The weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter Break can test the mettle of the strongest teacher. And if your students have just wrapped up a monumental writing challenge like NaNoWriMo, how do you keep them engaged when a two-week vacation is right around the corner?
While the actual writing of their novels may end on November 30th, their enthusiasm for their stories will probably continue. Why not tap into that enthusiasm with a novel-related project? Here are some that my 8th graders enjoyed:
Movie Project
A movie project pairs naturally with writing a story. Your students have developed their characters and described their settings, and a movie is a great way to bring all that work to life. They could choose one scene from their novels to film and edit, or they could create a book trailer to entice others to read their novel. Provide them with directions, planning pages, and a rubric, and watch them don their director’s cap and become Hollywood producers.
Book Cover
Designing their own book cover is a creative way for students to learn digital creation skills while building on their narrative writing work. Using programs like Google Drawings, Adobe Express, Canva or Pic Collage, students can learn to use copyright-free images, choose coordinating colors and font styles, and write a summary and author bio for their novel’s back cover. I created a directions page for Google Drawing, which can be modified for most programs.
Computer Game
Just like novels, computer games have a main character, antagonist, setting and conflicts. Even though we don’t think of programming a game in the context of writing a novel, the two go hand in hand like Mario and Luigi. First my students brainstormed ideas for a computer game based on their novel, and then they programmed their games with Scratch. The bank of video tutorials on Scratch allows students to design and program their games while they learn. On the last day before Winter Break, we played each other’s games, offered feedback, and celebrated the culmination of our novel-writing, game-designing adventure.
It might be tempting to have your students start revising their novels, but I have found it better to set those rough drafts aside and jump into a project that takes them out of their writing and into a different kind of creativity. When we come back to school in January and open up those docs, they have often forgotten a lot of what they wrote. They are delighted to rediscover their stories and ready to spend some time making them better.
Whatever you decide to do with your students once November is over, the time is right to celebrate. You did it!