Writing for Children

Previous Idea | Next Idea

user's rating:

Article tags: children, writing

Take action:
» Volunteer as a Match-day Ground Collector in April!
» Volunteer to help out at our road show events across England and gain new skills!
» FUNdraising for Home-Start in St Albans
» Change the lives of vulnerable children
» Volunteer with AVIF either virtually or by spending reality time with the Kenyans
» Come & Create - Creative Workshops

Got an idea to do something?
» Click here to share it.
» Comment on this idea

What it's all about

Let's be honest, learning English isn't every young person's cup of tea - it's often not seen as relevant to their lives. Creative writing is an alternative way of generating interest in the subject; through looking at things from a creative and hands-on angle instead of theory, theory, theory. Why be bored with the words of others, when you can tell a story in your own?

I would like to start up a Creative Writing scheme, going into schools - primary and lower secondary (get 'em young!) - and doing term-length, theme-based writing projects. We would work towards a tangible goal such as a competition, a presentation assembly, a bound book containing the childrens' work etc. Perhaps we would offer an award for Most Improved, Greatest Effort, Most Potential... perhaps they could receive a certificate to show their commitment to an activity outside(ish) of the cirriculum...? I have lots of ideas but no definate plan as yet.

What's needed to make it a reality

Connect with others who have a professional interest in teaching writing to young people
Advice from teachers/creative writing professionals with experience teaching writing
More that I haven't thought of yet.

From the blog [1]

7 Apr 2008 | Comments: 0 Feel the fear and... run away? Oh, I mean DO IT ANYWAY The thing about having good ideas is that sometimes, just sometimes, people listen to them and think "My, that is a... <read more>

Comments

Staff reply 19 Dec 07 14:38, Edited on 19 Dec 07 14:40, by zw!tch Heya,

Sounds like you've got lots of good ideas for how to make this work

I remember the best English lessons at primary school were always the ones where we got to write a story! Sometimes with a theme or when you were given the first and last sentences...

I've found some creative writing ideas which could help you out.

Some questions which have popped into my mind:
- Which age group would you like to work with first?
- Is there a particular school that you have a connection to where you would like to run your first project?
- How much time would you like to spend with the children? eg an hour a week for a term, or an afternoon every fortnight etc.

Have you heard of the Arvon Foundation ? They have lots of information on their website about how to plan a week for under 18s to get writing ! Why not have a browse through and then contact them if you like They even run creative writing courses in Yorkshire if you want to top up your skills!

The National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) have a database of writers available to work in schools here: http://www.nawe.co.uk/metadot/index.pl?id=2496&isa=Category&op=show

Last but not least there are a wealth of inspirational ideas and resources on www.everybodywrites.org.uk , a site written by teachers with the aim of getting young people excited about writing

If you need any support or help just let us know...this idea sounds like it could blossom into a fantastic project!

Let us know how it goes...

Zoë
Staff reply 04 Apr 08 16:25, Edited on 04 Apr 08 17:18, by zw!tch Hello again,

Here at Junction49 we are currently offering users the opportunity to win up to £1000 to turn their ideas into reality, judging against the criteria on this page . We've just chosen the ideas we'd like to offer funding to and yours is one of them!

Are you still hoping to run these sessions? Have you had a chance to think about the thinking points we suggested a while ago?

Your next step is to decide on your proposed budget for the sessions and post it up here on Junction49.

Please can you also email a contact phone number (in fact ideally a mobile and landline) to help@junction49.co.uk?

As for contacts, check out the Creative Writing Project at UCL. It may help with your budget planning to know that their costs were for refreshments, printing and pens/paints...all for £68!

There is also the Story Telling project in Newcastle that you might find interesting.

Please just let us know what support you need? Ask any questions and we'll do our best to help...

Hope to hear from you soon!

Cheers,

Zoë
Staff reply 08 Apr 08 13:43, by zw!tch Hi Sarah,

Thanks for your comment on my profile! Do you have any funding already for the session on 15th April? The budget doesn't have to be very complicated, you just need to do a little research to find out the prices of materials you'd like to get for the sessions and let us know exactly what it is you'd like to buy by posting it here.

As for recruiting volunteers, what are your plans for this?how you do this will will depend how much experience you need your volunteers to have...

Could you let us know your plans for the future eg how many school are you aiming to work with, how many sessions with each class, and a time scale? It'd be good for anyone else thinking of setting up a scheme to know how you are doing it...and any obstacles you've come across!
Staff reply 29 Apr 08 11:48, by zw!tch Hi Sarah,

How did the session on 15th April go? What are your plans for continuing the sessions? Are you still interested in receiving Junction49 funding? If so please do post up a budget and have a look at my previous comments for some things to think about!

Hope it's going well,

Zoë
03 May 08 13:41, by ichoosedreams The story so far:

Creative Writing club is coming up to its 4th fantastic week. I can hardly believe how quickly its all moved since my first post on J49 in December.

When I posted the idea initially, it was a daydream. I didn't expect anything to come from it. But the enthusiastic and helpful comment I received from J49 staff (thanks Zoe!) prompted me to think more seriously about it - who could I speak to in order to set it up? How would I go about approaching schools?

A member of the volunteer society at Leeds university in my undergraduate degree, I decided to approach them as a postgraduate. They liked the idea and gave me the name of a contact who works for the council, a lovely lady called Sue from Education Leeds' Extended Services. Extended Services are the control centre for after-school clubs and activities coming from outside providers across Leeds and I've been working with the same contact since the beginning of the project.

Sue helped me to write a proposal detailing the day/time/length of the project, as well as a rough overall outline of what we would hope to achieve, and we decided together the area of Leeds we wanted to focus on when approaching schools. We chose an area close to the university to encourage student volunteers from LUU's Action society, and Sue made some calls to find out which of the schools would be interested. After 4 calls, she stopped - every one of them had been interested!

We set up a meeting with the headmaster of the first school she had called, and went to meet him to discuss my ideas, my experience, and their interest. The meeting went really well and we decided to arrange it to start after the Easter break.

I contacted Action to let them know our progress, and asked them if they would advertise for volunteers in their newsletter, which they did.

It is now almost 4 weeks in and there are 3 of us working on the project. The children are really engaged and enthusiastic about it, and have produced some excellent work. There is a noticable difference in the lower ability children who are getting more and more confident as the weeks progress, volunteering to read their work and even compleating multiple peices in a single workshop!

J49 have made the whole thing 100 times better by awarding us funding!!! THANK YOU! This means that once the work is in, we will be able to put the children's work together in such a way that they will be able to receive a roperly bound and printed anthology EACH as a reminder of all their hard work. As well as copies of the children's writing, we are also going to include lots of exciting prompts and writing ideas so that the children can carry on writing creatively once our sessions have finished at the end of the month, producing mroe and more excellent work.

Setting up a creative writing club has been the best peice of volunteer work I have ever done. We have had a fantastic reception from local schools and the children themselves absolutely love it. We are hoping to run the project again in a new school in the new academic year - I can't wait for the whole process to start all over again!