Draw-Your-Own-Apocalypse: Story Writing Activity

The image to the left comes from B. Gardening, a landscaping company in Colorado that has a hilarious post on protection of your garden and the eradication of zombie garden gnomes. (I promise, it relates. Read on.)

This is a fun assignment we did in Creative Writing last month. The students wrote apocalyptic stories, and we decided on specific criteria that they would focus on in their stories. After much discussion, we settled on the specifics of:

• Setting
• Imagery
• Character Development/ Characterization
• Incorporation of Apocalyptic Event

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Once we had decided on the criteria, I created a rubric that only focused on these four areas. The students got to choose their point of view, their main characters, and their plot events. However, they did not have control over the actual apocalyptic scenario. Instead, each student created an apocalyptic event and submitted those descriptions to me. The next day, everyone had to draw an apocalyptic event from the pile, and they were required to create a story around that event.

Here are some of the scenarios that the students submitted:

• Happy Cow Disease: Women begin birthing cows, which then devour people.
• Glitter Doom: Glitter people come from the sky and when they touch you, you turn into glitter that they then snack on.
  
• Rainbow bears come alive due to nuclear radiation and take over.
• Hitler's brain was put inside a robot and takes over the world.
• Plants rise up and consume all human beings.
• Garden gnomes come to life and kill off humans.
• Giant worms come from under a nuclear plant and begin their destruction.
• Dwarves rise up from the Under-Earth, slaying humans on the spot.
• Robot dinosaurs from another dimension have taken over Earth.
  

This is just a small sampling of the ideas. They were brilliant and wildly diverse. The stories were equally wide-ranging; some are hilarious and others are terrifying, whereas some incorporate both the humor and the fear. Their innovation and creativity knows no bounds, and I can't wait to see what they all come up with next!