Story Starters Creative Writing Curriculum

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Story Starters is a creative writing curriculum that gives the start of a story and leaves it hanging—awaiting the creative genius of your student. This is a multi-level curriculum for grades 4 to 12, though you can use it with younger children if you read to them and they narrate their ending back to you. It is reasonably priced and non-consumable.

There are illustrations for each story. The author, Karen Andreola, collected antique illustrations over a 15 year period and used them to illustrate the stories. It's a nice touch, and keeps you wondering how the story is going to relate to the picture when you flip through the book.

The section for teachers is well organized with easy to follow instructions. No, it doesn't grade the writing for you, but the author includes a section on grading that is very helpful and doable for parents. Sometimes parents have a fear of teaching writing, because they have no clue about grading. The guidelines in this section are "real life helpful"! Relax, you can teach writing.

Next up are the 67 story starters—plenty of interesting stories without endings. Often the story starters are followed with Writing Helps (questions to help start the writing process) and/or Additional Challenges. For students who are eager to write, those are optional, but may be used for improving the rough draft.

There are additional sections that include helps for improving a writing project, lessons on writing, and more. Overall, Story Starters is a gem that takes the stress out of learning and teaching creative writing.

Story Starters Writing Curriculum