Creative Writing Class for Grades 10-12

I am lucky enough to be able to teach a full-length creative writing course at Wayzata High School. This class, like most others at the school, is worth 2 credits, just like communications 9, AP literature, or any other class in the department. Since the school is on a four by four block schedule, I teach creative writing for 85 minutes per day for every day of the semester.

I roughly have one theme per week while teaching: the first section of the class is broken into the different elements of storytelling, the second into different genres, and the third branches out into different formats, with a bit of mixing and matching throughout.

Each of the two terms of the class includes on writing workshop per student—the first of which they read their own story and the second of which each student leads the workshop of another anonymous student’s work. In addition, there is a larger writing project for each term, too. The first term involves a book project where students work off another writer’s work, and the second is the final portfolio, where they do the most revision of their work.

I start every day with a journal question. This is just to loosen kids up, get them into writing for the day, learning more about them, and getting them acclimated to the week’s theme. Of course throughout every week, I use examples of my own work as well as stories and works by famous (and not so famous) authors and past writing students. Anything I can get my hands out that feels right works.

Attached are all the assignments I’ve been working on to make my class the best I can. There are also a few other materials I’ve put together, like the famous first lines collection, and my 7 rules to a productive workshop. Please feel free to use, tweak, change, copy, or throw away any of this you might want for your own classes.