Kids love to read about villains! Voldemort from Harry Potter, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, Ursula from the Little Mermaid, Scar from the Lion King and so many more! So, why do kids have such a hard time creating villains for their own stories? They can be the most fun to put into stories, they are the delicious ingredient that makes a story really pull us in, and care about what is going on in the story.
So, how can teachers help students build a villain for their story that is believable? It's like making soup.
Ingredients for "Villain Soup"
1. Give a backstory for the villain. What event or events in his past turned him evil? This doesn't have to be pages and pages of backstory. Often a short paragraph or even a sentence or two does the trick. I'm thinking of Morgana, Ursala's sister in The Little Mermaid. There were only a couple of short statements (and nasty looks) about the fact that Morgana could never be as good as Ursula in her mother's eyes. It made her wild with jealousy. In other words, give the villain a personality.
To practice this: Show a picture of an interesting person to your students. Ask them to get into groups of two to three and make up a back story for the person. Share with the class. A great pinterest page to use for this is:
2. Give the villain a good point or two. No one is pure evil (except in monster stories). In fact, the villain sees herself as justified. Villains who are pure evil become boring and can bring a story down. Think about giving the situation from the villain's point of view. This helps the reader understand the villain better. For example, the villain loves his cat. After all, no one is a villain in their own eyes. Villains see themselves as justified.
To practice this: Make a list of as many villains from books and movies on the board as possible. Ask students to list something about each villain that was good. If they can't think of anything, ask students to make up a stuation in which the villain did something good. For example, fed and petted his cat.
3. Use vivid description when writing about the villain. How does he walk? Does she have any odd small habits? How does he smell? What does her hair look like? Are there any unusual marks on his face? Is he deceitful, jealous, vengeful, proud?
To practice this: Find pictures of interesting people (Internet, Pinterest, magazines). Have as many pictures as you have students. Assign a picture to each student, but make sure no one else knows who has which picture. Ask students to write a very descriptive paragraph about the person in their picture. The use of colorful adjectives is most valuable for this. Next collect the descriptive paragraphs, shuffle them, and redistribute one to each student. Their task is to read the paragraph and find the picture that the description goes with. To get the pictures (see the pinterest pages I have included here) I click on the picture I want, this takes me to the "save" page. I take a screen shot of the picture, and put it on my desktop. I then move all of the pictures I want to hand out to students in a word or PowerPoint document. I can size them as I choose. Then print. It works best to laminate them so they last a few years. Some pinterest pages I especially like to look through are: Disney Villains Disney Characters You can also google "Pinterest Villain Images" and get a number of good pictures, however you have to be careful as some are inappropriate. That's why I like to make my own set of pictures.
4. The villain must have a goal. What is the villain after? This may not be apparent in the story right away, but the writer should know exactly what the villain is after. This will help the writer carry the story along.
To practice this: Choose a fairy tale villain and write a six to eight block cartoon describing, from the villain's point of view, what his goal is. For example, the wolf from the Three Little Pigs may tell why it is important to get pigs for the pig stew he is making for his friends. To get a number of choices for panel paper to use with students go to: Printable Comic Book Paper
Before Students begin their story, another fun activity is to make a wanted poster of their villain. By doing this they must think about what the villain looks like, describe what he or she has done, and include why the villain is wanted.
Villains are SO much fun to create! I hope you and your students find these ideas useful!
For TONS of freeebies and ideas be sure to follow me on Pinterest at: https://www.pinterest.com/janbernard10/
Do you need a resource to help you evaluate your students' writing according to the Common Core? The first is for third grade, the second is for fourth grade.
