×
Login Sign up
Grades level iconsGrades 3–5
Session time icon1 Session, 60 Minutes
Genre information iconFantasy/SciFi, Narrative
Resource type icon

Writing Alternate Worlds

Author image
Andrea Nelson, 826DC and 826 Digital Educator Leader
In this Spark, students will develop a setting that captures the environment of an alternate world.
Bookmark Resource Iconbookmark Download Resource Icondownload

What Your Students Will Learn

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences.

Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3 Common Core Standards Icon
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3 Common Core Standards Icon
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3 Common Core Standards Icon
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
Load More
What Your Students Will Produce

Students will produce a short story that includes a setting in an alternate world.

What You Will Do

STEP 1

Ask students to describe a place familiar to them– school, their neighborhood, a favorite place or person’s home etc.

STEP 2

Remind students what a setting is and use a mentor text of your choice to illustrate the importance of setting.

STEP 3

Ask students to identify how the author in the mentor text describes the setting. How does the author help the reader know what it’s like to be in the setting? Prompt students to think about sensory details and descriptive language.

STEP 4

Now tell students that as a way to do science fiction writing, authors describe worlds that are possibly real based on science but also made up by the authors imagination. Show students this video from 826DC.

STEP 5

Ask students to describe a setting described in the video. What type of animals or plants...

Login Blurred Image

See more Writings at this level

Grades 3–5
Make a Change: Formal and Informal Campaigns

by Rebecca Glaser, 826 Digital Educator Leader

Persuasive

Students will use formal and informal writing to take on an issue in their community and convince others to take action.

view
Grades 3–5
The Writer’s Notebook

by Kathy Seipp, 826 Digital Educator

Memoir

Invite students to write freely with this lesson that includes directions for students to set up a writer's journal and favorite journal prompts.

view
Grades 2–4
Representation, Self-Advocacy, & Marley Dias

by Ashley Houston-King, 826 Digital Educator Leader

Informational

Students will learn about representation, self-advocacy, and the work of Marley Dias before writing about this young advocate.

view
Grades 4–6
The Human Comic Strip

by Bryan Wilson, Educator Leader, Bureau of Fearless Ideas

Narrative

In this lesson students will work together to revise a scene from a first draft by adding descriptive details.

view