Creative writing focuses both on the writing process and the elements of the short story while exploring reading and writing. All students will be given the opportunity, through a variety of types of writing, to develop their voice by exploring various genres of writing including short stories, poetry, and writing prompts. Skills in proofreading, peer editing, and revising are stressed. Critical thinking skills will be enhanced through patterns of language usage and reading.

GOAL #1:  Students will understand and practice the writing process from pre-writing (stage one) through multiple experiments with language (stage two) to the refining and celebration of a completed writing product (stage three)   

Objectives:
Prewriting:  The prewriting process utilizes all of the activities that lead to actual writing.   Students are placed in a writing environment that is conducive to prewriting, and given a series of stimulating ideas or experiences to help them develop their writing. These include brainstorming, mapping or clustering, example books, stories, poems, etc., listening to music, interviewing others, remembering important events the writer has experienced, and exposure to artistic endeavors of all types.
Writing:  The writing stage of the process allows students to get his/her ideas down on paper.  The student must understand his purpose for writing, (i.e.: to entertain, to evoke, or inform) but students must feel free to express their ideas and gain fluency and confidence in themselves as writers without being inhibited by fear of mistakes at this point in the process.
Revising: Not only does the individual student revise his/her own writing during the writing process, all writers benefit from response to their writing.  Students are given the opportunity to respond to each other's writing both through response sheets and by working together in small groups.  Teacher conferencing also occurs at this point.
Editing:  In this part of the process, the writing is refined.  The areas of focus in this stage include grammar, punctuation, capitalization, spelling and paragraphing, word choice, and sentence structure
Publishing:  The publishing stage is accomplished through sharing the finished writing with peers in class, but also may include submitting work to various contests and publishers.

GOAL #2:  Students will understand terms and demonstrate use in writing.

Objectives:
Characters:  Students will learn to develop characters that come alive.  They will understand and utilize protagonists/antagonists.
Conflict:  Students will understand and demonstrate through their writing that conflict provides the tension and drama that stories are built upon, including character against character, character against society, character against nature, and character against self.
Setting:  Students will discuss and demonstrate ability to understand how setting affects the story.  They will create settings by using realistic details that appeal to the reader's senses creating a vivid atmosphere.
Point of View:  Students will understand that point of view is the perspective from which the story is told.  They will demonstrate ability to use both omniscient and limited point of view.
Theme:  Students will understand, demonstrate, and be able to discuss universal themes within a piece of writing.
Structure:  Structure concerns how the story is told.  Students will understand that it is the framework that determines how the story is put together.  Through description, complication, climax, and resolution, they will improve their ability to create strong, entertaining stories.
Suspense:  Students will learn to use and recognize foreshadowing and dramatic irony.
Climax and Resolution:  Students will understand, demonstrate, and be able to discuss the dramatic moment when the tension reaches its peak in a given piece and understand the resolution(s) of that conflict.
Dialogue:  Students will develop strong characters through powerful dialogue.
Description:  Students will use appropriate description to capture the essence of character and setting.
Imagery and Symbolism:  Students will be able to demonstrate use and recognition of symbolism and imagery within a wide variety of writing/reading experiences.
Tone and Style:  Students will develop voice through use of a wide variety of styles from humorous to serious.

GOAL #3:  Students will develop critical thinking skills by comparing and contrasting various pieces of literature.
Objectives

Students will:
-interpret symbols, determine theme, note character traits and development, analyze tone, for hypothesis
-note details
Assessment: 
Like editing and publishing, evaluation is only one element of the writing process.  There is evidence that students who receive heavily marked up papers bearing nebulous, negative comments themselves become negative about writing.  Evaluation by teachers and peers should be used to support not thwart student efforts to master communication skills. 

There are several possible types of evaluators for student writing, among them teachers, parents, peers and the writer himself.  When the teacher is the exclusive evaluator, young writers receive feedback from only one person, limiting their audience and narrowing the response.  Student and parent 

involvement aids self reliance in writing, gives a greater awareness of audience response, and improves appreciation for individual voice.  Involving students and parents in the evaluation process provides a real and reliable road for active participation in the learning process.

In holistic scoring, the evaluator reviews the paper for an overall or 'whole' impression.  Specific factors such as grammar, usage, style, tone, and vocabulary undoubtedly affect the response, but none of these is directly addressed. 
Primary trait scoring focuses on characteristics of a given piece of writing which are specific to a particular situation.  For example, we may be looking specifically at character or setting development as the primary trait factor in a particular paper. 
Additional traits such as organization and mechanics that contribute, but are not essential to the success of the primary trait factor of the paper are termed 'secondary' traits and may not be included in an evaluation. 

We believe our students will improve in:

Purpose/Audience:  The degree to which the writer establishes and maintains a purpose, communicates with the audience, employs a suitable voice.
Idea Development/Support:  The degree to which the writer provides thoughtful, detailed support to develop main idea(s).
Organization:  The degree to which the writer demonstrates logical order, coherence, and transitions.
Sentences:  The degree to which the writer includes sentences that are varied in structure and length constructed effectively and are complete and correct.
Languages:  The degree to which the writer exhibits correct, effective, and appropriate word choice and word usage.

Correctness:  The degree to which the writer demonstrates correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc.

A partial list of probable inclusions:
writing prompts,writing exercises,short stories,one-act plays,poetry,short stories,poetry and short story contests,persuasive writing,narrative writing,memoir,creative writing careers,essay writing prompts,flyers,infomercials,advertisements,jingles and more!