What is Dormant Stories?
DS is a collection of story openings, fiction writing ideas and resources, to support teachers at KS1 and KS2 in the teaching and learning of fiction writing. It is also some articles about teaching writing.
Who are they written for?
They are intended for school teachers looking for writing resources to use in class. This can be to demonstrate, inspire, or initiate the writing process in various fiction genre. However, whoever you are, if you find them useful, go for it!
What can I use them for?
All the writing on the website is offered under a Creative Commons licence, which allows for the content to be reproduced for use in class, and for the teacher and students to base their own writing from it. Should this be later published in any format, they must reference my original text as the initiating idea that inspired their work.
How is everything organised?
The writing is currently organised into:
Story Openings – first sentences, paragraphs to get an idea underway.
Quick Ideas – ‘What if’s’ and other thought provokers.
Part Works – longer ‘short’ stories told in chapters over time. Some finished, some not so.
Articles – Thoughts about teaching writing.
Resources – some free and some purchasable resource documents for teachers to use in class.
Each of these is split in to genre categories, such as adventure, mystery, science fiction, and so on.
Why does each story have several tags?
The story openings are initially categories under the genre that feels most appropriate to me. However I realise that with another writer at the helm they may move in directions that are more like other genres, so they are then tagged with a number of other likely genre tags so that they appear under those listings as well as my original most personal choice.
How is this free?
To me this is a therapeutic outlet and vehicle to support the profession even though my role does not directly facilitate this. As such all the story openings, writing ideas will always remain free to access and use for your own education related purposes. The Creative Commons license I use ensures that. However in order to pay for the ongoing costs of the website, newsletter, digital tools and so on, I have included in the site a few income generating solutions.
- Teaching resources relating to writing, that can be purchased via Amazon, Teachers pay Teachers and other suppliers.
- Affiliate links to books, digital and physical writing and research tools I treasure and endorse, which should you purchase via my links, return a small pay-out to me. You do not pay anything extra for this – the retailer does. Further details of my affiliate links are available on the Affiliate Links page
- Donation option – using ‘Buy me A Coffee’ although in truth it will be a nice decaf tea.
How can I keep up with what is happening?
All new DS content is published on the website, but also on various social media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and Pinterest and as a newsletter.
How can I support the DS project?
If you wish to support the project, by way of donation, you can donate directly to it here.