Writers’ Restaurant

Summer 2021

🚀And we’re off!

Our inaugural summer session is up and running!

For this shortened summer session, we are exploring the writing process in our Writers’ Restaurant project.

Scroll below to take a journey through the five steps of the writing process:

  1. Prewriting ✍🏾

  2. Drafting ✍🏾

  3. Editing ✍🏾

  4. Revising 👀

  5. Publishing 👀

(✍🏾 = Currently Working On 👀 = Coming Up / Sneak Peak)

  1. Prewriting ✍🏾

This summer, we will be creating short stories to entertain our readers. The first step of the writing process is prewriting. This is where we think about the story we want to tell, think about the purpose of our story (in this case to entertain), and make a plan to do just that. We will tell our first round of stories in just 6 pages.

Check out the “Summer Shorts” prompts below, and then watch the video to see how I make a plan to tell my story idea.

Summer Shorts

  • Class In Space

    In this short story, our class somehow gets stuck in outer space. They meet some helpful aliens and work to get back to earth.

    Beginning: Introduce your characters, the setting, and the problem.

    Middle: Show how the characters attempt to solve their problem. If you switch settings, make sure to tell your reader that.

    End: Climax and Falling Action. This is where you show your reader the main action that everything else has been leading to. You might tell what lesson your characters learned or set up the next story in your series with a cliffhanger.

  • A Buddy Adventure

    Write a story about two buddies who get involved in an adventure. You get to choose the characters’ personalities and actions, the setting, the challenge or problem they face, the rising action, the climax, and the ending.

    Remember to use your graphic organizer or your composition book to plan out your beginning, middle, and end with all of the good “story stuff” (characters, setting, rising action, climax, resolution).

  • Stuck In the Zoo / Escaping the Zoo

    Write a story about human getting stuck in the zoo or about animals escaping the zoo.

  • A Mystery at the Park

    It seems like an ordinary park until something very suspicious happens. Write a story about a mystery at the park. Maybe something gets lost or something gets found. Maybe something is missing. It’s up to you what the mystery will be and how it will be solved.

    Remember to introduce your characters and how they know each other. Be sure to describe their actions and appearance, especially if they are involved in the mystery. Work on setting the scene by describing the setting and adding in details that support the mood of the story.

    Again, take some time to plan out your beginning, middle, and end before drafting.

“Good writers plan.”

- Ms. Smith

When you pick up your pencil and fix your fingers to write, you are deciding to take your ideas out of your head and spread them across your paper. Using planning tools helps us to be sure we get all of those juicy ideas into our story. What’s even better is that as we get our ideas out, we open up space for even more ideas to come through. It’s really pretty cool. ☀️😎

Use the writing tools below to help you organize your ideas. Think about which parts you will write about in the beginning, middle, and end of your story. Then draft (write your first draft) in your composition notebook.

With good planning, you will write stories that other people can enjoy and maybe even learn from!

Prewrite Using a Graphic Organizer

Watch me plan out my “Buddy Adventure” story in real time. Then use the graphic organizer below to plan out one of your stories!

 

“The stuff that stories are made of!”

Step 2: Drafting ✍🏾

For this step, use your composition book.

Write out your story in full sentences using your organizer as a guide. Don’t worry too much about having perfect spelling. We can catch any mistakes in the next step.

You can use the margin of your page to put a number next to your writing so that you know what will go on each page. Remember, these short stories should fit on 6 pages for this project.

Step 3: Editing ✍🏾

Editing is when we look over what our buddies have written so far, and point out any mistakes that need to be fixed. We use editing marks to show our writing buddy what needs to be done.

 

The 4th Step in the Writing Process is to Revise. 👀

This is when you look at your story, and make the changes we uncovered in the Editing Step. You will fix any spelling mistakes, add any punctuation, and make any other important changes.

For our 5th and final step, we will publish our stories as digital and physical books. 👀

 

Making a Book

This video shows the method we will use to fold regular paper into a book without staples. All you need is paper and a pair of scissors.

The video shows how to make a 12-page book out of 4 pieces of paper. We will use only 3 pieces of paper to make a shorter story. Remember, the book is the final step of the writing process - Publishing.

Coming Soon…

This menu is not live just yet. It is only a sneak peak of our menu. 👀

Get your stories drafted, so that we can get them finished and added to the menu!