Students are challenged to create a series of short stories that only contain 50 words. They are given a series of unusual stimuli to spark their imagination and curiosity and enable them to start their creative journeys. They are asked to engage in a continuous process of refining and editing to improve their stories whilst playing with language, grammar, and punctuation. At the end of the activity, the stories will be published into a collection of 50-word stories. 

• Develop the ability to write concisely but powerfully

• Compose texts using appropriate punctuation, spelling, and grammar

• Understand the importance of word choice, punctuation, paragraph division, and structure

• Check, edit, and refine work independently

This unit has a creativity and critical thinking focus:

• Play with ideas to create meaningful and novel outputs

• Consider different perspectives and reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of their own writing

Web and Print

• Not essential but access to some 50-word stories websites would be useful.  

• Suggested music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVN1B-tUpgs  

• Further resources on ‘wow words’ can be found here. https://www.nbss.ie/sites/default/files/publications/mm_wow_words_booklet_cu.pdf

        Other Resources

• Paper and pens for research and writing tasks 

•  Post it notes  

• See 3 examples of 50-word stories in Appendix 2 

•  Artwork – see suggested images below  

• Box with random objects in it  

• A way to play music to the class 

      Opportunities to adapt, extend, and enrich

• Students can be asked to spell most of the words they need to communicate, using spelling rules, specialist vocabulary, self-correction techniques, and a range of resources  

• Links can be made with expressive arts: drama/improvisation, music appreciation, and visual art deconstruction

English Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/121fcqEEYel-Yi_5qVww2zRqCeFubcYigiMRa9jnSV50/edit?usp=sharing

Hindi Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SA_LOcMXR_K7Y-TLPhvMAWFfYWgy1LD4ft3BIxGDC9I/edit?usp=sharing

Gujarati Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cNZGAfYOdnmMVVlkLuPkeSK5BSdFlMZrdOw-g5pdSA0/edit?usp=sharing

Kannada Version

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Uf-QCfwZgnQmg_9HNql4sZiOitopHVCvH8J0pjbZB_w/edit?usp=drive_link