Making Your Own Cinderella Story
Around the United States, people are waking up to the importance of writing. The SATs, the standardized tests that most people take to get into college, added a writing section. What's more, a wide number of the standardized tests at the middle and high school level expect the students to write essays or short paragraphs, which the children struggle with. Creative writing is a great way to get people to improve their writing skills, while having fun in the process. One great creative writing activity for middle school age children is to write their own fairy tale. A good example of this activity can be to tell your own Cinderella story.
Introduction to the activity
Many fairy tales have incredibly different interpretations in different cultures. Even just starting with Cinderella, you will quickly find very different approaches to the story that involve monsters, magic, and more. Each of these stories has a few common elements throughout, a fairy godmother, evil sisters, a prince that pulls the Cinderella character out of her situation. By reading these stories and making note of these different elements, kids will be able to improve their reading comprehension and recognize the elements that are necessary for their story.
Making your own Cinderella story
Once you know what makes a Cinderella story, you can try and make your own. Keeping in mind the elements that are common in every story, you can choose how you want these to be represented in your creative writing. As many of these kids often have limited experience with creative writing, it might be best to take multiple steps to writing the story. Perhaps begin with a summary of what your Cinderella story will be, and then expand it into an outline. This can give you time to review the kids ideas and make sure they fully understand the concept of the project. Then, let them loose and see what they can come up with.
Outcome
In the end, you'll be amazed what kids come up with when they try writing their own Cinderella story. When I first approached the project, I expected the children to all tell the same story, However, when I read their stories, they featured dragons, morphing people, and talking food. The children were able to express their own stories, helping them better understand Cinderella, work on improving their writing, and explore their own creativity. You can also have the kids share their work, giving them their first opportunity to promote their writing.
With all the focus in schools now on exams, and improving their state scores, this type of assignment is a great way to make everyone happy. The administration will see you teaching the children how to write better, and the kids will have fun while being exposed to creative writing. While I have had success using the Cinderella story, there are many other fairy tales available that you can try on your own.
Not just for students
While my experience with this creative writing activity was only with children, there's no reason you can't do it yourself. Fairy tales have remained popular generation after generation because they are good stories, and writers can learn a lot from them. Try your own hand at one of these popular stories and you might find yourself writing a story you never thought yourself capable of.
Reference stories
This site contains a wide variety of different Cinderella stories. With versions from Asia, Europe, North America and more, you will be able to give your students a ton of choices for telling their Cinderella story.
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