Mini stories, which may or may not have an associated grammatical or spelling element, are a great way to hone students’ writing skills. You would need to work through a few examples together with students and generate a range of settings, plots and twists.
Once students have written their mini stories, encourage them to revisit each word and using a thesaurus tool try to use a more ‘powerful’ word and to include adverbs and adjectives.
EXAMPLE 1:
The first example uses the following image as the prompt.
Title: Sets the scene
Haunted House
First sentence is the plot
A young man strolls in and sees a dead body lying in a pool of blood with the words ‘your next’ written in blood on the wall.
Second sentence is the twist
He dips his finger in the blood and adds an apostrophe and an ‘e’ – you’re!
EXAMPLE 2:
Title: Sets the scene
School
First sentence is the plot
A girl receives a text message from her archenemy: Your a great big elephant.
Second sentence is the twist
“No, you’re great!” she responds and now they’re friends.
EXAMPLE 3:
Title: Sets the scene
Email to Teacher
First sentence is the plot
My sun believes he didn’t make any mistakes.
Second sentence is the twist
Your son is right!
EXAMPLE 4:
Title: Sets the scene
Forest at Sunset
First sentence is the plot
The kangaroo was positioned directly in the middle of her view finder as she took the shot.
Second sentence is the twist
She deservedly won first prize in the international photography competition.
Click on image for template