Making Your Magical Creature's Story

I. Introduction: Read the excerpt from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

  • Discuss the basic elements of a story: beginning, middle, end, character, conflict, description
  • Ask students about their favorite stories: Why do they like them? What’s going on in the story that makes it fascinating? What are the characters doing that they can relate to?
  • Brainstorm different stories they might be able to tell using the previous lessons:

1. Magical creature discovers their magical power and saves others with their power.
2. Magical creature discovers a new place, maybe somewhere they might live.
3. Magical creature meets someone new, maybe they get along with that new being, or maybe they don’t. What happens in either case?
4. Magical creature falls in love with another magical creature, but maybe they are different.
5. Magical creature gets into a fight with their friend.
6. Magical creature leaves their family to go on an adventure.
7. Magical creature gets a new pet.
8. Magical creature learns how to do something, maybe cook, be a great scientist, tell peoples fortunes, learn to drive
9. Magical creature saves the world.
10. Magical creature meets someone that doesn’t speak the same language and has to communicate.

II. Decide the story

  • Have students describe the story they want to tell in one sentence.
  • Once they’ve finished the sentence, have them think about what parts of the previous lessons they are going to use. Have them use at least one thing they have already written about: place, magical friend, or magical land, or they can use all three.
  • Once they’ve had some time to think about their story, either hand out the template and have them start to write their own story, or just give them a blank sheet of paper.
  • Have them write whatever they can think of for the next thirty minutes. Tell them to write what comes to their mind and to worry less about having all the elements of a story. Explain that, often, it’s important just to get the initial ideas down. If you do use the template, you can ask students to write a certain amount of sentences in each section.
  • When they are done, make sure they give their story a title. Have them do this after the story has already been written.

III. Share with the class

  • Have students share their stories with one another and emphasize the practice of reading their stories out loud. Explain how you can hear things when you read aloud that you might not be able to see when you are writing.


IV. Extension Activities:

  • Have students illustrate their story. They can use previous illustrations from the last three lessons or they can illustrate each section.

Contributor: 

Objectives: 

To have students use their knowledge of character, dialog, and setting, based on three previous lessons, to form a cohesive story; to introduce students to the construction and format of a story; to give students the opportunity to write a story

Education Level: 

Elementary

Genre: 

Fiction

Format: 

Lesson Plan

Time Frame: 

60 minutes

Prior Knowledge/Skills: 

Students should use their knowledge of character, dialog, and setting, based on three previous lessons

Required Materials: 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis, Chapter 2, pp. 10-12; Handout (included in lesson plan pdf)

Literary model: 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Lesson Plan: