A Review, Giveaway, and Discount Code for Creative Writing Curriculum
In a recent blog post, I talked about my work in developing 8th-10th grade creative writing curriculum for Christian Light Publications. After reading the post, Jen Yoder, who also happens to be my second cousin, contacted me to ask if I would consider reviewing the creative writing curriculum she and her husband Andrew have developed for grades 5-8. Their curriculum is called Creative Writing: Sparkling Bits of Writing, and comes in two books, the first recommended for grades 5-6 and the second for grades 7-8.
Not only am I writing a review, I am offering a giveaway. Since I am not teaching, I have no current need of the books I received to review and would love to see one of you put them to good use. Just comment on this post to have your name entered in the drawing. Due to postage costs, the drawing will be limited to readers in the contiguous U.S. Winner announced one week from today.
In addition, Jen and Andrew are offering a 10% discount code, good through July 31st, on their website. Enter luci10 when ordering from their website to activate it.
How the Curriculum Developed
The curriculum grew from Jen’s own creative writing classes at the school where Andrew currently still teaches. When Jen became a mother to their first child, she didn’t feel able to continue teaching. Andrew wanted to keep on with the creative writing classes but didn’t have time to prepare all the lessons. Jen stepped in to help by compiling her class notes into book form. The books have been under development for six years now, two years under the current student-and-teacher-tested edition.
The Layout of the Curriculum
As I mentioned, the curriculum is meant for grades 5-8 and is intended to be a fun approach to creative writing rather than a grammar heavy one. According to Andrew, “Our goal is to stimulate the thinking process in a fun way rather than teach all the mechanics. That makes this a supplement to a grammar course, not a replacement. We feel examples are key to learning; therefore, we have student examples in the lessons.”
Browsing through the books, I found the assignments to be fun and engaging. A few of my favorites, rephrased here for brevity:
- Use the letters of your name to create an acrostic describing yourself.
- What happens on a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day?
- Create a dialogue between two non-living objects, such as a hamburger and hot dog.
- Answer this question: Would you rather live inside a glass house or a twig house?
- Paraphrase a parable as if it happened in today’s world.
- List 25 uses for a shoestring.
- Tell what happened after the “happily ever after” in a common children’s story.
The assignments are short, most easily doable in 30 minutes. Lessons are flexible, easy to pick up and do whenever it fits into your school schedule, with little forethought needed. Jen and Andrew encourage writing that stimulates enjoyment and imagination, with teachers providing critique rather than a grade.
The books hold three types of lessons:
Mini Writing Lessons: These short writing assignments encompass a nice variety, from writing simple poems to writing a letter to an endangered species. All are imaginative and engaging. Although Jen and Andrew deemphasize grades, every so often, a star appears at the top of a lesson, indicating a “gold piece lesson,” which teachers may choose to grade. Students are encouraged to spend extra time revising and polishing these pieces of writing, and a rubric is provided in the back by which to measure a grade. Lessons with a “friends” icon at the top are intended to be done with a friend, providing another fun piece of variety.
Free Writing: Coming every five lessons, free writing lessons require students to respond to a writing prompt by writing non-stop for 8-10 minutes, “brain dumping” whatever comes to their minds. As a former teacher, I used this technique on my elementary students, and they loved it. Free writing takes away all the pressure students associate with writing. Because there are no expectations besides writing continuously, students relax and enjoy seeing what comes out. Both teacher and students are almost always pleasantly surprised by the results. In fact, free writing became my most successful method of teaching creative writing, and the CLP team also plans to include it in the curriculum we are developing. I was thrilled to see it included here.
Reading Response: Also coming every five lessons, reading response lessons provide a story for students to read, along with several questions to answer about what they’ve read. According to Andrew, reading response lessons are intended to “stimulate thinking and to learn techniques from published examples.” Excerpts come from a variety of classic literature: Oliver Twist, The Secret Garden, Not Regina, Daddy Longlegs.
Each book holds 75 lessons, about the right amount to get you through a school year by completing several a week. Although Jen and Andrew recommend Book I for grades 5-6 and Book II for grades 7-8, I can easily imagine my former teacher self using one book to teach my entire class—at one time, I had five students in grades 1-8. Assignments could be modified slightly for younger or older students. The curriculum is flexible that way.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Curriculum
Strengths
- Fun. As I’ve been emphasizing, I see this as really fun curriculum that will capture and engage students’ imagination and enjoyment. As a teacher who loves writing but has struggled to pass that enthusiasm on to my students, I believe this is the most important attribute of any elementary creative writing. If students learn in the early years how much fun it is to express themselves, they will put far more effort and creativity into writing when they reach high school years.
- Flexible. The curriculum is easy to fit into your schedule in the way that works best for you. Assignments would be easy to modify, to pick and choose from, or to teach to several grade levels at once.
- Includes important writing concepts. Although this is a supplement rather than a complete curriculum, it does teach simple writing tools that provide an important base for young writers. The tools include:
- Show don’t tell.
- Active versus passive verbs.
- Concrete nouns
- Figurative writing such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia
- How to structure paragraphs and essays
- How to vary sentence structure
- Story setting
Weaknesses
- Not a complete curriculum. As mentioned, this is intended as an introduction to writing, rather than a comprehensive curriculum. Though the assignments are given in simple language that most students will be able to follow with ease, don’t expect a lot of review and repetition of concepts learned. Occasionally, for students who don’t have a strong base in a grammar curriculum, you may need to provide some extra explanation for certain assignments.
- Intended for beginning writers. While not necessarily a weakness, the fact that the curriculum is intended for beginning writers is something to note. Christian Light Publications does sell these books as a curriculum supplement and lists them in their catalogue as appropriate for grades 7-12. However, Andrew emphasized that field testing has confirmed the curriculum is appropriate for grades 5-8, not high school grades. As a multi-level teacher in need of ideas, I could easily imagine myself picking and choosing and perhaps modifying assignments for grades younger than 5th or including a high school student in a whole-room lesson. However, the difficulty level of the assignments as a whole is most appropriate for 5th through 8th grades.
Don’t Forget
Comment on this post to have your name entered in the giveaway drawing if you are in the contiguous U.S. Winner announced one week from today.
You can find out more about the curriculum or make an order at creativewordstudio.com. Enter the discount code luci10 to get a 10% discount, good through July 1st.
I homeschool 7 children and am having difficulty drawing my grade 4 and grade 6 students into enthusiastic writing. I would be interested in trying this curriculum. Thanks for posts. I check in every week!
You got me. If I miss this round, I am thinking I will be checking into this. Thanks for introducing us to it!
These books pique my interest.
This sounds like a fun curriculum! If I win, I’ll be donating my copy to the small school my daughter attends.
I would love to add these to my personal/school resources! We need to do a lot of work to build our writing curriculum. Thank you for sharing!
I’d love to get my hands on this..out of curiosity (and my own enjoyment of writing), because Jen Yoder was a loved and talented student of mine, and to offer it to our local school.
I love creative writing even though I feel like I’m not a writer! My husband teacher the 7th and 8th grades, and I always think it would be fun to incorporate a bit it into the day.
Sounds like a fun curriculum! I wish I had done these books when I was in school.
I teach Spanish speaking children, but would live to have this as a resource!
*love not live!
Sounds wonderful for multi level students!
This sounds like something I’d definitely enjoy using!
These sound really good…especially as a teacher that has a hard time with writing myself!!
I would love to see this curriculum!
My daughter loves creative writing, and I know she would enjoy this curriculum. She’s always eager to see what her creative writing assignments are.
Sounds like something my daughter would enjoy and to help keep her even more interested in writing.
Always looking for ways to help my ELL students enthusiastically embrace writing…
In need of more ideas to spark my
students’ interest to bring their own fun imaginations and stories onto paper.
Looks to be an exciting way to start writing assignment!! Think my daughter would enjoy this a lot!
This sounds fun even for myself.
Count me in👍
This looks like it would make creative writing more exciting for my children!
I teach fifth and sixth grade and love to write my own Creative writing lesson plans, but I’ve eyed this book with great interest for several years now…
Would love to try this out on all my upcoming writers. 🤗
This sounds accessible for my fourth graders. I would love to give it a try!
It looks great! I’d love to try it with my daughter, she’s the perfect age for book 1. :)
This sounds very interesting. I can see having all of my children do these creative writing lessons. I think I’d even do them myself!
Would love to incorporate more writing into our community school here in Belize– this sounds like an excellent resource.
This looks like a great match for my 11 year old. I wish I would have had something like this when I was her age. :)
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I’m not sure if the giveaway is still open, but if it is, here’s my entry. 😊 I love writing, but it’s not always so easy to pass it on to my children who are my students.
It is still open until tomorrow night. :)
Just saw this..so exciting cause I have been wishing for something to help stimulate / encourage writing in my last 3 scholars…It looks interesting.
Thank you for sharing this.
Blessings,
Lucinda
I would love to try this curriculum out on my students!😊
That looks like it could be a great addition for our girls since we are homeschooling!
Hey, we could even drop them off at your place and allow you the opportunity to teach it to them and give you a better feel for the curriculum. That way you could say you taught it as well:)
Lol. I will provide the curriculum. You can provide the teaching. Then you can write the review. ;)
This is my first time seeing these books. I homeschool and these look like great books to have!!