Valiant Knight: A Creative Writing Activity

This creative writing activity employs the use of the creative writing process in order for your student(s) to create a story. All of my writing activities are appropriate for use either in a classroom setting or in a homeschool setting usually at the elementary school level but could be easily adjusted for older students.

As a refresher, here is a graphic to remind you how to progress through the 5 steps of the creative writing process. 

Okay, today we are going to have your student write a story about a valiant knight.

Note: if your student is a girl, it is important not to change this assignment to say “princess” or something with a female character. Children can learn even more by writing about a character that is not exactly like them. We can do a project with a female character on a different day for which it will be important that boy children participate equally with girls.

Here is your writing prompt: The main character is a valiant (brave) knight. He is faced with a difficult problem. He comes up with a brave plan to solve the problem. The solution to the problem leads to a surprise ending!

Brain Storm

Let’s begin a brain storm. Your student will need a fresh sheet of notebook paper. 

Every story needs a beginning, middle, and end. So, have your student write beginning at the top of their paper, skip a few lines and write middle, skip a few lines and write ending. Older students could use separate sheets of paper for each section to plan their story to allow them more room to write.

In the beginning section, have the student introduce who the characters in their story will be, give a setting, and give a good full description of your main character, the valiant knight.

In the middle section, have your student describe a problem the knight will face, which other characters, if any, caused the problem (a witch? a dragon?), which of the other characters are affected by the problem (a princess in a tower? a beloved pet?), and how the knight is going to try to solve the problem.

In the ending section, have you student explain how the problem is resolved and bring the story to a conclusion with a surprise ending!

Draft

Now it’s time to start a first (or rough) draft! One a clean sheet of paper, using the elements from their brain storm, have student begin composing a first draft of their story.

Revise

Revise with fresh eyes! Before you begin this step, STOP! Go take a bathroom break, get a snack, take a lap, but do something COMPLETELY different than this writing assignment. Have your student come back with fresh eyes to read their first draft. If you have multiple students doing this assignment, have them trade papers and read each other’s work. As they read either their own or their partner’s story, ask them: “Does the story have a beginning, middle, and an end? Who are the characters? What is the setting? What is the plot (the problem)? How does it end (how is the problem resolved)? Does the story make sense?” If anything is missing, the young author needs to make sure those elements get added during the second draft.

For the purpose of learning the creative writing process, there needs to be at least a first and a second draft of the story. However, the revise and draft process can be repeated as many times as necessary to get the story “just right”.

As the students are writing their second draft, ask them to make sure that all the above elements are included in their story and that their story makes sense (it has a definite sequence of events).

Edit

Similar to revising, it helps to step away for a time and come back with fresh eyes. Now we are checking for grammatical and spelling errors in the story. Students can again trade papers and help each other edit, or they can do it themselves. Have them read every single word out loud very carefully. Ask them if they notice any grammar or spelling errors. Once they have had a chance to look over it, it’s time for the teacher (or parent) to check it for grammar and spelling errors.

After all errors are discovered, the story goes back through a draft/revision process. This should go much quicker than the previous drafts.

Publish

Once the student is completely satisfied with their story and it is free of errors, the story can then be published! This is the most exciting part of the process. After all that hard work, a story can finally be sent to publishing! A great way to “publish” a student’s piece is to either have them type it or the teacher can do that for the student and post it to the classroom wall.

(Optional)

Depending on how big you would like this project to be, you could do this over the course of several days. Once the final draft is made, you could have the student illustrate their story with one or more pictures. There are even blank picture books you can purchase from hobby stores where students can make their story look like a real book.

However you decide to complete this activity, your student will have a story they wrote themselves and it will hopefully be something they will be very proud to share with their friends and family!

If you would like to share your valiant knight stories with me, I would LOVE to read them! You can either copy the text of the story into the comments box or send me a link to where you have hosted the image somewhere online such as Facebook or Photobucket.