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| WRITING | THE ONE-MINUTE
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QuickWrite—A Proven Approach for Getting Students to Produce a
Story in 10 Minutes or Less (Page
1)
The
Concern
Parents
and teachers want their students to become adept at creative writing
as a part of the skill-set they need in order to succeed during and
after school. Often, when given a writing assignment, the student sits
for long periods "thinking," but not producing much. When
asked about the obvious lack of production, the standard refrain is,
"I can't think of anything to write." An obvious case of writer's
block.
The
Solution
Over the past 20 years, we have developed a method at QLC Educational
Services that almost always increases writing production. Students are
generating much longer and better creative writing pieces and are enjoying
their creative writing a great deal more.
QuickWrite has 5 distinct phases. The entire process takes less than
10 minutes to complete once the students become familiar with it. They
will do so in less than a week. Phases One and Two take exactly one
minute each, Phase Three takes 5 minutes, and Phase Four takes one minute.
The final Phase can vary depending on available time or can become a
homework assignment. The timings should occur in succession as quickly
as possible. The objective is to complete the entire task in 10 minutes
or less. Timings should not be allowed to become races between students.
They are personal best scores for each individual student. Avoid using
"Get Ready! Get Set! Go!" Instead, use, "Ready, Please
Begin, and Thank You."
PHASE ONE—Think/Write Ideas about the Topic
The student, the teacher or both choose a topic for a creative writing
assignment. The student is then given exactly one minute to write down
as many ideas about that topic as s/he can think of. The ideas can be
single words or phrases. Now the student has a starting point. (Say,
"Get ready to write your ideas for one minute. Ready. Please Begin."
After 60 seconds, "Thank you. Let's do the next part.")
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