Mr. Harbin's Creative Writing Class

Writing in English isn't everyone's favorite thing to do, so Mr. Harbin used a unique method to motivate our students to be creative during the Summer Intensive: group storying. On several pieces of paper, Mr. Harbin wrote one sentence at the top, to begin the story. Each student then had a short time to quickly add their own sentences to each paper, continuing the stories, and adding their own twists and turns to it. When the time was up, the papers were rotated to different students. Here are some examples of their work:

Story 1:
Jendouba was a quiet town. It was really quiet and peaceful. Until one day, everything changed; when people couldn't handle poverty, unemployment, and misery anymore. They were living in extreme misery; some of them were homeless. A lot of problems made Jendouba a bad town, so that you couldn't live in it. But, one day, its people decided that this is enough and they had to change it. They wanted their rights. They had a revolution, but things got worse. The police started to kill people, and the people destroyed the supermarkets and stole things. It was chaos and so noisy. But after a long time, they achieved their goal. They got their rights and they lived happily ever after.

Story 2:
Walid was walking along the road one day when a gangster attacked him and wanted to rob him, but poor Walid didn't have any money. So, the gangster wanted to kill him, but Walid was a good fighter, so they started fighting in the street. Someone in the street called the police. When the police came, they arrested the gangster. Walid thought he was safe, and the bad guys were arrested, but he had bad luck: the gangsters got out the next morning by paying bail. They were so mad; they wanted revenge against Walid because he was the reason why they went to jail. So, they started to spy on his every move. They went to his home; they kicked the door down; and they found his wife and his children. they kidnapped them, then they called him and asked for #100,000. Poor Walid, he was so desperate and sad. He called the police. They gave him fake money and told him to obey them: Walid called the gangster and told him to meet him. Then, the police came out and arrested them, and Walid saved his family with his intelligence. After all, it's not all about muscles.

Story 3:
It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a monster came from the forest to attack the party in my neighbor's house. It was very dangerous and very scary. Everybody ran away, but the weather was really awful, so they went back into the house. Everybody went to the basement, so they could hide. But the monster didn't stop; he started to run in all over the house and kill everyone in his way. But Walid was so smart and strong that he hid in a stove. When the monster was gone, he started to look for his friends, but it was so dark he couldn't see anything. He called for them in the whole house. He found his friends in a room upstairs. They had all been killed in an awful way. He was shocked, he cried and wept. He decided to get revenge for his friends' lives. He went to the garden to kill the monster with a gun, but there were a lot of monsters. He couldn't defend himself and the monsters killed him and everyone who still lived was sad.

Story 4:
The cafe was extremely crowded. It was summer and it was so hot. After about an hour, some guys came who were wearing all black and had their faces covered. All of them had weapons. They came in and closed the doors. They yelled at us “Hand up!”; we were so scared. They asked the cafe owner to put his money in their bags. The owner was an old man; he spent his life to raise his four children. He got so angry that he started to throw the glasses and was very scared. Everyone was yelling and crying. After that, they took the money and took some hostages, so that they could run away from the police. Those hostages were so scared, because the gangsters were threatening to shoot them in their faces. After they ran away, the police entered the cafe and asked some questions of the people and then sent them home.

Story 5:
Walid was bored of class, so he tried to do something funny. He thought to do a practical joke; he was good at magic, and he wanted to entertain his friends and make them laugh. He went to the kitchen and took two eggs. Then, he wanted to transform the eggs into rabbits. He put them on his head, but the eggs broke. Eww! He started crying and embarrassed himself in front of everyone. All of the pupils made fun of him and the teacher was so mad. She shouted at him and kicked him out of the class. He went to the principal and the principal kicked him out. Walid felt so bad! He felt that everyone hated him. He decided to travel to another country. He searched in the Net for the best country. Tunisia attracted him, so he decided to travel there.

Story 6:
One night, I woke up to a loud noise. I got up to see what happened, and I found my sister screaming; she saw a ghost in the kitchen, so I turned on the light. Guess what happened?!?? It wasn't a ghost. It was a monster; it's called Leviathan. They're really very old, and they can't be killed in a normal way. I was shocked when I saw him. I went upstairs and locked my door, but I knew that wouldn't last. Guess what happened!?!? I found his son in my room; I was so afraid, I tried to kill him with a gun, but it didn't work. He can't die from guns. He jumped on me and hit me so bad I fainted. After about 12 hours, guess what happened!?!?! The little monster was so cute, and he jumped on me to play. We played a lot of games: cards, video games... I felt like the little monster was my brother. I liked him so much. It was ugly, but friendly and funny.

Story 7:
The weather was so hot. So, I went with my friends to the beach to have some fun and to entertain ourselves. Suddenly, a shark came out of the water. People started screaming and yelling. But, guess what happened?!?!? The shark ate a kid. We were scared; the beach was empty, and there was no one else there, except the pirates, so we called them to catch the shark. It was a big shark with a huge hole in his mouth. Someone with the pirates was named Walid. He was a strong pirate, and he had killed a lot of sharks, but he couldn't kill this shark, because it was so big and its teeth were so sharp. The shark jumped on Walid and took his hand. Poor Walid, he was bleeding so much; he was in pain and screaming. Then, guess what happened?!?!!? Walid was a wizard and if something in his body was cut, he could create it again, and it would be stronger than before.