I gave my ED1-M cohort a task to write a Halloween story. I gave them a prompt paper with a phrase like, "One day, there was a lonely {halloween creature: zombie, vampire, witch, black cat, etc.}."
Most of them made very interesting stories. I'll post a selection of those, with corrections, soon. But meanwhile, I had several students who failed to make their own stories. Since the next step in the exercise is to memorize their stories for presentation to the class for their month-end test, I had to provide these students with a story to prepare for presentation. So I imitated my students' style and created my own story. Here it is.
One day there was a lonely black cat, named Cat. Cat had no friends, because everyone believed she worked for the town witch, Puckle MacBeth. That wasn't true. Cat only visited the witch because sometimes the witch gave her something to eat. Every day, Cat sat outside the town, wishing someone would be her friend. But that day, everything changed. You see, a giant zombie alligator came to the town. The zombie alligator was very terrible, with big teeth and no brain. It bit the people in the town, and started eating them. Even the other cats in the town were running and hiding, and the witch, Puckle, flew away on her broom. Cat was scared, but she knew she had to do something. She knew alligators liked to eat monkeys. She found a rainbow monkey doll and she put some poison inside the monkey doll. She put the monkey doll out by the road. The zombie alligator came by and saw the monkey. It ate the monkey doll without even slowing down. It went into the town to eat some children. But the poison from the monkey doll was very strong. Soon the zombie alligator was weaving and getting sleepy. It grabbed a small child with its giant mouth and started to chew. But the poison made the alligator stop chewing. Finally, it fell down in the street. It died. Everyone the town was very happy. They were thankful for Cat's smart thinking. The child who the alligator had been about to eat was very grateful. The child became Cat's best friend.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
Weren’t you going to write a text book for English language learners? I think you should include this story in your book, and write others! I like how the cat and the child become friends at the end.
Now you should start writing children’s stories in rhyming couplets. Dr Seuss, move over…