TA #4 Dana

    I had assisted Felicia with a few more classes before my teaching debut, observing the way she conducted class, answered questions, and of course, taught material. Now it was my turn to teach. Felicia suggested that I perform a class on creative writing.

    Considering the fact that the students in Composition 1 hadn’t yet written a whole simplified essay in one sitting, let alone a full story, I felt slightly uneasy about choosing a creative writing topic. Poetry seemed too difficult with its strange rules, rhythms, syllables, and perhaps rhyming. A story felt too overwhelming. After much thought, I remembered a fun activity that I used to do when I was a kid. Mad Libs.

    With its silly story quality and fill in the blank actions, students would be able to understand a simple story while utilizing their knowledge of grammar while they filled in blanks. The students would also be able to hear how certain words sounded perfectly ludicrous within their context while others surprisingly made sense.

     I began the class with a Bell Ringer. “What is creative writing? Discuss with your partner.” By asking this question, I wanted to discover how much the class knew about creative writing. Once their three minutes of discussion were up, I led the class in a small conversation concerning creative writing. “What is creative writing? Can a song be creative writing? What about a poem? What is a poem?” A few students understood creative writing immediately, while others needed more explanations and examples.

      Soon after, I pulled out the first Mad Lib. I only told the class that it was a fun activity I used to do as a kid, called a Mad Lib. I called out to the class, asking for a verb, adjective, noun, and so on. The students would get excited, experimenting with less used words, even throwing Felicia into one of the noun blanks.

      I read the completed Mad Lib out loud. It was interesting seeing the students’ reactions as they began to unravel the reason for the word choices and laughed loudly when Felicia was finally mentioned. Next I passed out separate Mad Libs per each group of three. The groups had ten minutes to fill out the Mad Libs by asking their group members. Once they finished, they shared their “stories,” with their group.

      For the final activity, the students were told to write their own Mad Libs. They were given ten minutes, however most of them finished the writing process quicker and jumped into filling in the blanks. I walked around the room, error corrected, and answered a few Mad Libs for fun. Everyone understood the concept very well, placing an adjective blank in the correct position, and a noun just as accurately. The stories were very silly, just as they should be.

        At the end of the class, Felicia told me that I did a very good job while complimenting my Mad Lib idea. She even said that she’d use it in future classes! I haven’t received the rest of my comments from Felicia. We’ll meet in a week or so. However, they seem to be positive.