RICHELLE PUTNAM, WORKSHOP FACILITATOR

AGENDA

8:30 – 8:45 – Introduction to literary creativity within the curriculum: Meet the Villain.

8:45– 9:45 – HISTORY/ENGLISH – Rewriting history with a twist –History/historical-fiction from the “other” point-of-view. Writing the villain’s story.

9:50 – 10:50 – SCIENCE/MATH – Finding the villain. Solving problems through mysteries. Searching for clues, researching the facts, recognizing lies to discover truth, and understanding motive.

10:55 – 11:55 – THEATER/DRAMA – Expression through drama. Monologues and one act plays. Becoming the villain and stating your cause. Cause and effect. For every action there is reaction.

OBJECTIVES

Why the villain? Why not the hero?

Villains are intriguing and as much we try to pull children away from villains, they are drawn to them in stories. Darth Vader, Scrooge, Voldemort, Dark Lord Sauron, a few villains in best-selling fiction for young people. Authors jumped on this fact long ago when they began writing fairytales from the “villain’s” point-of-view, such as the wolf in “The Three Little Pigs,” and the ugly step-sister in “Cinderella.”

Many villains were first heroes, such as President Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign his position as President because of the Watergate Scandal and his Vice President, Spiro Agnew, who resigned his position because of tax evasion. But Nixon and Agnew villains? Well…

And Queen Elizabeth I? Hero to Protestants? Villain to Catholics? And hero to England, but villain to Ireland? A hero to one can be a villain to another.

It is through writing and developing characters, both historical and fictional, that students discover “motive.” And through “motive,” a crucial element to all good creative writing, students discover not only the “wholeness” of character, but the “wholeness” of plot as well, in both fiction and non-fiction, because, after all, there are “two” sides to every story.