Tag: books

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 8th September

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Zoom clubs and Bransgore Primary School club were back this week!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We launched our new topic which is creating ‘newspapers’ from now until Christmas. The idea is we will do a different activity each week and gradually create a body of work we will then organise into a newspaper or magazine. We started with articles today and will carry this on next week. We discussed what is needed in a newspaper story, such as the heading, by-line, introductory paragraph, the main story, conclusion, and extras such as reader’s comments and pictures/photos. We had some possible headlines as prompts and there was also an option to tie the newspaper stories in with our on-going Lakeside View project!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: This group were introduced to the new topic and made a great start on articles today. Some wrote random articles on topics of their choice and some are linking theirs to Lakeside View. We will carry on with these next week!

Bransgore C of E Primary School Club: It was lovely to be back at Bransgore today! We kicked off our newspaper topic and everyone chose a topic and a headline, as well as some wonderful pictures to inspire the news reports. We had a couple finished, which is amazing, but most will be finished next week. Here are a few of them in progress!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Also starting with article writing and picking from headline prompts or making their own. Some of the group decided to link their articles in with our Lakeside View project, which is brilliant!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: Introducing article writing to the younger group and with great results! Headlines and bylines were used, as well as great stories, most of which linked in with Lakeside View!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 30th June

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This week we published our anthology!!

The big news this week is the publication of our anthology, The World You Gave Us! It was written over the course of a year by young people who attend after school or Zoom writing clubs with Chasing Driftwood, and contains poetry, flash fiction, short stories and creative non-fiction. The children were so amazing in putting this together that we are already onto our next project which we hope to publish in October! Grab your copy of The World You Gave Us on the link below!

https://amzn.eu/d/dbFRecS

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We started with poetry prompts today, aimed at creating poems based on their current ‘town project’ stories. They could also write any poem they wanted. We had various poetry starters to get ideas flowing and we also looked at how to write limericks. Great responses from everyone then onto making more progress on the town stories!

Monday CJS Club: They had the option of poetry prompts or carrying on with their town stories. Some are now starting to type their stories up on the laptop, which is amazing to see. This project is already coming together so nicely! Well done to all.

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Great responses in this club to the poetry prompts. Most decided to write poems based on their town ideas. We are saving lots of these to add to the book! More progress on town stories too!

Bransgore Primary Club: Progress on town stories with one now completed, edited and typed up and another started on the laptop, while everyone else involved in the project wrote more of their stories.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Mostly working on town stories today but also one member of the group wrote the end of a long collaborative story started a year ago in this club! They have all taken turns writing it over a year and it is finally finished! Lots of editing to do now, but wow! What commitment!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: Half the group decided to concentrate on town story progress and half decided to write poems based on their stories or to go in their stories. These were fantastic!!

Wednesday CJS Club: There was a bit of poetry going on but most wanted to make more progress on their town stories. Another one was finished and started to be typed up, and a few more are creeping towards the finish line!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 23rd June

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What have we been up to this week? Folklore prompts for Zooms, mystery envelopes for schools and more progress on town stories!

It’s been a week of excitement and accomplishments at Chasing Driftwood this week! The proof copy of our anthology, The World You Gave Us arrived and was able to show all the children on Zoom and in schools. They all enjoyed having a look through and finding their contributions! We had several more town stories finished and handed in for our next writing project. The school children are enjoying typing theirs up on my laptop which has encouraged discussions about editing.

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We had some folklore prompts on Zoom this week. Six different prompts based around various folklore tales including The Green Man, fairies and fairy rings, selkies and The Wild Hunt! Some used the prompts to write more for their town story, while others wrote a separate piece. Great progress on town stories too and lots of excitement about the anthology!

Monday CJS Club: The kids were really excited to see the anthology, hold it in their hands and see their work and their names in print! The book is published on 30th June but they were all able to have an early look. We made more progress on our town stories and a few more have been finished and typed up! Amazing!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: More responses to the folklore prompts with this group and yet more progress on town stories. Some of them wove the prompt ideas into their stories!

Bransgore Primary School club: They were very excited to look at the anthology and find their work in it! This really spurred them on to work on their town stories and we had a few more finished and handed in. Fantastic! For anyone finished I took in mystery envelopes full of writing prompts. The idea is to write a story based on what you find in your envelope.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Fantastic prompt responses, again, some using the folklore ideas to further their town stories and others writing a separate piece. Their town stories are all way past the half way mark now which is very exciting!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: More folklore prompts and a mixture of separate pieces and pieces that are woven into their existing town stories. Progress on everyone’s stories! Fantastic!

Wednesday CJS Club: These guys were very excited to see their work in the anthology and also made progress on their town stories, with a few more being finished and typed up! A few who had finished their stories had a go with the mystery envelopes.

See you next week!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 16th June

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What did we get up to this week?? More work on our collaborative project and out anthology is ready to preorder!!

Exciting times at Chasing Driftwood Writing Group, as an anthology over a year in the making is finally available to preorder! The World You Gave Us is an anthology of poetry, flash fiction, short stories and creative non-fiction written entirely by young people who attend our clubs. On the 30th June it will be published in both ebook and paperback by our own imprint Chasing Driftwood Books and will be available across multiple platforms. I’ll share the relevant links next week when the Amazon paperback version has been approved.

our anthology!

A huge congratulation to all the young people who took part!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: This week we looked at tension; what it is, why its important and how to build it into our stories, We discussed various tips on creating tension, such as using short, sharp sentences, paying attention to sensory information and using the character’s body language, and we had tension themed prompts to respond to. Great work from all and further progress on all the town stories!

Monday CJS Club: Mostly progress on town stories today with a few actually finished! Amazing! Well done everyone. We also had a chat about tension and discussed the techniques we can use to add tension to our stories.

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom club: This group also had the tension tips followed by the tension prompts and we also had great progress on all the town stories. Well done to all!

Bransgore Primary School: Today we discussed how to add tension to stories and made more progress with our town stories with a few finished! Great work!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: The same discussion on adding tension to scenes, tension themed prompts to choose from, followed by progress on our town stories. Great work from all. Their on-going collaborative story is also nearly finished!!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: These guys did really well responding to the tension techniques and the prompts combined! Lots of progress!

Wednesday CJS Club: This group also discussed how to add tension to stories and continued to make progress with their town project. We also have a few finished stories in this group now!!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 21st May

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What did we get up to this week?

There was no Monday clubs this week due to it being a bank holiday. There was also no club at Bransgore school due to an inset day there. Here is what the rest of us got up to!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 plus Zoom group: For this session, we discussed our group story which is now finished and has has been edited a few times. We discussed changing a bit towards the end that didn’t quite work and once that is done, the story can be added to the anthology all the groups have been working on. Today we also had a writing prompt: From a window. For this, they could write a fictional or non-fiction story, or a poem, describing a view from a window. We also discussed my new idea for another collaborative writing project all the groups will get involved in and this group were really enthusiastic about it!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 plus Zoom group: Similar to the above, we had some discussion over their group story which is drawing to an end but will need editing when finished. I set them the From a Window prompt and also explained my new idea for a short story collection.

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom group: This group had the same prompt and most of them decided to respond to that. They could also carry on with ongoing stories or poems too, and a few of them went with that option. They also seemed keen on my new idea for a big writing project!

Wednesday CJS Club: Today I told the group about my new idea and they had plenty of questions about how it will work. We set the goal for this term of each creating a character and working towards a short story for that character. We talked about simple and complex character bios and everyone started creating one. Towards the end some of them pretended to be their characters and were interviewed by the rest of us!

See you next week where we will have more news on the anthology AND the new book idea!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 24th February

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What did we get up to this week? Different storytelling formats for Zoom clubs and junk journals for the school kids!

Welcome parents, carers and young writers. Every week I will post here what we have been up to in writing clubs. The clubs are categorised by day so if your child attends a Tuesday club, for example, simply scroll down to Tuesday to see what we covered this week!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: It was lovely to be back together after a week off for half-term and we got stuck straight into a new topic. Different ways to tell stories! We all know about choosing a tense and a point of view, but what about other formats we can use to tell a story? Such as letters, diaries, blog posts, emails or news reports? We started with a chat about books we’ve read that fall under this category (epistolary stories…) and several members of the group enthusiastically talked about books they loved. I mentioned House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and a few people suggested Holly Jackson’s Good Girl’s Guide To Murder series. Both great examples! We started today with two options. One: pick a photo prompt and write the news story to go with it
Two: write a news story to narrate a part of your own on-going story

We had some fantastic responses to this and everyone was happy to share, which was lovely. Well done everyone!

Monday CJS Club: For the next couple of weeks we are going to be making junk journals in school! We started by discussing the difference between a diary and a journal and talked about some journaling examples such as a nature journal, memory journal or travel journey. I explained that a junk journal is made from junk and recycled bits and bobs and can be anything they want it to be. We started today by first creating a ‘blind bag’ or ‘surprise bag’. This was partly to get them into a creative mood and get them thinking about possible themes for their journals. The surprise bags were a big hit and it was brilliant to see how differently they tackled them! You create a little envelope style ‘bag’ with a piece of paper and then decorate it however you like. As you can see from the examples below, they were very varied in design and purpose! Some children, for example, wanted to focus on nature, so as well as decorating the bag they also wrote tiny little poems and drew pictures to put inside. One child created a bag of games to play when bored! Another was designed as a ‘top secret’ bag full of secrets! Next week they will design their journal’s front and back cover and then can start adding fun pages over the next few weeks!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom club: A great session today with this group. A few of them chose to write a news report based on the picture prompts offered while another member of the group wanted to start a new story and decided to start the story with a newspaper report about a missing person. We have tackled article writing in the past and it was lovely to see them all remember things like an attention grabbing headline followed by a sub-title or lead, followed by the story itself. Fantastic!

Bransgore C of E School club: These guys were thrilled by the idea of making junk journals and jumped straight into making surprise bags first. We had a really varied selection of bags, including jokes, ideas, writing prompts and even dares! They also helped me put some finishing touches to my own junk journal which I plan to put writing prompts and ideas in, plus the little notes and drawings I often get given! Here are some examples of their surprise bags today.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: The older Wednesday group got stuck into news report style stories today, using a selection of picture prompts to inspire ideas. We also discussed epistolary stories and what they involve, giving examples such as Holly Jackson’s Good Girl’s Guide To Murder series, House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski and more. We had some wonderful examples from everyone with some very enticing news stories relayed!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: For some of this group it was their first time discussing epistolary stories and learning how to craft a news report. We shared some top tips, such as creating an eye-catching headline and using clear and concise language. They all did so well! Most chose to use the picture prompts to help them craft a story and one child decided to use her own toys to create exciting news stories from! Well done everyone!

Wednesday CJS Club: These guys were excited to create and decorate their surprise or ‘blind’ bags in preparation for creating junk journals over the next few weeks. Lots of them already knew what a junk journal was and they all fantastic ideas for their bags today, such as dare bags, worry bags, bag to keep stickers in and kindness bags! Here are some examples.

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 3rd February

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What did we get up to this week? Creative Non-Fiction!

Welcome parents, carers and young writers. Every week I will post here what we have been up to in writing clubs. The clubs are categorised by day so if your child attends a Tuesday club, for example, simply scroll down to Tuesday to see what we covered this week!

Monday

This week we tackled creative non-fiction. This is partly because I am specifically looking for creative non-fiction pieces for the anthology we are putting together.

Monday Zoom Club – They tackled several creative non-fiction writing prompts including, write a letter to someone in power about something that you want to change / Write about an unusual and/or memorable event in your community /Share a memory of a perfect day/ reflect on a time you surprised yourself / Write about an unusual hobby or interest and why it fascinates you/Reflect on an instance where you found beauty in an unexpected place / Share your thoughts on tech advances and their impact on society.

This was a little bit tricky and I think it’s because as writers, we are often so used to making things up that it’s a little harder when we are asked to write about things that are true. We had some wonderful responses though, including a very powerful poem, a very angry letter about traffic, and some lovely family stories and memories which had been perfectly fictionalised and presented as engaging little stories! Well done everyone!

Monday CJS Club – I offered three creative non-fiction prompts and they were: write a letter to someone in power about something you want to change/ write a story about a memory or experience you have had / describe a perfect day

Again, this was a bit tricky when they are so used to story writing but I encouraged them to view it as writing a fictionalised version of something that is true. We had a few letters and some lovely memories too! There are some examples below.

Tuesday

Tuesday Zoom Club : The Tuesday group also had the same creative non-fiction prompts as the other Zooms this week. They did really well, approaching it with curiosity and enthusiasm. We had some wonderful happy memories described from one writer,

Bransgore C of E Primary School: These guys showed a lot of enthusiasm for the creative non-fiction prompts which was very much appreciated! Everyone had a go and we had some very angry letters aimed at powerful people and expressing genuine concerns, we had non-fiction poems, true stories and a lot more. Well done to you all because you all listened and responded beautifully! Here are some of the things they produced:

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 plus group: Another wonderful response to the creative non-fiction prompts1 A very well argued response to the benefits and drawbacks of AI in the creative environment, plus another very passionate essay on the effect of technology on people, particularly children. Amazing!

Wednesday 8-11 group: This group tackled the same creative non-fiction prompts and were more than willing to give it a go. We had a poem, a letter, a memory of a beautiful day, and a piece about what things inspire them to write.

Wednesday CJS group: Well done everyone for having a go at creative non-fiction this week! Again, we had some wonderful letters addressed to people in power, we had some non-fiction and very educational poems, we had a list of things someone is looking forward to (and not) about being a teenager one day, a few fun true stories and some letters to Taylor Swift! Fantastic. Here are a few examples.