Story Starters: Helping Children Write Like They've Never Written Before

This book did inspire students to enjoy the writing process. I used Story Starters with a group of 13 third to fifth graders. They chose their own Story Starter and wrote a rough draft. A few students dictated story endings to an adult. Several students were so eager to keep writing that they begged to take the story home to work on it, even though this was not required.We worked on only three of the areas for improving that Karen discusses near the end of the book: sensory language, vivid verbs, and artful adjectives. You can see each of these elements shining through in last paragraph of one story. The writer is a girl who struggles mightily with reading. She wrote long and engaging stories about animals. Andreola's method really let her skill shine through...and I hope it built confidence in this struggling student."Roland had just enough for his bike. He raced into town with Dingle and Little One [donkeys]. Click Clack. Click Clack. Click Clack. He bought a brand new 1964 sky blue bike. It glimmered all the way back to his cottage. Little One and Dingle ran all the way beside him. A boy couldn't be happier--a new bike and two faithful friends. They lived happy, happy, happy ever after."As the instructor, I was heartened to see that boys were also engaged by the stories. But I noticed that the boys who dictated their stories composed with more development and style than boys who were left to draft independently (by their own choice). So maybe boys (or less experienced writers) really need to be encouraged to start with the "oral narration" or "dictation" method.A couple of issues for consideration: story comprehension, writing process (prewriting), and age.First, Andreola's style is quite literary and most of the story starters are set in a more distant past (100 years ago or more). This was challenging for some of the students who have not been exposed to the language and background information of older literature. I wouldn't expect it to be such a problem for a child who has been receiving a Charlotte Mason style education with lots of older books read to them.Second, I do suggest that parents watch how students respond right after they have heard/read the story starter. Andreola has written dramatic and moving story beginnings, and sometimes the student can just leap in with ideas for continuing. But many students will really benefit from some prewriting activity (brainstorming, graphic organizer, jotting down ideas). Andreola provides thoughtful questions to guide the student who wants/needs such help in continuing the storyline. But her book does not really lay out any more structured prewriting activities. So it's up to the parent to walk students through the prewriting process if they aren't ready to do it on their own. That said, the students were "bursting with ideas" when we did a brainstorming activity together on one of the story starters.In addition, I appreciate how Karen's story starters present characters who are faced with a crisis that develops or reveals virtue. But I noticed that these young writers rarely engaged the story at that level. Perhaps older students might wrestle with those character issues more and themselves grow in character in the process.Finally, I have extracted a quote from each student below, so that you can see the level of quality language that is inspired by the Story Starters. I've corrected spelling and some grammatical errors, but none of the word choices have been altered.Marvelous Exertion (heroic horse)Teardrop was swimming toward shore, and then everyone started shouting, "Teardrop!"Up, Up, and Away (hot air balloon)...as he looked at his handy compass he started to weep just a bit, of knowing he had NO idea of where he and his panicking dog Jip were...Man-Eating Tiger...there were two black eyes staring at him. The hunter sprang away from the beast.Before Alden could see the tiger, the tiger slipped into the river and slowly made its way over to the side Alden was. With one leap, the tiger got onto the shore.He lifted his gun, and "BANG", Alden missed. Again he aimed, and "CLICK." "Oh No!" exclaimed Alden, "My gun is empty." He sighed, and took out his ax, and charged towards the tiger.Prowling LionThen he heard sticks and leaves crackling, then a soft growl.He wondered if he could stab the angry lion, but the sharp knife did not reach.California FloodThe family was snuggled up by the fire waiting for the rain to stop. When suddenly the door, which wasn't latched, flew open and water poured in.It was full moon tides. The powerful waves crested into the house.Without waking up the babies, she raced down the stairs where Mr. Robbins stood wet and shivering. She embraced him joyfully and wrapped a warm, wool blanket around him.Morning Wake-Up Call[Her mom] said, "Are you ok?!""I'm fine," said Rosie. But just after she said that, a crab ate her whole!Vacation at the Seashore (treasure)Suddenly, as if magic, they saw a great, big brown wooden crate fast approaching them! The second it hit the shore, Sinclair ripped out his pocket knife and sliced the thin rope around it.Jasper Saves the BabyThe mangy dog had pushed Japer to the ground, then he attacked the baby. Mother screamed.

I had this on my want list for a very long time and finally gave in and purchased it. My husband is an aspiring writer and we both studied a lot of creative writing in college, so we have a lot of experience with do's and don'ts of writing. I am of the mindset that you teach kids to write the way professionals learn so they don't have to go back and relearn something when they are older. For example, as kids we learned to changed up the word "said", using words like, exclaimed, perplexed, quizzed, articulated, and the such, however, one of the first things they teach you in creative writing classes is to stick with "said" when you need a speaker tag, and only use a different word for "said" when necessary. We are also taught to limit adverbs (quickly, swiftly, etc), as that leads to writing that feels like telling, and we should encourage writing that uses the five sense and does more showing. Now, I love some of the stories and the whole idea of story starters, I just found myself editing some word choices as I read selections aloud. If you want your kids to explore writing with more adverbs and varied speaker tags, or don't care about those things, or if you do care and are willing to edit as you read aloud, then this book would be a great asset to your homeschool or extra-curricular shelf!

This is a great book for inspiring creativity in kids. It's NOT a workbook, though. Also, it's a huge volume. Just buy one per family. I didn't realize that and got two. I'm going to bless another family with the second copy.

My 10 year old really likes this better than the language arts curriculum we were using at first. It has definitely helped her creative writing come alive, and she is so excited to read us her creations now. The only thing I am worried about is that this is all creative writing and no real instruction on grammer usage, punctuation, etc. but we are covering that in other ways. If this is your entire language arts you may need to supplement.

This teaching aid is outstanding. The story starters, themselves, are very engaging for students of all ages. Different ages and personalities will probably develop very different stories from the same starter, as one might expect, since they will be drawn to different aspects of the starter. The instructional tips that accompany the starters are excellent - brief, yet relevant and thorough. In their totality, the instructional tips provide an outstanding equivalent of a writer's manual, but being interspersed in the stories, are much more effectively assimilated than a conventional manual would be. I have no doubt that any student who works through this guide will become an effective writer. This would be a magnificent tool in the classroom, where each student could develop their own story from a starter then share them with the class.

We've been a homeschooling family from the beginning and my kids are 10 and 12 now. Teaching writing has always been a struggle for me, and the kids did not like writing at all. This book has the beginnings of very interesting stories, and the students' job is to write the ending. Each story starter also has guidelines (have the characters speak, describe the scene) suggestions for "vivid verbs", "artful adjectives" and more. My kids, who have NEVER liked writing, got so into it, I had to give them extra time to finish. The book has a section for educators that has a lot of useful information. Before I bought this book, I checked it out from the library to make sure I liked it. I ended up ordering it on Amazon before we started the second story!

This is a really well presented book but the style of writing is old fashioned. It did not appeal to my eleven year old son at all. The idea is brilliant with lengthy openings and pictures to prompt the ending which you write yourself. The stories are all set in the past and are very well written but not in the language that would be spoken today. It would definitely appeal to a certain style of writing but it did not engage my son's enthusiasm.

J'ai beaucoup apprécié l'aide offerte par Karen Andreola. Ce n'est pas le premier livre de cette auteur que je lis, et à chaque fois j'y trouve des tas de conseils que j'aime suivre dans notre instruction en famille.