| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Workshop 15

Page history last edited by cduprey1616@... 14 years, 9 months ago

The Great "What if...?"

 

This really is the question at the heart of all storytelling. What if Hamlet's uncle killed Hamlet's father and what if Hamlet's heart was good, but his mind wasn't strong enough to carry out revenge? And what if he had a girl-friend but her father didn't like Hamlet?  You see where this is going?

 

Asking the great What if? question gets answers you don't always expect. There are several parts to this workshop, so follow through them all and see where you end up at the end. I'm pretty sure it's not where you think you'll be!

 

Writing Journal -- answer four of the following in your journal. Throw some spaghetti!

 

  • What if the sun shone only three hours each 24-hr period?
  • What if newborn babies could talk at one-hour old?
  • What if the airplane had been invented before the Civil War?
  • What if we had jetpacks and could fly?
  • What if there were no more gasoline?
  • What if there were only three colors in the world -- red, blue and yellow?
  • What if people were never allowed to leave their hometowns?

 

Speculation

 

Speculation is related to the great What if? question. In speculation, you take a given moment in history or a common experience all people share and twist it a little. 

 

EXAMPLES:

 

  • Imagine that the rivers of the US flowed from East to West rather than primarily North to South. Write an alternative history for the Period of Exploration (1500-1700). Draw a map that would help to explain how this geographical change might affect the history of the United States.

 

  • Imagine the automobile hadn't been invented. Write a story about this high school without them. Explore the culture that would be in place

 

Writing:

 

Using either of the examples above or a speculation of your own, either write a story or create an outline for a story for later development.

 

 

(materials for this workshop taken from Strategic Learning in the Classroom, Dr. Harvey F. Sliver and Richard W. Strong, SilverStrong & Associates, Inc. and from Writing Smarter! by Keith Manos, The Center for Applied Research in Education (1999) )

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.