Courses English Creative Writing

Discussions and debates are a good way of getting students involved in class projects and assignments. In our institute, we encourage a good discussion or debate amongst students so that they are able to reason out their point of view on a topic. This ability to reason has to be properly nourished in students as it is something they will find very useful in all walks of life.

As they progress in school, their writing assignments revolve around topics that have moral, social or psychological underlining. A prompt like, ‘Lying is bad, we all know that. Imagine somebody invented a device that can tell when a person a lying. Do you think it will benefit society or lead to much more chaos and confusion as people will have the means to spot a lie immediately?’ Such a prompt is guaranteed to get students discussing in class. They can later use their points to write down an argumentative essay on the same.

One cannot run without first learning how to walk first. Similarly, one cannot write well without knowing the purpose and significance of each word and symbol used in the English language first. Communication is at the heart of all that we do and in order to be an effective communicator, a thorough understanding of grammar rules is a must. Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, Punctuations, Tenses, Plurals, Synonyms-Antonyms, Degrees of Comparison, Subject-Object, all these and more will be covered in great detail in Grammar 101.

As the famous band Pink Floyd once sang, 'We don't need no education.' Now, that is ironical as they used a double negative in there; a strict grammar rule forbids the use of double negatives in a sentence. The band got away with it but most students won't. So let's play it by the rules on this one shall we?

Learning about grammar and punctuations will also clearify that not every joke ends with a punctuation mark. 

Segregating information into paragraphs assists in absorbing and recalling information by the reader. It is crucial to not subject your writing to long winding and never ending paragraphs as it puts a strain on the reader to recall any information from the written material. To put this into perspective, imagine every exam and test you have taken in the recent past; the study material for the exam was contained in a book, with paragraphs, carefully structured to break down concepts into a small bits of information to assist understanding. Had the material been just page after page full of words, without breaks in between, it would have been downright impossible to make sense of any of it, let alone reproduce that information on paper.

Our brain is designed to appreciate structure, symmetry, which is what a good paragraph provides. Visually, paragraphs help the brain focus on individual details related to a subject which in turn is stored as a separate memory in our brain. While trying to recall information from a book, we often see the paragraph it belonged in as a picture in our minds. Once our brain isolates that memory segment, we can zoom in on the information we seek, from our mental picture. Hence, breaking down information into paragraphs is important.

Dialogues are always accompanied by speech marks or quotation marks “    ”. In text, they indicate when something is being spoken, a communication between two or more people; for example, if a person is writing about the discussion two people had on a park bench, it would be easier, and far more effective, to write it as a dialogue between two people, rather than in a reported speech manner. 

What we know of the world, we know it through our senses. The human body is a brilliant thing, we are designed for efficiency in almost everything, except for flying, it would be great if we had a set of hidden wings too. The food we taste, the sights we see, the things we touch, the sounds we hear and everything we smell, all of these senses information helps us form memories. A good writer has the power to make people see, smell, taste and touch things that aren't actually there just by reading about them; that is the power of descriptive writing. 

 It won't be correct to say, 'this looks delicious.' How can you tell something is delicious simply by looking at it? That is an incorrect usage of the adjective delicious. Similarly, there are many words that we are using incorrectly in our day to day lives to describe things. Our senses are bombarded by information all the time, in order for us to describe what we are experiencing or seeing, we need to use the right words for the right things. Descriptive writing harnesses the power our senses to help the reader visualize or experience whatever is written on paper. The English language is equipped with several words that cater to our senses which can help us draft clean, interesting and imaginative written pieces. ‘A journey through a market place’ for example is a topic that is ideal to test a student’s descriptive writing skills. They must describe everything from the colours they see, to the sounds they 

The English language has always been a dynamic thing. It has incorporated words from at least 10 other languages in its midst. As the internet would inform you, there are more than 300 words that can be used to indicate that something is ‘good.’ Now, with so many words out there, it is important to know some of them to give your writing some pizzazz.

This is what a sound vocabulary does:-

Exhibit A- Henry wiped his forehead under the straw hat while looking up at the sun.

Exhibit B- Henry wiped his forehead of the profuse perspiration gathered there, his straw hat providing poor protection against the blazing sun high in the sky.

Essentially, both the sentences are saying the same thing, but how they are saying it, makes all the difference. While reading Exhibit A, did you feel the heat? Did it make you think back to a day when you felt as hot as Henry did? Probably not because there wasn’t any substance in terms of vocabulary used in it to compel the reader to ‘feel’ along with the character.

Exhibit B- probably made some of you recall a day when you did wipe your head of sweat while the sun was high in the sky. By simply adding a few words and changing a few, the sentence becomes more capable of making the reader empathize, visualize with what is being written, making the writing impactful.  

Improving vocabulary assists in more ways than one. You can spend an hour fumbling for the ‘right words’ to convey something, by the end of which you still wouldn’t have a convincing copy. If are equipped with good vocabulary, your writing time is cut into half because you won’t have to go chasing words or repeating them in a way that makes them less effective. Good vocabulary is the difference between feeling ‘good’ and feeling ‘splendid’; which one sounds happier?

Spellings, well, without being able to spell splendid, it’s doubtful that it would make much sense. 

Types of writing have more to do with vocabulary than one might think. There are different types of writing for example, persuasive, expository, descriptive, narrative, argumentative and even essay writing. Each of the types above commands a specific type of language to be used.

In expository writing for instance, one cannot enter into long drawn out sentences to describe something, it is not uncommon however to find the same in descriptive writings as by definition alone, they are about describing something or someone. Expository writing on the other hand is used to give information about a specific topic only. Structuring and organizing information is of crucial importance there as it is up to the writer to inform the reader on a given subject. You may find a rampant use of figures of speech in descriptive writing but expository writing is less ‘fancy’ and more to the point. 

Most people don’t realize this but reading and comprehending and recalling information from written material is something everyone indulges in no matter what field of work they might be in. The foundation for this never ending process starts with children. Reading and understating are two different things. Most children are able to read well into their first year of school but understanding what is being read takes some time.

They will first be taught how to isolate important bit of information from the passage, who, what, when, where, why and how. Alongside this, understanding the main idea of the passage is also important. Why was this bit separated from the rest? What is the significance of this passage? Questions like these and more will be addressed during lessons that cover reading comprehensions. 

How can there be a creative writing course without the inclusion of the one of the most demanding creative writing topics out there, poems?

Over the years, poems have lost some love from English speaking audience. In the days of twitter and rap music, writing ballads about a hero or simply a poem to woo someone is seen as redundant. The truth however remains that poems are still one of the most vibrant forms of creative writing.

Due to the language used in some poems and certain words being redundant, understating poems can be a daunting task of children of this decade who are used to talking in abbreviations and ‘smiles’.  This module is designed to help open their minds to using figurative language in a fluid, rhythmic format, the understanding of which will enable them to write better.

The world today is an open book on the internet and many people believe in documenting their lives by writing blogs. Blogs have become an increasingly popular means of attaining information these days. There are blogs about everything from business to travel to even animals. Writing for blogs however is a different story.

Blogs by nature are a less rigid form of information. In most cases, they are a person’s perspective or opinions on something. They are more personal, less formal and very dynamic by design. Blog writers often interact with the people who read or visit their blog which is why, even while writing blog entries, they are written in a language which can be easily understood by the majority. Just because the language is simple doesn’t mean it has to be simply written. More often than not, it is more difficult to write things in a simplistic manner than with extravagance that one might find in other creative writing material. This module focuses on blogs in an interesting and engaging format.  

Every movie that has ever been made, every song that has ever been sung, first started out on a piece of paper. Stories, almost all of them have a blank piece of paper and an imaginative mind behind them. Most people assume that creative writing is all about writing stories and poems. While stories and poems are a huge part of creative writing, the term creative writing has a much wider meaning. Stories are by far the most popular form of creative writing and rightly so, so imagine a whole new world, invent characters, machines, names, languages all on paper is a truly fantastic thing. This part of creative writing is enjoyed by young and old alike. Children especially love inventing new worlds, writing about superheroes and magic and creative writing gives them enough freedom to do so.

Learning how to write well enough draw a stranger into your own world that you created on paper takes considerable amount of practice and skill. Just ask any novelist or writer, learning how to write well, is a never ending process. Spellings, figures of speech, vocabulary all play a very important role in story writing. 

An essential part of teaching English is analyzing famous works by authors of the past and the present. There are several English books that have great literature value. Through these books, children learn about the works of different of authors, examine their styles, discuss the story, characters, plot etc. Books are a wonderful source of inspiring children how to write well. They learn about sentence structures, plot development, writing about emotions, conflict, describing landscapes and people. They open up the doors of possibilities for students as far as creative writing is concerned. Books are a great way of improving students spoken English as well, since the more one reads, the better one will be able to talk. 

There are plenty of educational, motivational and inspirational videos out there that manage to deliver important messages in an entertaining manner.  The videos can be science based, comedic, silent videos, dramatic, it could even be a snippet from a famous movie; the objective of this module is to get students to recall information from such visual and audio formats. They will be shown the video only once. The instructor will give them a little background information about the video so that the students can be prepared for what is to follow.

This is a unique, modern method of teaching where students’ retention abilities along with their speed is tested and trained. In today’s fast paced society, unfortunately students do not have the luxury to process information at their pace or at a pace that is lower than what is expected of them. This module works to compliment the comprehension module which tests their ability to understand written material; in this they will be working on their ability to understand visual mediums and recall information about what they saw. 

The wind howled and crickets sang as Robert turned towards his friend to ask, "Hey, do you know about the guy whose whole left side was cut off?" His friend's eyes turned as round as saucers at the question while he tried desperately to clear his head of the grisly images the question conjured in his head. Gulping loudly, he shook his head. Robert smirked, enjoying his friend's reaction a bit too much, "Well, he's all right now." For a minute of two his friend gaped at him, his mouth an open cavern, until the farcicality dawned on him. "So punny," he drawled before walking away.

There is no creative writing without using figures of speech. That's a bold statement but just look at the paragraph above; what would it have read like without the similes and metaphors? Without the pun? It is imperative to learn and understand figures of speech if one needs to improve their creative writing abilities; like oars are to a boat, figures of speech are to creative writing. They steer the course of your written pieces towards popularity, amusement, entertainment and eloquence. There is method to using them but ones mastered, they will open a whole new world for budding writers. 

Children of the 21^st century need to learn about the language used ‘in’ the 21^st century. There are various informative platforms out there that present information in various language styles. Television, internet, radio, newspapers and magazines are all wonderful sources of information but they also come with ‘miscellaneous’ content that has no relevance for students. It is important to teach students how to extract only quality information from these sources while overlooking the unnecessary content.

Students are encouraged to share their favourite programs from any of the media platforms such as television, radio, magazines, internet and newspapers and explain why they prefer this medium over others. It is imperative that the content they are advocating be informative, suitable for their age group and easily understandable. The informality of this module greatly appeals to the young audience which makes them receptive and participative in this activity.