First Lines and Writing Prompts

Yesterday's exercise with first lines went really well. I had an 11 page handout, which I put in a folder. Each page had a first line (s) or first sentence(s). We pulled them out a page at a time. We wrote for 5 minutes, and then we pulled the next sheet out of the folder. At the end of class, I had them choose the one they liked best, the one we would work on next week. Some of them wanted to include more than one, and I said yes.Next week, I'll give them a folder of first pages, and we'll add to each other's writing. I'll report back about how it goes. My students stayed with the process for the whole class period. That shouldn't surprise me, but it's the end of the semester, and I wouldn't have been offended if our capacity for trying something new has vanished. Happily, they wrote and wrote, and after class was over, 2 of the 6 students stayed behind to tell me how valuable the process was.I did it too. I wondered if my knowledge of the larger works would influence my writing, and…

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