Final Project: Creative Writing with Adjectives for 1st Bachillerato English
Part 1
For my final project, I decided to make a lesson that revolves around creative writing, since I have some background in the subject. This lesson will be used in one of my 1st Bachillerato English classes. I have done creative writing exercises with this class before, and we’ve also looked at several poems. One exercise from the past few months that worked particularly well involved rearranging stanzas and having students guess missing words.
In this lesson, students will work creatively with adjectives. This class overall has excellent comprehension and vocabulary, so I’d like to challenge them a little and give them some words that will help them create more vivid descriptions. I notice that they often rely on the same adjectives repeatedly, so maybe this will help them branch out.
I think this lesson will take about one class period. The day before the lesson, I would give them a handout with some of these artful adjectives from yourdictionary.com and ask the students to review them and look up any words they do not already know from the list of 50.
Poem Exercise
Part 2
At the beginning of class, we’ll talk about the adjective list and any questions they might have. Next, I will give them this handout of “When You Are Old” by W.B. Yeats. As can be seen in the image, many of the adjectives have been removed. I’ll have the students fill in the blanks with words from the list of adjectives or with whatever words they choose. Then we will share some of our responses and read the original poem as a class.
Creative Response
Part 3
For the latter part of class, we will look at a painting (possibly two) and I’ll have the students imagine they are in the scene. I have selected Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte for them to look at. They will be asked to write six sentences describing what they see, hear, feel, and smell using at least six words from the original adjective list. When they are finished writing, we’ll share as a class.
I hope this lesson will get the class thinking about new ways to describe things and how valuable adjectives are.
