Creative+Writing+by+Pickens

=Building Creative Writing Skills using a Desktop Learning Space Kathleen Pickens: Fiesta 7=

It can be difficult for beginning writers to sit down and actually START writing. Why? For some, it is because they lack inspiration; for others, they simply lack the confidence that they will be able to produce anything. A Desktop Learning Space designed to build creative writing skills is an effective approach for instructing because it provides inspiration and "forces" learners to simply start creating. Moreover, links to external resources can help those who would like to continue to sharpen their skills. The simple template that I created here can be used for a variety of writing tasks, including poetry, resumes, fiction, epics, etc.
 * Learning Situation**

Depending on the nature of materials added to the template, writers of any age can find the inspiration and confidence they need by working through these learning spaces. When creating these, I pictured an audience of adults that had not written for a long, long time, but I also pictured junior high and high school students that may be wary of putting their ideas into the public sphere.
 * Intended Audience**

My [|Creative Writing Template] can be viewed here. I could not figure out how to add lines for writing (as in Annette's examples), but thought that this PowerPoint template was a bit more mature and inspirational for an audience getting ready to write.
 * Template**

My first sample version is this [|Poetry Skill Builder]. I kept the format of the template, but added text that described the exercises as they applied to poetry writing.
 * First Sample Version**

For my second round with the Creative Writing Template, I created a [|Short Story Skill Builder]. This time, I replaced a few images with ones that were more applicable and added text that was applicable to the short story tasks.
 * Second Round with Template**

So far, I think learners wanting to use my skill builders would also be interested in learning more about art at Annette's space and could also use her images for even more inspiration!
 * Links to Other Class Wikis**

The toughest part of this assignment was figuring out what to do for a topic! I'm not very good at children's things, so although those examples were fun and I knew how to link the pictures to the answers (like in the dragonfly), I just could not figure out what to do for my own assignment. I was having a horrible time coming up with an idea, which is why I ultimately decided to do a desktop learning space that would help learners come up with ideas for their own creations. That is usually one of the toughest parts of an assignment for me, so I thought this would be a beneficial resource to others facing an inspirational/confidence block. Overall, executing this assignment was a bit more difficult than it looked from the class examples, especially since I wanted to create my own template.
 * Reflection**