7th March 2013 was World Book Day. As usual, the requests came in: “Would you like to visit our school for Book Week...the children would love to meet a real, live author”. This year I visited primaries in Sheffield, Leeds, North Yorkshire and Edinburgh and, now that all the rushing about is over, I’ve time to reflect a bit about what authors can bring to schools.
When I visit a school, part of it is “the talk” – often to an assembly group. In this session I’m trying to do a few things: share my excitement about books and reading, get across that reading is not a “worthy” activity but something that can take you into new worlds and generate real, edge-of –the-seat excitement; and convey that my job is fundamentally about STORY – creating narratives that people want to read, and where all the time they are demanding “what happens next?”
It’s important for primary children to realise that this is an entirely different skill to handwriting, spelling or punctuation (which they may be bad at, and heartily dislike.) It’s not necessarily got much to do with adverbs, “openers”, “connectives” or “wow words” either. These are just parts of the tool-kit, that can be brought out when required. The aim is to create the world – the characters within it – and their story. As well as talking to the children, I do workshops. I spend a lot of time preparing these, and asking myself the question – what extra thing can I, as a writer, bring to the children? What can I provide, that a teacher, however well-trained and inspired, might not?
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| ....What if your mother was a witch? |
Increasingly, I focus on story. A lot of the writing that children do is not based around creating stories – yet for me, that is the key part of being a writer. And it’s hard, incredibly hard, to come up with a gripping story – one that holds attention, suspends disbelief and both surprises and satisfies.
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| Imagine Jessica's problem.... |
So most of my workshops are about finding different ways into a story. Whether it’s about inventing a surprising character (a mermaid who can’t swim, a dragon that can’t breathe fire), looking at a place you know and searching out the things that happen there, or thinking about a “What If...” situation...What if your mother was a witch? (Jessica Haggerthwaite: Witch Dispatcher). What if your new dog turned out to be a wolf? (Wolfie).
Some of the most fun I’ve had in schools recently has been creating stories in groups. I start the ball rolling...”What is your character’s name?” “How old are they?” And in a surprisingly short time we will develop a story...sometimes an amazing story, in which I will be astonished by the creativity and imagination all around me. “I think I’ll steal this one for my next book” I tell them (actually quite tempted!)
Best of all are the comments from teachers, about the children who have taken their stories home, or gone on working at them at playtime or in class. Sometimes I’m sent copies of the finished versions!
Emma Barnes's
web-siteEmma's latest book is
Wolfie - available from Amazon Wolfie: "funny, clever and satisfying" - Book of the Week,
Books for Keeps
I’m going to be a patron!
Okay, that doesn’t look very exciting written down, but I think it is. I’ve signed up for a new scheme, the brainchild of Tim Redgrave, head teacher at Ysgol Esgob Morgan in St Asaph, North Wales. The idea is that a school adopts an author as Patron of Reading, to develop a relationship with the school and its pupils and to foster and promote a culture of reading.
The idea came to Tim following a hugely successful visit by my friend Helena Pielichaty. This doesn’t surprise me at all; I’ve had to spend a ridiculous amount of time this week alone telling my daughter to put down that blimmin’ Girls FC book and get dressed/have your breakfast/brush your teeth/get in the car.
Anyone who knows anything about my views on education knows how important I think reading for pleasure is. It’s the key; there’s so much more evidence to support its foundational role than just about anything else. So I’m delighted to be part of this scheme. I could witter on about it for pages & pages, but I think instead I’m going to direct you to
Helena’s blog, where she explains the whole thing. Please take a look - you'll be inspired!
And if you’re a teacher or school librarian looking for ways to promote reading for pleasure, or an author wanting to get involved, please contact Tim via the link
on this page to add your name to the list of potential patrons!
John's website is at www.visitingauthor.com.He's on twitter as @JohnDougherty8 His most recent books include:Finn MacCool and the Giant's Causeway - a retelling for the Oxford Reading Tree Bansi O'Hara and the Edges of Hallowe'en
Zeus Sorts It Out - "A sizzling comedy... a blast for 7+" , and one of The Times' Children's Books of 2011, as chosen by Amanda Craig
In my last post for ABBA I wrote about my intention to take a roadshow to schools across Edinburgh. I say ‘roadshow’ but I’m not sure what that is. I also used the word ‘workshop’, and in the end decided it was a ‘wordshop’.
Well, I did go up to Edinburgh, and I thought I’d tell you about it.
First, I should I explain that I really didn’t know what I was doing. I think it’s important to state this otherwise you may be looking for the point of it. I had about three weeks to prepare, and was looking for interested teachers at the same time. You can imagine the difficulties when I first contacted schools.
Teacher: so what is this about?
Me: I’m not sure. Literacy. Words. Music.
Teacher: does it have a purpose?
Me: Oh yes, of course. It will have. Soon.
Teacher: Could you say what the purpose is?
Me: I want to expand your mind. I want to control your stationery.
With a couple of days to go I had a format for the ‘wordshop’ worked out. I would talk about interesting words, read a few poems, ask children to make up their own poems, get children to improvise a surreal drama, then finish with some whale sound effects. Everyone likes those. Had I discovered what the point of it was? No. I was on an adventure. I suppose I wanted the children to feel that too, as if they couldn’t be too sure of what was going to happen next.
I would hold up my books, perhaps read from them at the end if there was time. What I wanted to do more than anything else was engage children. Engage, entertain, amuse, confuse, distract, challenge, motivate, inspire. That sort of thing.
I’m back home now, two weeks or so later. It was great fun. The children I worked with were wonderfully exuberant and came up with some astonishing comments and insights, and took part with glee. I loved the moment a boy stood up and began a hilarious chant using the word ‘potato’, and in one school a teacher laughed so much she had to go and sit in the corner and dry her tears.
I learnt several things: a) my keyboard is heavy b) parking in Edinburgh is difficult c) most people are open to new ideas d) rationalising what you’re doing is not always a good thing e) nothing is as hard as trying to be funny, but when you succeed, it’s obvious. f) everyone loves to hear whale song.
So thank you Edinburgh, and all those people who gave me an opportunity to try out my multimedia self-publicity. A big thank you to Kenris and also Fiona, Saira, Amber and Richard.
Next, I want to try and combine music, poems and stories into a sort of operatic audio magazine. Sell them to schools at £5 a time. If it goes well I should make about £10,000 a month. Enough to afford some real whales.
OK, I know Creative Partners doesn’t pay the going Society of Authors’ rate for author visits but I’ve just accepted a job with them. Will you all forgive me? I’m not proud. Times is hard and the work will be fun and you will know by how that I simply can’t resist the temptation to do everything that has to do with writing that isn’t actually writing. (I did write three chapters in the last two days, honest!) Anyway, I thought you might be interested in the ‘enquiry question’ set by the school. A storyteller, a visual artist and I will be helping years 1 and 2 and their teachers to explore the question:
‘How can we use the outdoors to enable children (and adults they learn with) to better express and communicate ideas, thoughts and feelings and make connections?’
My first thoughts are about exploring what they mean by that question – especially ‘make connections’ – but come on, folks – what do you all think? How do you use the outdoors to better express etc etc? Do you? Don’t you? Are they barking up the wrong tree? (Ho, ho, ho!) Personally, I find a brisk walk of a morning an essential part of a writing day – it’s great mulling time. I don’t mean I thrash out ideas that way, though I have a friend who does, but it just allows my mind to go into freefall, wandering all over the place in a relaxed sort of way and I think that’s very helpful and fruitful. It’s also moderately helpful in the battle against writer’s bum! But how useful a brisk walk would be in a big group, I don’t know – and almost inevitably, we’ll be doing group activities. Of course, I’m already thinking along more structured lines – building willow story-sharing arbours, thinking outdoor theatre, planning story trails (there’s a lovely one all laminated and ready to use if you go to Hackfall Landscape Gardens up near Ripon – see my photos) – but how do we as writers use the outdoors? I’ll be fascinated to hear. For me, places are often the inspiration for a story or creep in there somewhere. A long time ago I visited Chastleton House in the Cotswolds and was inspired to write ‘The Ghost in the Gallery’, partly because of the astonishing interior but also because of the spooky, neglected topiary garden. Stockport’s amazing air-raid shelters tunnelled into the sandstone banks of the Mersey sneaked into ‘Piper’, Thurlestone Bay in Devon provided the beach in ‘Fur’ – but this isn’t really about helping me to better express and communicate – it’s more about ‘where do you get your ideas from?’
I am intrigued. Perhaps they have a gut feeling that these small children, living on a fairly grim estate, are creatures of the TV and the play station and need to be outdoors. I would agree – but whether to help their expression and communication, I don’t know. I am excited and challenged and eager to find out. I will be on a journey of discovery and I hope to let you know what I learn. Certainly Forest Schools of which there are now quite a few in the English state system, find that the amount of time and activity spent outdoors has hugely beneficial effects on children’s learning and well-being. I find it fascinating. The stereotypical view of the writer is of one beavering away in his or her study – an indoor person.
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Your events sound wonderful - and so important - long after that year with the really deadening teacher is over the kids will still remember the creative sparks flying!
Thanks, Emma - really interesting to hear what other people do. That's a couple of posts on school visits I've read recently that emphasised that we need to NOT be teachers, and it's a warning to bear in mind. I have found myself getting more 'teacherly' as I've gone on, partly because you feel somehow that's what they want you for, partly because it's an easy model, but of course you have to focus on what's really important and different about being a writer, rather than a teacher! I once went to a Michael Morpurgo talk, though, and he spent quite a bit of it talking about punctuation!!
I've learnt a lot from speaking with teachers and hearing about the activities that they are doing with children. I suppose what I meant to say is that there is no point in my doing something that they are already doing as part of a planned curriculum - I need to try and bring something from a writer's perspective. And at the moment I think a focus on the "story-bulding" side works well.
A lovely post Emma that has regenerated my enthusiasm. And a timely reminder not to fall into the 'teacher' mode which is so easy to do. As Joan said these visits will be remembered for a long time after... who knows you might be inspiring a future best seller!