Any good Language Arts program concentrates not only on grammar skills and essay writing, but also on the skills needed to write fiction. During the 2011/2012 academic year, students at Keerapat International School (KPIS) in Bangkok have been exposed to a lot of fiction writing. Now, at the end of the school year, we would like to share their creativity with the rest of the world.
The seventy stories included in The Moon Hunter & Other Stories: An Anthology of Short Fiction, edited by Dominic Jacques and V.M. Simandan, are the work of forty-three students who are enrolled in the Secondary School Language Arts program at KPIS. The stories they wrote have been inspired by the texts read or by the topics they discussed during class time. Some of the stories are simple narratives that retell famous folktales and myths, while other stories are highly influenced by fairy tales and pop culture. Some of our senior students have given their hand at writing original short stories, following a comprehensive outline and a detailed plot.
Most of the short fiction written by the students in Grade 7 was influenced by the short story Priscilla and the Wimps by Richard Peck. This story deals with bullying at school and the issue of people standing up for their rights. Also, as part of the school’s Halloween festivities, the students wrote “horror stories” which involve much blood and gore, just like so many of their favourite computer games. As we also tried to incorporate cross-curriculum writing in the Grade 7 Language Arts class, the students wrote a fictional account of what happened at the Battle of Thermopylae, where the famous three hundred Spartans faced off the Persian army. The few historical details that the students brought in these stories mix with what they remembered from the movie 300 (2006), which we partly watched in the classroom.
The stories written by Grade 8 students are concerned mostly with what they have learned in the Social Studies class. This school year we have looked at the geography and history of major Asian countries and among the more fascinating geographical features the students wanted to know more about was Mt. Everest. Thus, included in this anthology you can find their imaginary climb to the top of Mt. Everest. The little research they have done, plus the inspiration they gathered from watching Vertical Limit (2000) and 127 hours (2010) have created some interesting, though repetitive, adventure stories. The Star Wars movies have also been the inspiration for one of the stories written by a student obsessed with this popular franchise.
The stories written by Grade 9 students are highly influenced by Greek Mythology, which formed a major part of our reading this year. We have been fortunate to read the famous story of Icarus and Daedalus, where a father and son attempt to escape imprisonment and learn some lessons along the way. We also watched some interesting documentaries and recreations based on this myth to help the students visualize the text. You will also find in this collection some very graphic horror stories which were inspired by our reading of The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, with these stories really allowing the students to express themselves in a dark, yet creative, way.
The stories by our Grade 10 students are a real mixture of genres due to the sheer variety of texts covered this academic year. One of the most popular stories we read this year was The Lady, or the Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton, which left the readers guessing whether the princess saved her lover or sent him to his death. The students have attempted to answer this long debated question by completing their own ending, with some very creative results. Another text which they have used as inspiration is A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote, and for this classic short story many students decided to rewrite the text told from a different character’s perspective (one even choosing the dog). However, this does not mean that there are not some original stories, with some very imaginative sci-fi stories included in the collection.
Our Grade 11 students’ stories are inspired by a number of texts from this academic year (each story is completely different). We begin with a retelling of the classic prose style story A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, before continuing with a love story inspired by our story and poem writing to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Also inspired by a famous holiday, in this case Halloween, the students each completed their own scary stories, which we also used as part of an English Speaking Activities Day. Finally, we will complete this section with the longest story in the collection – a science fiction story set on a future Mars, where parents now send their children for education. An influence here would have come from reading Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov, where we debated as a class the implications of technology.
Our final story in the collection was completed by our Grade 12 student. This year we have read many texts, but none as memorable as The Invisible Man by H.G Wells. This classic tale of science and the consequences led us to write a short but humorous fable of invisible objects, and is a fantastic way to complete this collection.
The contributions and hard work by all of our Secondary School Language Arts students has allowed us to compile a very unique set of short stories, and it is an achievement everyone can be immensely proud of. We hope you enjoy reading this first volume.
The books is available in paperback at
Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk or CreateSpace.
