826DC Communications and Development Intern Eisa Abu-Sbaih wrote this blog post about a recent 826DC field trip!
In late October, our 826DC magic-makers visited fantastic fifth graders at School Within School at Goding for an in-school field trip!
The energetic students worked together to write a spine-chilling story, complete with their own creative setting and original characters. Once the beginning and middle of the story were written as a class, the students took on the challenge of writing their own endings to make each story unique.
Building from Basics
Magic-makers Christopher Lee, 826DC’s Associate Director of School Programs, and Fatima Mendoza Choto, 826DC Educational Programming Intern, began by reviewing the elements of a creative story. Students talked about plot (what happens in the story), dialogue (what characters say), and detail (small pieces of information that bring the scene to life).
Once the class was ready to write, we split students into three collaborative groups to start building out their story.
Eerie Elements
The fabulous first group created a setting befitting of the Halloween season: an abandoned baseball stadium named “Ham Field,” full of floating baseballs, flickering music, and phantom players from seasons past.
Groups two and three created two marvelous main characters: Fiona, an energetic 12-year-old and the only girl on her baseball team, and Castor, a rebellious 16-year-old boy with spiky hair who dresses like Babe Ruth.
How the Magic Happens
The class gathered back into a circle on the carpet and each group shared what they had created. Then the writers worked together to bring details of each character’s backstory to life in the setting.
Our assistant typist Fatima helped record the scene, details, and dialogue as the story moved from the beginning through the “build-up” of the “Story Mountain” story structure.
What Happened Next
Fiona and Castor met in the abandoned stands at Ham Field baseball stadium when they both came to investigate more about haunted rumors. A phantom catcher caught a floating baseball before it hit Castor in the head, but the catcher challenged Fiona and Castor to a game of ghostly baseball before they even had a chance to say thank you!
As the other phantoms started to swarm the two teenagers, the writers went back to their desks to create their own unique, out-of-the-park endings: the resolution to the “big problem” at the top of the Story Mountain.
In one story, Fiona recruited help from her baseball team and beat the ghost players with the power of teamwork. In another, Castor called in ghost hunters to suck up every last one from the stadium with a powerful vacuum! Anything is possible when our writers put their minds to it.
Each writer also drew an illustration, which will feature alongside their unique endings once 826DC prints the story as a real-life book for students to take home.
A Home Run Field Trip, With Many More to Come
826DC brings the magic of storytelling to classrooms all over DC, helping young authors shape their imaginations and have a lot of fun.
If you want to see more sensational stories, we always welcome support for our work! If you give this November, 826DC’s board will match your gift dollar-for-dollar, so your donation will count double.
Want to see us in action? You can also come volunteer with field trips just like this one by visiting this page.
About Eisa Abu-Sbaih:
As a childhood-turned-lifelong reader and writer from Rochester, NY, Eisa Abu-Sbaih is passionate about building youth education in storytelling, leadership, and advocacy. She aspires to launch a career in nonprofit work and is eager to see where this next chapter leads.
Eisa has previously worked with literacy programming at local elementary schools in Baltimore, MD and as a leadership education lead at the Louis August Jonas Foundation’s Camp Rising Sun in Rhinebeck, NY. She is currently in her senior year at Loyola University Maryland, where she studies public relations and marketing with a minor in writing.
On Sunday evenings, Eisa hosts a live college radio segment with a galactic indie-rock flavor. She is always hungry for new and local music recommendations.