There are several structures that can be used to scaffold, from ancient Greek dramatic structure, which breaks stories into specific elements, first noted in Aristotle’s Poetics, to Gustav Freytag’s seven-step Pyramid. However, it could be argued that these are overly complicated for beginner writers.
Instead, a simple three-sentence structure, based on Vygotsky’s theory that learners benefit from smaller controlled steps instead of full independence, could be developed to provide iron-clad scaffolding to support a student’s writing is a better option. A Vygotskian creative writing frame is not rigid in that students come up with the same story or even the same shape; it just provides enough structure to aid them.
I taught a series of lessons implementing a Vygotskian theory of scaffolding by which learners are helped to achieve independence through structure and collaboration. This was the first part of a creative writing unit where at the end they produced an original story.
To begin, the students focused on three-sentence stories using the format:
One day… (one sentence to show what happens when the story begins).
It turns out that… (one sentence to show what happens to change the story).
In the end… (one sentence to reveal what happens in the end).
They looked at examples of famous stories, such as Cinderella, and while the shape of stories can be unique, as per Vonnegut’s famous lecture, they can all be broken into three sentences.
For example:
One day, a poor girl went to a fancy ball using a spell and met a prince.
It turns out that she had to hurry home and lost her shoe.
In the end, the prince tracked her down, and they got married.
The students deconstructed famous examples in groups, embracing a Vygotskian collaborative approach, then focused on building their own story. They were presented with the topic of animal friendships. These stories involving animals who are not typically friends feature in films, such as The Fox and the Hound and The Lion King, and in fairy tales, such as The Monkey and the Crab, are common and useful as examples. They then brainstormed information about their favorite animal and then their least favorite to create two anthropomorphic characters with either animal being the protagonist.
Once the students had decided these details, they formed a simple three-sentence story based on an interaction between their two characters. They were told that they could change any part of the story when they wrote it out in full; this was to give them a structure to work and grow from. With that they had the bones of a story, and it solved the main problem of not knowing what to write about or getting lost as it progressed. This process can be extended to six sentences, then ten, etc., slowly progressing, or breaking away with just the three.
At the end of this series of lessons, they not only had a story to which they could expand in the direction they wished, but also learned a solid structure that they could use in the future.
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John Gerard Fagan is a Scottish writer and an assistant professor of English who has worked at Meikai University, Heriot-Watt University, and the University of Edinburgh. He writes in both English and Scots. His debut novel, Fish Town, was published by Guts Publishing in 2021.