The last week of school is coming to a close. I really like what I did with the "Elements of Fiction" unit and how I am wrapping it up. By this Wednesday, I should have 67 original short stories that are ready to be published. What I have read so far looks really good and I am looking forward to settling in with some light reading this week.
If I do this again next year, I plan on getting the kids to start their story proposal earlier in the year. I may make their weekly writing assignments mirror the the short story skills, and create a portfolio a bit earlier. And I am particularly pleased with how this project illustrated the "writing process" for the kids. Instead of me droning on and on about how they need to write rough drafts and then trying to enforce it, they had real experience from the Digital Story Telling project to understand the value of revision and editing.
Finally, I think this project had helped break them of the "how do I get an "A"" attitude and more into "how do I do something brilliant." Oddly, I found myself channeling Tim Gunn from "Project Runway."
