Some of the most popular summer homework projects involve story writing. The Guardian Teacher Network has resources to help students of all ages to write stories at home over the summer or next term.
The first step is great storytelling, especially before children's writing skills have caught up with their speaking and listening. Sso thanks to primary school teacher Des Hegarty for sharing with us some simple story maps for retelling the classic tales of The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. Also find story openings, an oral activity to help pupils explore different ways to open re-tellings of familiar stories.
Children's author and illustrator Alexis Deacon, creator of primary school classics Beegu and Slow Loris, has shared a really interesting lesson plan aimed at key stage 2 teachers. Ingredients of a story has been based on workshops Alexis does in schools to help children think about what makes a story, the rules and vocabulary of some of the stories they know – and to explore the instinctive way human beings tend to make characters and stories from the world around them.
The Phoenix weekly comic book team has created some really lovely resources that will particularly help reluctant writers get in the swing of story writing. The Thought bubble challenge will help to develop text and dialogue in stories and what makes a good character encourages children to explore their visual literacy and really think about the characters in their stories.
For secondary school-aged story writers, here is some inspiration on the importance of developing great characters: Faulkes on Fiction: a story of the novel in 28 characters is a book by Sebastian Faulks, shared here in PDF form, which examines the most famous and dazzling fictional characters and their impact on British culture, from Sherlock Holmes to Mr Darcy to Emma Woodhouse and James Bond. Can your students create a unique character over the holidays or next term? There's more motivation for older writers from secondary English teacher Alex Frost who has written this poem on story genres.
Inexperienced or less confident writers may need help with structure to stop the curse of the rambling story. A good beginning and good ending are vital ingredients – which is why Primary Leap has created its writing a story series. The Magical Boots, The Lost Island and Super Hero will help students learn how to tie up loose ends and make their stories interesting and engaging.
The craft of writing is further explored in King Onomatopoeia and other stories.
You don't want your students writing stories to a formula, but these handy checklists from Twinkl will help younger writers keep their stories on track. Here's a checklist on writing a great story opening and one on creating tension in stories. Download and print out checklists on story resolution, story problems and on creating the perfect setting for a story. Children can add their own points to the lists. This writing frame on analysing structure problems will also help children to explore possible solutions to their story problems.
Sometimes a picture prompt is all that's needed to spark the imagination – find these creative writing worksheets on a football match, camping holiday and magic potion. Students look at the picture and think of an interesting story to go with it.
These Pie Corbett-inspired story recount frames The Papaya that Spoke and Monkey See, Monkey Do have been designed to improve children's fluency in retelling this story, both in the spoken and written word.
It's amazing what a lovely border in which to write a story can do to get the creative juices flowing. Twinkl has created a whole load for every mood and topic including night time, star and moon, monsters, fruit and veg, Africa, fairies and transport.
And finally, some great tips for young writers from master storyteller Michael Morpurgo, including the importance of reading stories aloud. These have been put together as part of the Wicked Young Writers Award, which is open from 2 September. Find this guide to the competition – a chance to share those fabulous stories students have written over the summer perhaps?
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