Tag: fiction

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 28th May

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

What have we been up to this week? Launching a collaborative writing project and starting by creating characters!

Monday

Monday Zoom group: The new collaborative book idea was explained to this group today and voting commenced on four options we have in creating a short story collection together. The idea is everyone will write their own story and will come up with their own character but the stories all have to be connected some way. We did some character work today to get started! The options are:

  1. An OBJECT is passed through the stories and every story must include this object somehow
  2. A SHARED EXPERIENCE on a train – everyone creates a character who then responds to something that happens on a train
  3. A SHARED EXPERIENCE in a town – we collectively create a town and everyone creates their own character, we agree on an event and each character responds to the event
  4. A SHARED LOCATION – everyone creates a character and writes their own story but all the stories must connect with a shared location

Monday CJS club: Voting for the collaborative short story collection idea and character creation! We also had character interviews where the group get to ask the ‘character’s questions in order to get to know them better. As you can see, the bios are wonderful!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom group: After working on character ideas last week, this group got to vote on the collaborative project idea today. They also carried on creating characters, adding back stories and motivation and more. Fantastic. I’m very excited about the characters being created in this group!

Tuesday Bransgore School: This group also voted on the collaborative idea, and started character bios. We had a few ready for interview and will do the rest next week! Here are a few examples:

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom group: Voting for the group project idea and progress on their previous group story, plus creating characters from scratch OR adding more detail via back story, motivation and more…

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom group: This group also got to to vote on the collaborative book idea and then returned to creating characters for it!

Wednesday CJS club: We voted on the collaborative idea, and finished the interviews we started last week! More work on character bios. Here are a few examples:

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 21st May

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

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 3rd February

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

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.