Ideas
Raising standards in literacy and creative writing
21 Sep 2009
We are excited by stories, creating stories, listening to stories and sharing stories. These are a few of our ideas that are practical ways to help children plan a story, as they experience being the character they can often translate it into a piece of writing more effectively.
1) Big Voice, Little voice
Explore using different words with children, maybe opening lines to stories - what's the difference if you use a big voice or a little voice? What does a big voice imply and what does a little voice mean?
2) Image Story
Ask for a volunteer to stand infront of the others and strike a pose. Now ask the other children to read the pose - what is the story? Step into the space and add a pose - now what is the story? Ask children to imagine what happened a few minutes earlier to these characters, invite a couple to remould the statues. Then ask them to imagine what happened afterwards - invite another couple of children to mould new images. Label the images "build up" "main event" "consequence". Now invite children to create lines of narration for the images. Put a minute on the clock and invite children to stand on a "hot spot" and read their line, using either a big or little voice. Reflect on the different possibilities for a story, what characters were created, what action, how did that change the consequence etc? You could break the group into pairs and let them explore the game themselves, once their images are complete they can write their narration either as a pair or independently to discover the possibilities for language.
For more information about Bounce's Sparkplug:Literay projects, curricular enrichment days or INSETs please visit http://www.bouncetheatre.com or call 02084081124.
That was the best INSET all year!
Keystage One Teacher, Crane Park Primary School