The students were very enthusiastic for day two and Kathy didn't disappoint when she turned up wearing a wig to be in character for reading some more of her story, "A Hairy Tale".
She used this as a starting point for talking about the plot of a story and how important it was.
Kathy and the students had an animated discussion about what types of beginnings they liked in books and she shared some of her favourite ones.
Having a variety of examples helped them focus on different types of beginnings - exciting ones, or normal ones then something happens to change things.
I like the way Kathy listens carefully to the students thoughts, suggestions, etc and they appreciate this as it shows she values their ideas and opinions.
Olivia talked about a really neat book she had been reading with stories written by students. It was a Duffy book and we managed to track a copy down - it helps to be working in the library - and Kathy read one of the stories that Olivia had talked about. A really powerful piece of writing with lots of plays on words and twists. This produced some more excited discussion and helped give the children some more ideas for their writing.
Kathy modelled a graph of a story using the 3 little pigs story as an example. This helped them see that the story had peaks and troughs before reaching the final climax or "aha moment".
Kathy then talked about conflict and complications in stories and about creating tension. She gave them some focus questions to keep in mind to help them develop their beginning.
They then went away to write the beginning of their story and I think the long period of quiet that followed showed how eager and interested they were in what they were doing.
They came back together about half an hour later to share some of their writing. Everyone was keen to share but could only fit in a few.
Kathy made suggestions about breaking up descriptive pieces with some dialogue so it wasn't quite so heavy going. Liam had already included plenty in his story and it was a strong beginning.
Time was running out but before finishing, Kathy told them that next time they would be looking in more detail at their characters, so it gave them something to think about over the weekend.
The way Kathy has organised the sessions and broken them down is working really well. The students are responding well to her approach and are still very enthusiastic about the writing process. Looking forward to seeing the endresult of her visits.
She used this as a starting point for talking about the plot of a story and how important it was.
Kathy and the students had an animated discussion about what types of beginnings they liked in books and she shared some of her favourite ones.
Having a variety of examples helped them focus on different types of beginnings - exciting ones, or normal ones then something happens to change things.
I like the way Kathy listens carefully to the students thoughts, suggestions, etc and they appreciate this as it shows she values their ideas and opinions.
Olivia talked about a really neat book she had been reading with stories written by students. It was a Duffy book and we managed to track a copy down - it helps to be working in the library - and Kathy read one of the stories that Olivia had talked about. A really powerful piece of writing with lots of plays on words and twists. This produced some more excited discussion and helped give the children some more ideas for their writing.
Kathy modelled a graph of a story using the 3 little pigs story as an example. This helped them see that the story had peaks and troughs before reaching the final climax or "aha moment".
Kathy then talked about conflict and complications in stories and about creating tension. She gave them some focus questions to keep in mind to help them develop their beginning.
They then went away to write the beginning of their story and I think the long period of quiet that followed showed how eager and interested they were in what they were doing.
They came back together about half an hour later to share some of their writing. Everyone was keen to share but could only fit in a few.
Kathy made suggestions about breaking up descriptive pieces with some dialogue so it wasn't quite so heavy going. Liam had already included plenty in his story and it was a strong beginning.
Time was running out but before finishing, Kathy told them that next time they would be looking in more detail at their characters, so it gave them something to think about over the weekend.
The way Kathy has organised the sessions and broken them down is working really well. The students are responding well to her approach and are still very enthusiastic about the writing process. Looking forward to seeing the endresult of her visits.
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