Day 4

Kathy read the last bit of "A Hairy Tale" today. The students have enjoyed this story and Kathy has kept them hanging on by stopping at an exciting point each day.

One student asked if Kathy was writing a new book. This led to an interesting discussion about writing books, royalties, trying to get books published. Everyone was fascinated by what Kathy had to say. Gave them a good insight into what is involved in writing books.

Kathy explained that her latest book has about 20,000 words too many and she is going to have to whittle it down. She said there were lots of irrelevant parts she needed to eliminate to make the story better.

We then talked about what type of fairy tale the students' stories were. Kathy talked about showing and telling - the best way to show a character is through what they say, do and think.

Then looked at creating tense moments by writing about sights, sounds, smells, using speech,

etc.

When writing an action scene Kathy suggested

• choose words carefully


• use verbs


• use shorter sentences


• don't describe too much

The students went off to work on their adventure stories for about 45 minutes then came back and some students wanted to share what they had written. Some awesome writing has been produced.

Olivia- "Suddenly my brain clicked and I must have snapped out of the blur that you get when you have just been woken from a peaceful sleep."

Chelsea - her opening sentence - "Who would have thought a lazy day at the beach with my 2 best friends, Danny and Luke, would change our lives for ever."

And - "unhappy groans gave the village an unpleasant feeling."

Liam - an action packed adventure story with a touch of humour - "It had big, sleek tyres for a fast trip on the road."

Ronald - a detailed, logical, easy to follow story - "What! I can barely run a lap of our school field, let alone run a whole building!"

Some great stories are being crafted, thanks to Kathy's explicit teaching of the steps involved and the great rapport she has developed with everyone.