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Faraway Connections

Creative writing and art combine as students imagine communicating with a faraway fictional character or write about keeping in touch with a friend or relative who has moved away.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

Steps

  • Step 1

    Studies have shown that staying in touch and connected with loved ones has real health benefits, including improved heart health and a stronger immune system. Further, regular contact with family and friends greatly improves the quality of life and provides great health benefits to older adults. Have students discuss how they maintain contact with loved ones. Perhaps they send texts or photos. Or maybe they have video chats with them. Ask students to describe how technology-enabled personal interactions, including virtual visits, make them feel.

  • Step 2

    Ask students to write a story, poem, or article about bridging the distance between loved ones. It could be based on a person they communicate with. Or they might imagine a story about two characters from a book or story they enjoy keeping in touch. They might even want to create a new original story about people connecting across the miles. Have them begin by drafting an outline of what they will write about.

  • Step 3

    Have students flesh out the outline and write a full story, poem, or article. Then ask them to create an illustration to go with the writing. It might feature a video chat image or anything else that helps to evoke the content of the written piece.

  • Step 4

    Have students present their stories and art and describe the people in it and their meaning to the student.

Standards

LA: Develop real and imagined narratives.

LA: Add drawings or other visual displays to written text to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

SEL: Relationship Skills: Establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups.

Adaptations

Have students research the Great Migration, which took place between 1916 and 1970 when six million African Americans left the rural south due to harsh segregationist laws and lack of economic opportunities and moved to cities in the north, midwest, and west.

Ask students to write a passage that describes life in their area to someone from a faraway state or country, or even another planet. How would they describe the culture, activities, sites, etc.?