My junior English students are writing short stories.
First of all, I must take a moment to say how glorious my semester is right now. I have two classes of Contemporary Composition, which is awesome since I've never had the same class twice in one day before and I'm excited to only have one prep. (The other class is yearbook so I do most of the work for that class during class.) And so far both classes are amazingly well behaved. They listen and pay attention, but they also aren't afraid to contribute to the discussion. I had one kid join me for the first time today and he started off giving me attitude but by the end of class he was paying attention and even laughing at my jokes. Putty, I tell you. These children are putty.
I also don't have to share my classroom this semester and I once again have my planning period during both lunches. Seriously, somebody loves me.
Both classes are writing short stories. The lessons have been very cool. I have them read a short story, then we discuss the choices the author made, then I explain how they can use that to make their own choices when they go to write their stories. So in addition to them learning writing skills they're learning how to analyze literature without feeling like it's boring. I'm a genius, I tell you. A genius.
Today I talked about Point of View. We read Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and discussed how the story would be different if we shifted the point of view to another character. They really liked that. I don't think they've ever thought about a story that way before.
I just went to the library and collected every magazine we have that came out before November (The librarian wouldn't let me have anything more recent) and tomorrow I'm going to have them sift through the magazines looking for potential story ideas.
Before I do that, though, I'm going to talk to them about how to recognize a story when you see one. I was trying to think of movies that started that way, as someone reading a story in the paper or a magazine and turning it into a script, but I couldn't think of any that weren't major headlines. Obviously something like Munich counts, but I'm thinking more like some small story that may not have been a major newsbreaker, a story that would have gone largely unnoticed had some screenwriter not stumbled on it one day in the doctor's office.
Can anybody think of any examples?
Here are a couple that come immediately to mind:
ReplyDeleteIt Could Happen to You
Into the Wild
The Terminal
A few more, with sources...
ReplyDeleteStealing Sinatra – from the New Times
Biker Boyz – from the New Times
The Lords of Dogtown – from Spin
Radio – from Sports Illustrated
Mean Girls – from New York Times Magazine
The Straight Story
ReplyDeleteThe Rookie
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Another fun exercise to help teach POV is to take some short story the kids know well -- even a fairy tale or nursery rhyme works -- and have then rewrite it from the reverse (usually antagonist) point of view.
That's what gave us the musical WICKED, as well as a lot of fun modern kid's books (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, etc).
The results are usually fun, the subject is familiar, and the kids are likely to get into playing up the heroic aspects of traditionally dark characters.
Crazy example, but the idea for CON AIR came from a magazine article. Not the plot, just the basic setting of an airbourne U.S. Marshal transport service. Keeping the Bruckheimer theme going, I think that TOP GUN was a similar case.
ReplyDeleteWes Craven claimed to have drawn inspiration for "A Nightmare on Elm Street" from a story of young Cambodians who would have a horrible nightmare, then refuse to sleep for as long as possible. After they finally fell asleep from exhaustion, they awoke screaming and died from a heart attack.
ReplyDelete-Joe Pawich
Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"
ReplyDeleteMy god. I haven't seen or heard of that title since 11th grade. And that was the year I had an inspirational English teacher who introduced me to Tennessee Williams through "The Glass Menagerie" (my favorite play), Shakespeare properly (other teachers made it boring), Arthur Miller, and Lorraine Hansberry. And Faulkner, of course.
Wow. I should find that story and re-read it to see how much I've changed since then because I think I was fidgety during that story. Not much interest in it.
One of the best ever:
ReplyDeleteTaxidriver.
Think the writer (Paul Schrader) based it on a newspaper piece, were some guy shot some pimps and got a girl out af their claws.
On thesame theme:
Man On Fire is based on an Italian film, wich was based on a true case were a bodyguard went rogue on the Maffia who kidnapped a little girl.
Some of the combat scenes are actually based on what that man did to free the girl.
Grtz
Magiel
Not an actual story that became a film, but an example of this from a film maybe you could show your kids: did you see Pedro Almodovar's "Bad Education"? There's that nice bit where the guy reads the story about the motorcyclist who froze to death on his bike but kept riding and think it might become a movie some day...
ReplyDeleteI thought Damon Lindelof's essay for "Why We Write" was a pretty awesome example of how a writer can think of turning a news story into a movie.
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