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Fiction
Stories ~ Inspiration
SUMMARY: Students
use the familiar Hidden Villa habitats as the setting for
their fiction stories. Each student selects an
animal from one of these habitats as the main character of
their story and uses the scientific information about this
animal to
support their character and plot development. DURATION: 2
to 4 weeks GRADES: 2nd-5th
CALIFORNIA
STANDARDS |
| This
unit touches on the same standards for 2nd through
5th grades, though as students progress through the grades their
understanding deepens and becomes more sophisticated.
This unit offers ideas that can be taken to
differing levels of complexity and can be easily adapted
for any of these grades. Reading
3.0 (analysis of plot, character, setting and theme)
Writing 1.0 (writing strategies including complete sentences,
paragraphs, quotations, revision and editting) Writing
2.0 (narratives, sensory details) |
HIDDEN
VILLA GOALS |
| On the surface this unit may seem to be a simple, fun fiction exploration with incidental connection to Hidden Villa. It is, actually, very much tied to Hidden Villa's goal to teach the importance and roles of all living things. During general studies of fiction writing, students often come up with plots based on animal characters. Often these characterizations are of animals (e.g. lions, tigers, and bears) which most of the students have nver seen, animals which do not reside in the local ecosystem. In contrast, this fiction unit encourages students to delve deeper into the animal realm of Hidden Villa. In order to create a realistic fictional account of their characters' lives, students stretch themselves to pay closer attention to minute details of their animals' habitat, behavior, adaptations, and placement in the food chain. Turning seemingly insignificant animals into characters they care about heightens students' appreciation of these animals and the intricacy of their local habitat. (Several students have written stunning stories starring banana slugs, rolly-pollies and worms.) Furthermore, this results in students' increased concern for these animals' habitats. |
CLASSROOM
RELEVANCE |
When
faced with the daunting task of making up a fiction
plot, many students don’t seem to know where
to start. Often students have the idea that fiction
stories need to have overly dramatic plots, usually
with a conglomeration of strange characters. Stars of favorite video games or TV shows often feature
prominently along with poorly disguised movie plots.
Not surprisingly, given what our students are exposed
to, I have also found that it can be challenging to
keep fist fights, violence and weapons of mass destruction
out of my students' writing.
These teaching challenges are much easier to confront when students' fiction-story realm is confined to Hidden Villa's habitats. Hidden Villa provides
a very interesting setting that does not need
to be created, rather simply remembered and described.
This allows students to focus on the other elements of fiction. Since the peaceful Hidden Villa experience does not allow for TV programs, inappropriate movies or video games, I make it clear that non of these things can appear in students' stories. This forces students to
exercise their imaginations, something
that is unfortunately fading quickly from our students'
sense of childhood. Students are generally very excited about their relationship to Hidden Villa and enjoy a writing project that prolongs and extends their stay, if only in their minds. |
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