This week we had the table full of writers, enthusiastic and ready to do something fun! So we decided to do an interactive writing project called ‘Jumble Story’ –here’s how it works.
It begins with this list:
Character
1. A new mother
2. A photographer
3. A recent high school graduate
4. A restaurant owner or manager
5. An alien from outer space
6. A homeless child
7. A 93 yr old woman
8. An environmentalist
9. A college student
10. A jazz musician
Setting
1. Near a National Forest
2. A wedding reception
3. A celebration party
4. An expensive restaurant
5. A shopping mall
6. A city park
7. The porch of an old farmhouse
8. A polluted stream
9. A college library
10. A concert hall
Time
1. During a forest fire
2. After a fight
3. The night of high school graduation
4. After a big meal
5. Sometime in December
6. Late at night
7. After a big thunderstorm has passed
8. In early spring
9. First week of the school year
10. During a concert
Situation/Challenge
1. An important decision needs to be made
2. A secret needs to be confessed to someone else
3. Someone’s pride has been injured
4. A death has occurred
5. Someone has found or lost something
6. Someone has accused someone of doing something else wrong
7. Reminiscing on how things have changed
8. Someone feels like giving up
9. Something embarrassing has just happened
10. Someone has just reached an important goal
I held the only copy of the above list and had each student write numbers 1-4 on a sheet in their journals,
1 = Character
2 = Setting
3 = Time
4 = Situation/Challenge
Next, we went around the table and for each of the above, the students randomly selected a number 1-10 to correspond to an item for each category. This will outline the story that they need correlate.
Here’s the luck of the draw:
Greg Hatchett
1. Character: photographer
2. Setting: celebration party
3. Time: after a big meal
4. Situation/Challenge: someone’s pride has been injured
Savon Clark
1. Character: restaurant owner/manager
2. Setting: porch of an old farmhouse
3. Time: forest fire
4. Situation/Challenge: Something embarrassing has occurred
Charles Hill
1. Character: restaurant owner/manager
2. Setting: a college library
3. Time: sometime in December
4. Situation/Challenge: a death has occurred
Sean Mayfield
1. Character: Jazz musician
2. Setting: concert hall
3. Time: during a concert
4. Situation/Challenge: a secret needs to be confessed
Shannyn Nellett
1. Character: an environmentalist
2. Setting: a celebration party
3. Time: after a big thunderstorm
4. Situation/Challenge: someone feels like giving up
Veronica Reyes
1. Character: 93 year old woman
2. Setting: a college library
3. Time: night of a high school graduation
4. Situation/Challenge: an important decision needs to be made
Sandra Lee
1. Character: a recent high school graduate
2. Setting: near a National Forest
3. Time: after a big thunderstorm
4. Situation/Challenge: Someone has lost found something
After we all picked our numbers to create our jumble stories, we discussed the proper elements needed to write each story. We discussed creating characters that would embark upon such ‘jumbled’ situations and how to glue it all together. The one element that each student is creating on their own is the ending/resolution. So please tune in next week to see what we all came up with!
