I Love to Read – and Write – at Nisbet!
Over the years, I’ve had several opportunities to work with the fabulous students, teachers and staff at Ecole James Nisbet Community School. We’ve had mini-workshops and readings; some classes have invited me to be a guest reader and listener in their classrooms as they’ve shared their own creative writing. Last week, I had the amazing experience of a week-long Artists in the Schools residency at Nisbet where I worked with four groups on creative writing. It was a writing whirlwind, crackling with creativity and ideas!
One group of Grade 3s worked on writing animal fables. We learned a lot, didn’t we? By studying fables together, we learned the main features of an animal fable (my favourite feature is still “Teacher Creature” – so many ryhmes!). Then, we planned our main characters. You had some terrific ideas here, especially when it came to imagining ‘personalities’ for your various animals. We brainsparked lessons for our fables based on P.E.A.C.E. and the 7 Teachings. Then we put it all together with a main action, and wrote rough copies. We even filled the board with juicy words to use when our animals talk and move in our story (they no longer just ‘say’; they ‘roar’ – they no longer just ‘go’ – they leap, hop, slither and soar!) Check out the pictures below and see if you can find your group’s work (And sorry to all about the crazy glare in the photos – also, the room numbers didn’t always show up, but I bet you can still find your juicy ideas!).
With another group of Grade 3s, we knuffle-bunnied our way through fantastic short stories inspired by Mo Willems’ Knuffle Bunny books. Characters came to life in webs. Then, by collaborating with your wonderful teachers, we developed a fun template for your “lost object” stories. I loved how each of you took that template and put your original stamp on it. You thought hard about your character, and what was important to that character. Then, you sent your character on a search for what they had lost, using juicy words, escalation and obstacles, even a final challenge in some cases – wow! Not only that, you practiced one of the most important ideas in writing “Show, Don’t Tell” and did a great job. Keep at it!
Next, it’s time to talk about more “Mo”! Inspired by other hilarious Mo Willems’ books, a grade 4 and 5 group were pairing animals friends and gearing them up for the mayhem of misunderstanding. Even though Mo Willems’ style is very visual, there is story structure and vivid language beneath the pictures, and that’s what we worked on! We went deeper with characters, focusing especially on how our characters were different from one another. Then we plotted and planned with storyboards, being sure to escalate the action. We even practiced ‘show, don’t tell’ in our writing – not only will you end up with lively writing, you are actually making a plan for your visual storytelling (for instance, if you wrote: Sammie spider’s eyes became as wide as dinner plates. “Eek!” she shrieked. – boy, have you got some great ideas for a picture!). Great work!
And with yet another talented group of Grade 4 and 5 writers, we explored story writing techniques as you wrote stories for your Reading Buddies (how great is that? Your buddies are going to love them!). You delved into the major areas of story dreaming and planning – character webs, storyworld dreaming, planning with storyboard, and show, don’t tell (which you absolutely excelled at, by the way. I felt we could have brainsparked ‘show, don’t tell’ examples for the entire class. Knowing that – don’t forget to ‘go there’ in your writing!). You had a very real author-challenge as well: consider your audience as you write. This affected every step of the process as you always had to consider who you were writing for. You had to decide what kind of story would entertain your audience, be appropriate for the age group, and perhaps have a lesson or theme that would be understood by your audience. Your teachers prepared you very well for this important concept – really solid work!
For all the organizers and participants involved in this artist residency, thank you for a great week – till we meet again!
Karin 🙂
