A Story for Halloween

These days the kids are getting quite excited about Halloween. Every year I take advantage of this excitement by having them write Halloween stories. After a week of workshops on descriptive settings, it was time to have my students apply this skill in a narrative – one with a Halloween theme.

Task: Write a story using a picture of a haunted house

Goals: 1. Vivid description of the setting, using sensory details, in story. Develop a vocabulary for describing sounds.

2. Writing a story with a plot that shows a problem and a solution.

3. Nurturing a joy for creative writing.

This writing activity needs to be done over 4 – 5 days.

Step 1. Set the mood …

  I started this task by taking the students on a virtual tour of a haunted house. I found a decent website by doing a Google search. As we entered the house and explored the various spooky rooms the desire to create a story shone in the faces of my students!

Step 2. Make the setting come alive …

 I played a Halloween soundtrack. The kids were instructed to listen and jot down all the sounds they could hear. After about five minutes of the soundtrack I asked them to share what they heard. I listed their responses on chart paper. Whenever they gave a vague response such as “I could hear an owl”, I would say, “How did you know it was an owl? What sound did it make?” They soon got the idea. We came up with an impressive list: cackling witches, screeching, rattling, groans, moans, howls, screaming, hooting, growling, yelps, creaking, evil laughter, thumping heartbeats.

Step 3. Get the picture …

 I handed a picture of a haunted house and some writing paper to each of the kids.

Look at the picture. What can you see? What would you be able to smell? What would you hear? What would you feel on your skin?

I asked the kids to divide their writing paper into four squares. In each square they wrote down the following headings:

 Sights, Smells, Sounds, Feel. 

They then filled each square with as many sensory details as they could come with from examining the picture. In pairs they shared their responses and added to their lists. This was followed by a whole class discussion. As students shared, I wrote their ideas on chart paper. With each response I encouraged them to make me “see” it by directing them to mention either color, size, clothes, facial features, or an action or behavior. 

Some examples we came up with were: 

skinny, green monsters, wrinkled witches, floating ghosts, huge, black cauldron, flickering candles.

Step 4. The Setting – described in a powerful paragraph …

 In this Halloween narrative, my main focus was getting the kids to describe the setting in a stellar paragraph. This was why I had spent a lot of time on the preliminary preparation for this part. I didn’t want the kids distracted by thinking about their story, so I said nothing about this bigger task that was coming. We devoted our writing session entirely on the setting.

The kids got out their four square paper from the previous day and looked at what they had listed. They also got out the picture of the haunted house.

Today you are going to use some of these ideas to write a paragraph. Pretend you went into this haunted house. Describe what it was like inside.

I reminded them to make their words paint pictures, to make their reader feel like they are right there. They were not allowed to begin any of their sentences with “I saw … “; “I heard …”, etc.

Experience has taught me to be proactive. It is important to specify the type of writing you are aiming for. Usually, the kids rise to the challenge.

Step 5. The first draft …

 Today you are going to use the picture of the haunted house to write a story. Who would your main character/s be? You could put yourself in the story and write it in first person.

What would the problem be? I listed their ideas on the board:

• Trapped in the haunted house
• A witch uses her magic to transform you into something
• Chased by a Skeleton
• Rescuing kids hidden in the house
• Your friend falls through a trapdoor

You may choose one of these problems if you like, or you may come up with your own idea. Remember, a story has a beginning, middle, and an end. How does the problem start? What does the character do about the problem? How is it solved?

Now write your story. As you write, think about where the setting paragraph you wrote yesterday would fit best. You could use it as your first paragraph if you like.

I emphasized that the story should have no violence or blood and to remember our “banned” words which are displayed on a chart made visible during our writing sessions. My students understand very well by now that they are not allowed to use these words: 

nice, good, bad, stuff, things, cool, great.

 Step 6. Proofread. 

Check spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.

Step 7. Edit with Teacher

Each student comes to me with their story and I help them fix their spelling and punctuation. I show them how to make their sentences short and succinct. We delete “so” and “then”, and clean up awkward words and phrases. Because I am a professional writer I can do this quite quickly.

8. Final Draft

The students write out their final draft on Halloween stationery.

I realize that the teacher editing phase of the task could be difficult to manage. It’s important to plan ahead and be prepared. I work with struggling kids while the class is busy on their first draft. For fast workers I prepare independent, but challenging activities. Often, these “fun” activities serve as incentives for slower workers.

To end, here are some stories from past students that resulted from this lesson.

The Haunted School

By David

It was October 14 and the sun was shining.  Dave said, “Why are you moving to a new school?”

“Because my mom says I talk too much” said Robert.

“Too bad you can’t stay a little longer,” said Dave. 

“Well I have to go home now,” said Robert. 

“Goodbye Robert,” said Dave. Robert walked home. He saw his cat on the roof of his house. It was October 16.That was the day Robert said goodbye to his teacher and friends. When he came to his new school it looked haunted.  “Mom can you drop me off? “ asked Robert

 “Why, of course,” said Mrs. Robinson. When Robert headed for the door it opened by itself. Robert looked inside. It was black and spooky. He wondered where his classmates were. Then Robert heard a loud scream. He headed for the door, but it closed. He was locked up so he walked and saw dirty classrooms, wood boards and even a desk. He thought, if I keep walking I will find an exit.

He saw a cell phone floating like a cloud. Robert gasped, then the phone went away in the black smoke. Then he saw a pencil and a backpack floating in his path. Robert ran away as fast as he could. He came to a door. It said, “Principal’s Office”. Robert opened the door. Inside, it was dark. Suddenly a ghost floated past him. Next a skeleton touched him. He screamed so loudly: HELP!

He ran away from it. Then his eyes got big and wide. He saw an exit. But a zombie blocked his way. He ran the other way. He escaped through the door and he landed on the floor of the hall. The school bell rang. He saw an exit. It was his last chance. He jumped and made it.

The sun was still shining. Then he saw his mom. He ran to her. “Well, how was school?” asked Mrs. Robinson.

“Very bad,” he said. “I think you took me to an old school, Mom.” She gasped. “It’s OK, Mom. Tomorrow I will go to my new school.”

They went home. “How could you take me to a haunted school?” Robert asked.

Video of a Haunted House

By Ryan

Why don’t I show you a video of a haunted house that has been haunted for centuries? (Video plays). Do you know what a haunted house is like? I’ll take you on a really weird journey through a haunted house. There! Oh, wrong place … Yeah, right place.

You go up the driveway to … THE WALKING TREE ZOMBIES! Watch out! They might fall on (Crunch! Snap!) you. If you move you’ll slip. You’ll need to jump.

You go and and knock on the door. A skeleton/ghost comes out. (That’s a ghost made out of bones). You go in. Suddenly the floor collapses beneath you. There are two tunnels. You take the one on the right. Suddenly you’re flying. You’re about to be crushed, but instead, you’re heading toward the roof. Then you’re suddenly staring down at the ground. There is a ghost/skeleton. It looks like a skeleton, but there are no bones, like a ghost.

Do you hear the spooky electric organ playing? You can feel the mist in the air. Can you smell anything? I know it’s scary, but you must go on. There is a gigantic paralyzing disappearing spider dangling next to you!!!

You fall. The steel floor rises fast, and the walls cave in. You travel from there as a cube. A claw picks you up and throws you through the wall. At least you got out alive!

A Haunted House

By James

A spooky and creepy house stood on the top of Dead Man’s Peak and below it was a village. The village was called Chucksville. There were four best friends named Frank, Ben, Tex, and Billy. They did everything together and every Saturday at midnight they went to their treehouse and shot rocks at the haunted house.

One night at 12:15 an army of spiders came out of the bushes and the four friends ran out of the treehouse screaming. The spiders tore down the treehouse. Frank, Ben, Tex, and Billy went up farther and built a new treehouse. They were aiming their slingshots when bats as black as night with teeth as sharp as knives flew out the creepy window of the house. The boys rushed out of the treehouse. The bats tore down the treehouse.

The next day Billy, Tex, Ben, and Frank hid behind a bush near the gate of the spooky old house. Suddenly the spooky trees came alive. The tree faces were so scary that the boys’ faces turned white! They wanted to scream but they were too scared.

The door of the house creaked open. Trees threw Ben, Frank, Billy, and Tex into the house. The door slammed shut and locked. The lights went off. Luckily Tex brought a flashlight. They walked into a room of pumpkins. Suddenly the pumpkins turned into pumpkin zombies. Half of them looked like vampires and the other half looked like mummies.

So they ran into another room and locked the door. Billy said, “They will knock down that door any miute!” Suddenly spiders started to crawl out of the walls. The spiders captured Ben, Frank, Billy, and Tex in their webs. Then the pumpkin zombies broke down the door and carried them through a secret passage.

Inside was a lab and a mad scientist with a diabolical laugh. He said, “So you are the four boys who dare to shoot rocks at my house.”

“We didn’t know anyone lived here,” they said.

“So I will turn you into pumpkin zombies.”

“NO! Please. We’ll never shoot rocks at your house again.”

“Oh, really. But only if you don’t tell anyone else that we live here.”

“OK, we won’t tell anyone.”

The scientist said, “Now, be gone with you!” And he showed them the way out of the house.

Since then they never told anyone about it.

The Scariest Day of My Life

By Lily

I went on a trip with my friends because it was my birthday.  We went to a sunken pirate ship in Kansas.  It was a long drive because we lived in Arizona.  When we got down to the dock to get to the ship something strange happened. 

Someone tried to push me in the water.  We got to the booth to pay to go in the submarine to see the pirate ship.  The guy that was standing there looked creepy.  He had an eye patch on his left eye, and he had a weird smile.

 In the submarine my friend Kaylie said, “I am scared.  I feel like something is going to happen to us,” 

“Nothing will happen to us,” said Katherine.  When we got far enough we saw the sunken pirate ship.  The submarine man said, “Get on the pirate ship now!!!” 

The door opened and we got on the ship.  There were many strange things like skeletons and moss everywhere.  “Um, now I agree with Kaylie.,” said Katherine. 

“See, I told you,” said Kaylie.  “Just wait. I see something.”  When I got to the bottom of the ship there was a ruby necklace and it had my name “Jessie”.  When I picked up the necklace I heard a voice. 

“Put it down or you will face the consequences.”  I tried to put it down, but a hand grabbed me.  Then a zombie chased Kylie.  So she ran out and hit her head. 

“Run,” said Katherine.

 “Why?” I said. 

“The man is behind you!” 

I kicked him and picked up Kaylie and told Katherine, “Turn on the submarine and go.”  Then Katherine, Kaylie and I got to the dock and ran to the car.  Half way there we had to stop for gas.  When we got inside to pay to get the gas we decided that we should stay at a hotel and go back to the house in the morning. 

At the hotel there was only one room so we shared it.  In the middle of the night I found out that the necklace was in my pocket.  So I woke them up and said, “I found the necklace from the ship.” They said to put it on and I did.  When I put it on it choked me.  I yanked it off.  Then someone lifted me up.  I said to the girls, “This place is haunted, let’s go.”  

We got in the car and left.  Finally, we got home and went to bed.

Setting Description - Workshops 2 and 3

Now that my students have some familiarity with how to describe a setting in a narrative, it’s time for them to look at some great examples from literature. I cannot emphasize the importance of exposing kids to strong writing if you want them to grow as writers. For the next two workshops we examine paragraphs of setting descriptions. We discuss what words paint pictures and take the reader right into that setting. The kids then list the sensory details in columns. In the final part of the lesson they draw and color what is being described. 

Here are some sample paragraphs I’ve used for these workshops.

The moon was high overhead when the little band came out on the grassy marshland. They stopped a moment to listen to the wide blades of grass whisper and squeak in the wind, to sniff the tickling smell of salty grass. This was the exciting smell that urged them on. With wild snorts of happiness they buried their noses in the long grass. They bit and tore great mouthfuls. Oh, the salty goodness of it! Not bitter at all, but juicy-sweet with rain. It was different from any grass they knew. It billowed and shimmered like the sea.

                                                                          From Misty of Chincoteague by Margeurite Henry




It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. “How happy we are here!” they cried to each other.

                                                           Oscar Wilde – from The Selfish Giant

A fish jumped. Not a large fish, but it made a big splash near the beaver, and as if by a signal there were suddenly little splops all over the side of the lake – along the shore – as fish began jumping. Hundreds of them, jumping and slapping the water. Brian watched them for a time, still in the half-daze, still not thinking well. The scenery was very pretty, he thought, and there were new things to look at, but it was all a green and blue blur and he was used to the gray and black of the city, the sounds of the city. Traffic, people, talking, sounds all the time – the hum and whine of the city.

                                                                         From Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Describing the Setting

In the first month of school I taught my students how to make characters come alive in a narrative. Now it’s time to focus on another important element of a story: the setting. If you just tell kids that they need to describe the setting of their story using their five senses they are likely to come up with sentences such as these: I heard an owl. I could smell roses. I saw some birds. It is important to teach children how to come up with strong sentences when describing sensory details.

In my twenty years of being a classroom teacher there are a few students who stick out in my mind as being truly gifted writers. I had this third grade student about ten years ago at Adams School who had a natural ability to pull the reader into his story. He knew how to make a setting feel real by engaging the reader’s senses. He didn’t need to be taught how to describe a setting. He just put himself right where his story was happening and captured the sort of details that remind you of a poet or an artist. Unfortunately, most students don’t come equipped with this gift!

I do a series of workshops to teach kids how to describe a setting. In the first lesson we create a descriptive paragraph together of a familiar place. In the next workshops I show my students models of excellent setting descriptions from literature, and they respond to questions that require a careful study of the pieces.

Workshop 1

Goal: To get students to understand how to use sensory details to describe a setting.

Reminder to students: The three important elements in a story are:
1. Character
2. Setting
3. Plot

In order for a reader to fully engage with the characters in a story there needs to be a strong sense of place and time.

These are the steps I follow:
1. I ask the class for suggestions of a place they enjoy going to, and then we vote for the one we like best
2. Picture the setting – I ask them to close their eyes and imagine being in this place. What can they see, hear, smell, feel, taste?
3. Table it – I put up a table with columns for each sense and list their responses.
4. Writing the paragraph – I encourage them to give me sentences for the paragraph. First, a topic sentence, then supporting sentences. To avoid beginning sentences with “I saw …” or “I heard …”, etc. I encourage the kids to make the sensory detail the subject of the sentence.

Here is a sample lesson that I did with a past third grade class:

Step One: Picture the Setting

I asked the kids to name a place they would like to describe. Someone suggested a garden and everyone liked the idea. I asked them to close their eyes and think of a garden that they know well and like.
Picture this garden in your mind. What do you see? Look all over. Look to your left. What do you see? Look straight in front of you. What do you see? Look to your right.
Now take a deep breath. Breathe in the smells. What do you smell? What do the smells remind you of? Listen. Be very quiet and listen to all the sounds. Now take off your shoes. What do you feel under your feet? Touch something in the garden. How does it feel? Does it remind you of something? Okay, open your eyes now!

Step Two: Table It!

I put up this table.

Sights      Smells    Sounds   Feel

I can't seem to create a table here, so just visualize the cells!

So tell me what you saw in your garden?

Student: Flowers.
Me:         I want to make a picture of those flowers in my mind. Can you tell me more about about these flowers.
Student:  They were roses.
Me:        Can you tell me some details about the roses so I can picture them?
Student: They were pink roses.
Me:         Good. I wrote Pink roses in the table. What else did you see?

Each time a student gave me a vague response I pressed them to be as specific as possible. I recorded their responses in the table.

Sights                   Sounds              Smells                             Feel

Pink roses                 Buzzing bees          roses smelled like perfume Soft grass
Small white daisies   Chirping birds herbs                                      Smooth petals
Plump, red tomatoes Water fountain       Wet dirt                                  Crumbly dirt
Large oak tree

Step Three: Time to Write

Since this was the first formal lesson on teaching kids to write about a setting, the writing part was a directed activity intended to model strong sentences.

Let’s look at the table and write sentences about the things we listed. We need to make sentences that are strong. Do not start any sentence with “I see ...”, “I hear … “, “I smell … “, or “I feel … “! First we need a topic sentence. Who has a good idea for one?

Student A: My grandparents have a beautiful garden.

Me: Wonderful. Anyone else with an idea?

Student B:  I love the garden because it is peaceful.

A few other kids shared ideas. I went with Student A’s sentence, and wrote it on the board.

Me: Now we need sentences that give details. Who would like to make a sentence about the pink roses?

Student C:  The first thing that you see are the pink roses.

Me: That’s a very good sentence. Where exactly would you see the roses?

After some prompting we decided that the roses were around a fountain.

I went through the items listed in the table and encouraged the students to think up creative sentences. For example, rather than “I hear bees buzzing” I asked them to think about where you would see the bees and what they would be doing. We ended up with the following paragraph:

My grandparents have a beautiful garden. The first thing you see are pink roses around a fountain. They give off a sweet perfume. Pretty white daisies grow near the tomato plants. Bees buzz in and out of the flowers. A hummingbird beats its wings and makes a whirring sound. The soft grass tickles my feet as I walk to the tomato plant to pick a juicy, red tomato. I lean against the big oak tree and the bark feels rough on my skin. I love this garden.

The final part of the lesson is having the kids copy down the paragraph they had generated. If time permits they could illustrate this setting.

This year’s third grade class chose the pool as their favorite place to be. Using their responses we came up with the following paragraph:

I had an amazing time at the pool. My friends were playing “sharks chasing dolphins”. Kids were laughing and splashing about. The water was clear blue and pretty. A strong smell of chlorine filled the air. I was swimming in the cool water when the sun hit my back. I feel excited when I am at the pool.

I will briefly describe workshops 2 and 3 in a new blog entry.