it on their yearbook page. S.A.Y. Yes! Yearbook About Me Categories

1. Your most overused phrase:

2. Your favorite music group/singer:

3. Your favorite amusement park:

4. Your favorite car:

5. Your favorite webside:

6. Your favorite movie:

7. Your favorite T.V. show:

8. Your favorite names:

9. What you dislike: 10. Your preference: Pepsi or Coke S.A.Y. Yes! Yearbook Personal Paragraph Starter Questions

(2 paragraphs of 3-4 sentences)

1. What do you want people to remember you by? 2. What do you think is the coolest thing about you? 3. What is the most important thing about you-what makes you who you are? 4. What’s important to you in life?