Halloween Stories

The holidays provide excellent opportunities for creative writing. Kids love making up stories with their favorite holidays as subject matter. A few years ago I mentioned to a friend of mine who teaches writing at the university in town, the hang-ups my colleagues have when it comes to assigning writing topics in the classroom. One of these colleagues had said, “You can’t just put a topic on the board and tell the kids to write a story!” My friend found this remark astonishing. “Why not?” she responded.

It’s important to remember that you want kids to enjoy writing. To do that you need to make the process as stress-free as possible. Provide a prompt and a few guidelines and then let them use their imagination.

These days the kids are getting quite excited about Halloween. Every year I take advantage of this excitement by having them write Halloween stories.

For the assignment last week I gave each student a picture of a dancing scarecrow. They had to write a story about the scarecrow and why it was dancing.

These were my guidelines: The story should have a beginning, middle, and end.

The Beginning: Tell about the main character/s. It could be the scarecrow and somebody else. You could be in the story, or you could write it in third person.  Give the characters names. Tell what the main character wants, or what problem they are experiencing.

The Middle: What does the main character do to try to get what he/she wants; or to solve the problem?

The End: How is the problem solved? Why is the scarecrow dancing?

I should mention that I would prefer to just put a topic on the board and have the kids write freely. However, I know my students well enough to know that only about half of them would be able to produce a solid narrative. The other half would flounder a bit. The guidelines help them come up with an actual story. My students bubbled with enthusiasm over this assignment. Their stories were rewardingly cute.