The short story is the backbone of the English class. Learning how to read through one, how to analyze, and seeing the different pieces of imagery and metaphor that can be found in it. However, writing short stories is something that can significantly help students.
It’s a way to exercise the brain through the different creative processes that go into it. Much of learning nowadays is focused on the mathematical and analytical side of the brain. Creativity is not always seen as an important thing within schools as compared with test scores. However, students need to be able to exercise the creative side of their brain. Otherwise, they start to think of things in one particular way and are not open to other ways of thought.
Since there is this focus on the analytical side of student’s brains, students often feel limited in ways to express their creativity. This is an excellent way to give students that freedom to think about situations that they or others they know might be in and run with the “what-ifs” they might face. This is also an excellent way for students to think about what they would want in other worlds.
Besides just letting the students be creative, writing short stories can help students understand the stories they are reading better. If the assignment is add in an extra chapter to a novel or say what comes after a short story, they have to think about the characters and their motives. It can provoke discussion for students on whether not a character would do this in that situation.
The student also has to understand the voice of the author and the imagery, metaphor, and many other things that go along with the writing. It makes students think about what words and phrases mean with the story, and look at and understand the setting of the world they are reading about.
Creative writing is a great way to help students with different things, and it’s essential to allow students the ability to be creative within the classroom while learning the skills necessary to understand the things they are reading in the classroom.
Resources to teach creative and narrative writing:
