Devising and delivering creative writing workshops

Hi Scratch, I don't really have too much experience of this but given the ages to whom you will be delivering, perhaps a few points are worth mentioning. I think that a good way of firing the enthusiasm of youngsters may be in the use of poetry. I'm thinking of Lewis Carrol, Edward Lear, Roald Dahl, Spike Milligan, etc. Many more serious poets have also written for children; eg Oscar Wilde, and there are also simple things like 'The girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead' which I think was actually by Longfellow. I also don't think that nursery rhymes should be overlooked. These are things that children know and perhaps disregard but they provide the foundation upon which more serious stuff is built. Finally, Fairy Stories should also provide a rich source for introducing concepts of creative writing -imagination, description, personal relationships and morality are woven into their structure. Perhaps the best quality that all these genres share, is that most children can aspire to produce a story, rhyme or poem of their own. Perhaps the most effective way to get people to appreciate something is to let them have a go at it themselves. Helvigo Jenkins

Hi scratch. I don't have any experience in this area either other than the foggy memories of the writing excercises I did as a child. I would just add Aesop's fables to the list from Mr Jenkins - I loved the moralistic nature of them - they helped awaken me to more than writing stories. Good luck, although I doubt you will need it!

When I was teaching, I witnessed a very talented children's poet, (I remember his first name was Andy), give a wonderful workshop, where he read some of his poems, which were about things kids could relate to, like being desperate for the loo, or falling out with their mates. Then he got all the children to have a go at writing their own poems based on the structure of one of his. His poem was called something like 'It's a boy thing', and he got them to write their own 'It's a (insert word of choice) thing.' Don't know how he did it, but the results he got were amazing. I think the main thing is to use things that children are familiar with. Good luck! I would love to do something like that.

Hi alibob, can't help wondering if it was Andy Fusek Peters: http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=5915 Took my youngest to see him at the Ilkley Lit Fest some years ago. Scratch, The Children's Poetry Archive may be a useful resource to kick start their imaginations with audio available of the work: http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive/poetsHome.do

No, it wasn't him. Wish I could remember his name.

Hi Scratch, I had a go doing some workshops this summer, one of the best bits of advice is to keep it simple and to have some different activities to hand so that you can change the pace or drop what you're doing if it's not working so well. A lot depends on the dynamics of your particular group, like their ages, if they know each other, the weather (?!), time of day, their own experiences of poetry, experiences of school etc, so I think you can be flexible and bring some improvisation to your schedule/plan depending on what they turn out to be like. Probably the most importnat thing is to have fun...and to not make it too much like school. All the best! I'd be really interested to know how you get on, and this would be a great topic to continue discussing as a form thing....

story telling, give everybody a chance to add a line or comment and keep it moving along. Music and rhyme are always good. I sound as if I know what I'm doing which is a story initself.

Keep in mind alternative prompts, visuals may help some children as well as audio for differing learning and comm styles. Concrete and tactile stimuli can be helpful to elicit ideas. Ask if there are children in the group who benefit from individualised prompts and give forewarning to parent/carer/TA of area you are hoping to address in your session(s) so they can personalise the workshop plan to something meaningful to the schemata of the child, or provide materials or technological method of interpreting and recording of their own creative process. Sounds awkward, but prepping and asking around the subject of pupil needs means you are inclusive and could be rewarded by some refreshingly original ideas :D

I found this site quite helpful: http://teacher.scholastic.com/poetry/index.htm and this one for ideas for quick games: http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/ice-breaker_games.htm and although this article is about working with teenagers, I found it really inspiring. You could adapt it to your age group: http://home.cogeco.ca/~rayser3/langexcite.txt The game my group of 7-12 year olds enjoyed the most, even the ones who wanted to do nothing else but throw paper aeroplanes and climb on tables, was where we had lots of interesting words on slips of paper and just played with putting them in different orders or 'shapes'. We got some great combinations from that, and it was really easy. Just some more specific stuff there, hope it helps :)

Hello scratch---I had the pleasure of being part of our Writers's Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS)Writers-in-the School Program (WINS) for eight years. I visited many elementary and junior high schools from grades one to eight, and it was fun but demanding. I was very autonomous, and after the teacher/s introduced me, I was the boss. Otherwise, as did occur until I stepped in, a teacher would hover over the students sshing them continuously. I like noise at the appropriate time, like when I jumped around or led them in a parade around the classroom, with each student imitating an animal or bird, all related to a story or idea developed with the class. One has to be quick and precise---only so much time to absorb their enthusiasm. One favourite game is place a drawing of a pencil on the blackboard, then ask children to use their knowledge and imagination as to what it could be---pencil/icicle, stick, cane, walking stick,letter l or L, finger, leg, etc. This stimulates imagination. Then I would ask everyone to go to the window and absorb what they see, AND return to a circle on the floor (get kids out of the chairs and forget the paperwork) then one by one tell what you saw, ie: a tree, a car, a bird. Write each word on blackboard. Then develop a short insight, ie: can you see in your imagination the same tree in each season and how it would look; a car out of gas on a busy street; a bird in its nest with young mouths asking for food, etc. Keep everything short and snappy. Have fun, laugh a lot, and the kids will take this away for a long time. Oh yes ask each child to write about what they learned and draw a picture of it for their parents/guardians. Cheers, from Richard PS. These simple exercises can also be modified for older grades.