Mini-Lessons in Short Story Writing

After reading about Nancie Atwell's use of mini lessons in the writing workshop, I decided to begin to apply some of the elements of the writer's workshop model in my classroom, and it has been working very effectively. 

Middle school students typically enjoy writing short stories, but, they often have difficulty in developing round characters and creating a plot that is believable with a "so what" factor. While students have read and looked at models of short stories, they seemed to have difficulty applying elements of short story writing to their own writing. One of the reasons, is that when they  analyzed model short stories before they began to write their own short story, they were looking at the stories through the lens of a reader. Using targeted mini-lessons on craft in conjunction with a read aloud model, students are better able to apply what they are learning to their own writing. 

In my new writer's workshop, students have a folder that contains materials for their short story. This includes model texts that we discuss, handouts and notes from mini-lessons, and their writing.

Some of the texts that I have used to discuss characterization include: 

• Langston Hughes' "Thank You Ma'm"
• Sandra Cisneros' " Eleven" and an excerpt from The House on Mango Street
• A fable called "The Moth and the Star"

Each text is short enough to have a read aloud followed by a discusssion of the writer's creaft. So far, we have been working on developing round characters and these texts have worked well for discussion of how writers develop characters thoughts and feeling.

Atwell has a few mini-lessons in her book Lessons That Change Writers that inspired some of the mini-lessons that I have done in this unit. In particular, Atwell has students get to know their characters well with a "Main Character Questionnaire". Some of the questions include:

• What is your name?
• How old are you?
• What do you care about?
•  What do you fear?
• What are your dreams?
• What's the problem you are facing?
• How will you change through confronting your problems?

(Atwell, 109).

These questions worked really well in helping students to visualize their character as a real person. In addition  it get them thinking about some of the hallmarks of well developed characters, namely change and conflict.