Flash Fiction

Lesson 1 – What is Flash Fiction?

Exploring genre and character
Learning objectives:
• To start developing an understanding of what Flash Fiction is.
• To develop thinking about genre and character.
• To examine how writers structure and organize texts.

Resources:
Student booklets (‘The Dragon’ by Angie Sage), sequencing copies of ‘The Dragon’, cut up into 11 sections/
paragraphs

Starter:
• Present students with the opening paragraph of ‘The Dragon’ on the whiteboard. Ask them to come up
with some questions they may have as a result of reading these two sentences. See if they can base their
questions around the 5 Ws, for example:
• Who is Talmar?
• When is this story set?
• Where is this happening?
• Why does Besiegers have a capital ‘B’?
• What ‘would not be long now’?
• Discuss some possible answers to the questions students come up with as a class. Then ask them to
consider what genre of story is suggested by these two sentences and to make a list of the typical features
of that genre. Based on these ideas, what do students think might happen in the rest of this story?

Development:
• Tell students that they are now going to be given the remaining parts of the story and that their task is to put it in
an order that makes sense.
• Put students into groups and give each group the remaining 10 sections/paragraphs of the story. When the
groups have done this, ask them to explain their choices to the rest of the class.
• Then, read the story (as written by Angie Sage), together as a whole group.
• Elicit students’ general response to the story first, for example: Did they enjoy it? Why or why not? What did they
find interesting about it?
• To explore their understanding of the story further, students could then begin to examine character in more
detail. Consider projecting some of the questions below onto the whiteboard and asking students to create a
mind map of Talmar:
• Who do you think Talmar is?
• What do we know about the situation she is in?
• What do we know about her family?
• What are her feelings/emotions in the story?
• Why might she be afraid of enclosed spaces?

Plenary:
• Put the phrase ‘Flash Fiction’ on the whiteboard and ask students what this means, thinking about what they
have just read.
• Now show students the definition from page 3 of the student booklet and ask them to consider how ‘The
Dragon’ fits that definition.
Flash Fiction

Lesson 2 – Understanding and exploring plot

Learning objectives:
• To develop understanding of plot.
• To make critical comparisons across texts.

Resources:
Student booklet (‘Chocolate’ by Kevin Crossley-Holland and ‘Making Friends’ by Chris Higgins), Key Elements of
Plot worksheet

Starter:
• Put the term ‘Urban Myth’ on the whiteboard and ask students what they think this means. Support their
thinking with a definition if necessary.
• Ask students to share some they have heard.

Development:

• Now reveal to students that the title of the short story they are going to read is ‘Chocolate’ and tell them that the
writer came up with the idea for the story after hearing an urban myth.
• Show students the opening two paragraphs of the story on the whiteboard (up to and including the sentence
‘You know, two birds with one stone’) and ask them to make some predictions about what might happen next.
They could share ideas in pairs to begin with and then as a whole group.
• Then read the whole story through as a class. Elicit students’ general response to begin with. Ask the question,
what is it that makes this story sound like an urban myth?
• Then ask students to consider how the writer structures the story in order to build the tension and humour.
• Following this discussion, ask more specifically what they think the key elements of plot are in a piece of Flash
Fiction. They could also refer back to ‘The Dragon’.
• Then give students a copy of the Key Elements of Plot worksheet and ask them to identify the specific parts of
the story that demonstrate the key parts of the plot. Discuss the effects of the writer’s use of language/style at
these points as a class and add further notes to the table in the resource.

Plenary:
• Ask students to compare all the stories they have read so far in terms of the plot. You could ask, or project
on the whiteboard, some of the following questions:
• Which has the most effective opening and why?
• How far into each story does the conflict occur?
• Which story has the most tension/greatest climax?
• Do all of the stories have a satisfactory resolution? If not, why not?

Extension:
• Ask students to read ‘Making Friends’ by Chris Higgins (a story which is also based on something which
might not seem very believable).
• They could then use the Key Elements of Plot worksheet to make notes on how the writer structures the plot
in this story.
Flash Fiction

Lesson 3 – Exploring different styles

Learning objectives:
• To develop an understanding of different styles/forms of Flash Fiction.
• To develop role-play and drama techniques, considering the impact of tone of voice, pitch, pace, facial
expressions and body gestures.

Resources:

Student booklets (‘Something to Tell You’ by Aidan Chambers and ‘My Problem is I Don’t Know When to Stop’
by Morris Gleitzman)

Starter:
• Present students with the phrase ‘There’s something I have to tell you’. You could show it on the whiteboard
from the start of the lesson and leave students to wonder what it is in order to develop their curiosity.
• Then tell students that they are going to role-play/improvise a conversation in pairs. Person A will begin with
the phrase ‘There’s something I have to tell you’ and person B has to jump to conclusions about what it is
going to be. Person A should try to show how they get increasingly frustrated as the conversation goes on
due to the fact that person B is not really listening to them.
• When students have had a go at this, ask for some volunteers to perform their conversation in front of the
class and discuss.

Development:

• Present pairs of students with ‘Something to Tell You’ by Aidan Chambers. Before reading, ask students what
they notice about the style/form of the story on the page (i.e. that it is told through lines of dialogue alone).
• Each pair should then read through the story with one person reading Ben’s lines and the other Nat’s. You
might also ask students to consider the following before reading: use of voice, facial expressions and body
gestures.
• When students have read it with each other, ask them for their general response to the story. Thinking back
to the previous lesson, you could also ask students to consider how the story is structured with regards to the
Key Elements of Plot worksheet. Students could look in particular at how the story uses conflict, climax, and
resolution.
• Students could then have a go at reading the story ‘My Problem is I Don’t Know When to Stop’ out loud to each
other.
• When students have had a chance to read it through once, ask them to develop a reading/performance of the
story which considers such things as the pace, pitch and tone of the characters’ voices at different points in the
story. They could annotate where and how this should happen on the story itself.

Plenary:

• Ask some students to perform their readings in front of the class and for audience members to reflect and
comment on the different meanings created by each performance. You could record some performances
too for students to self-evaluate.
Flash Fiction

Lesson 4 – Exploring setting

Learning objectives:

• To develop an understanding of the writer’s use of setting and its effects.

Resources:

Students booklets (‘Flower of the Fern’ by Jan Pienkowski and ‘Routine’ by Calum Kerr), Exploring Setting
worksheet

Starter:
• Present students with the titles of the two stories, ‘Flower of the Fern’ and ‘Routine’, and ask them to make
predictions about what the settings of the two stories might be. Students could produce a mind map or a
bullet-pointed list of ideas/images.
• Encourage students to also think back to Lesson 1 where they discussed genre. What genre of story is
suggested by the titles and how does this support their thinking about setting? If flowers and ferns suggest
a woodland setting, for example, what type of story might we expect to see in this place? Feedback and
discuss as a whole group.

Development:
• Read ‘Flower of the Fern’ together as a class and elicit students’ initial responses to the story.
• Now ask them to think specifically about how the writer presents the setting and what the effects of this
are. Present them with a definition of setting (i.e. the historical moment in time and the geographical
location of a story). Then ask students to highlight words in the text that are related to the setting (eg
midsummer night, forest clearing, dark woods, river, bank, heart of the forest, howl of wolves, etc.).
• They could then make notes on the effects of these language choices in the table on the Exploring Setting
worksheet.
• Then read ‘Routine’ together as a class and discuss students’ initial response to the story.
• Ask students to consider how the writer uses setting in this story and to what effect. They could do a similar
task to the one above, highlighting language that relates to the setting (perhaps including some of the
props that help indicate where the action is taking place).
• Ask the students how the writer challenges our expectations of what we would normally expect to see
in this location. This could then open up further discussion about the genre of the story and whether it
conforms to our typical expectations of that genre.

Plenary:
• Ask students to look back over some of the other stories they have read so far and to start discussing with
a partner how the writer has used setting. They could consider some or all of the following questions:
• Why do some writers use more description than others?
• What different types of setting are there?
• How do these settings relate to the genres of the different stories?
• What part does the setting play with regards to the action of the story?
Flash Fiction

Lesson 5 – Writing Flash Fiction

Learning objectives:

• To plan, draft and edit a piece of Flash Fiction.

Resources:

CD-ROM (Five film clips)

Starter:
• Watch the first film clip as a class. In the exercise at the end, Calum Kerr gives four examples of ‘single events’
that might make a good story: a boy winning a prize at a fair for the girl he wants to impress, a fight between
two friends, the birth of a child or the cops having a gunfight with the bad guys.
• Put these examples on the whiteboard and ask students to consider which they think would make a good story
and why. Think back to the Exploring Plot worksheet. What might an interesting opening to this story be? What
could the conflict be? How might the tension in the action rise to a climax?
• Now ask students to brainstorm as many single events as they can think of that might make interesting stories.
They should then choose a single event that will become the focus of the story they are going to start planning.

Development:
• Now watch the second film clip and follow the activities set by Kerr, from listing 10 everyday objects, to
choosing one object that they are going to use as a focus for their story. Ask students to consider the
significance of the object with regards to the single event that they have chosen to write about.
• Then watch the third film clip and put up a list of the questions that Kerr asks on the whiteboard to support
students’ thinking after watching the clip.
The character
• Who owns the object?
• Where do they come from?
• Who are their family and their friends?
• What are their hopes and dreams?
The object
• Where does it come from?
• What is its history?
• Why is it important in the story?
The character and the object
• What is their history together?
• Where did the character get the object from?
• Watch the two remaining film clips and ask students to feedback on the key bits of advice that Kerr gives
about the writing and editing process.

Plenary:
• Ask students to share what they have come up with so far with a partner and to get feedback on their
ideas from them. They could try to explain how they have thought about their story with regards to the
focus of the previous lessons. For example, what genre is their story? Who is their character? What is the
setting like? How will the plot be structured?
• Ensure students are ready to write their story in a ‘single-sitting’ next lesson, or alternatively ask them to
write it for homework so that they can bring it in to share with their peers for the reflection and editing
process suggested.
Flash Fiction

Key Elements of Plot

Title:………………………………………………………………..
Using the table below, identify some specific parts of the Flash Fiction story which demonstrate
each key element of plot. Consider the writer’s use of language/style in these parts and its effect
on the reader.

Element of Plot Evidence from the story (and its effect)

Opening

Action

Conflict

Climax

Resolution
Flash Fiction

Key Elements of Plot

Title: ‘Chocolate’………………………………………………………………..
Using the table below, identify some specific parts of the Flash Fiction story which demonstrate
each key element of plot. Consider the writer’s use of language/style in these parts and its effect
on the reader.

Element of Plot Evidence from the story (and its effect)

eg ‘It was a cool idea.’

Opening • Short, simple sentence – exciting, creates tension, blunt.
• Lulls the reader into a false sense of security.
• Engages the reader and makes them want to know what the idea is.
• Use of past tense (‘was’) makes us question if the writer’s mind is
going to change later in the story.

Action

Conflict

Climax

Resolution
 Flash Fiction

Exploring Setting
Title: ………………………………………………………………..
Identify some of the language the writer uses to describe the setting of the story in the first
column and make a note of the effects of this language in the second column.
An example has been provided to start you off.

Language that describes setting Effect of this language

Eg from ‘Flower of the Fern’: • Creates a mysterious mood.

‘midsummer night’ • Sense of magic and superstition surrounding this time of year.