How to teach your child to write a novel: Lesson 2: Hero

Junior Secret Noveling Club

You're reading the third in a series of posts that will teach you how to help your young students write a novel! Are you new to this series? Start at the beginning!

Greeting:

Greet the students and ask them to open their notebooks to the name and oath worksheet. They’ll now need to write their own part of the oaths, where the invent the awful thing that will happen to them if they break the oath. The threat part of the oath must contain two of the following words: Camels, chickens, armpits, toenails, pizza, lemonade, rotten, rancid. Have them fill in their own threat, and then read the oath in unison, with everyone reading their individual parts simultaneously for maximum silliness. If you haven't already, paste the worksheet into the inside cover of their notebooks.

This is also a good time to come up with a secret handshake. At the beginning of each meeting, someone needs to call the meeting to order with the full name, then everyone reads the oath together, and the secret handshake gets passed around the table.

Warm-Up:

Have the students open their notebooks to a fresh page and write a want ad for a hero. The ad should begin: WANTED: HERO. It should include the working hours, the characteristics desired, experience required, and also compensation. However they want to format it is fine. Give them a few minutes to work on it, and then have them share what they wrote.

Hero Lesson:

Talk about what makes a good hero. See what they come up with for attributes that heroes need. Everyone knows heroes are strong, smart, wise, and good. You may develop a fine list of virtues and brags. What makes a really interesting hero, though, is a great flaw. Whether this is a fear, a failing, a weakness, or some other crack in the armor, every hero needs a complication. Teach your students that this is where the interest lies — in the imperfection. Use the example of Superman. Without Kryptonite, there is no story. Fill out the hero worksheet, and give out the badges.

Here is your link to download the hero worksheet. There are four to a page, small in size so they will fit into your students' notebooks: Hero Worksheet.

Paint Your Hero:

Using watercolors and a small rectangle of watercolor paper that you can then paste into their books, have them create a pencil sketch and then painting of their hero. If they’re up for the challenge, have them depict the hero showing his flaw or weakness.

Grammar Wrap-Up:

Today’s grammar point is the adjective. After you talk about what an adjective is and give a few examples, do this exercise on the white board. Write one of these sentences on the white board, with the blanks empty:

The _______ dog gave a ________ bark.

The _______ dream left a ________ memory.

The _______ book gave me a _______ idea.

Have the students write two adjectives to go in the blanks. Have them share what they wrote, and see where they overlapped, choosing the same adjectives, or chose different ones. Show how the meaning of the sentence changes with different adjectives. Repeat the exercise for each sentence.

Homework:

Write 20 adjectives for hair. Make sure they are spelled correctly!