05 October 2024

Posted by Frankie

Junior & Young Writers: Week 4 [Wild Words] - Animals & Birds

This week, we were not only grateful to have Claire back but also to be graced with even

more new faces in both our writing groups, so to kick off the junior writer's session, we

recapped the rules, discussing how everyone defined respect and focusing on the main

rules:

1: Have a go.

2: No self-diss or dissing others.

3. Have fun.

For this week's check-in, we described our week as a mode of transportation and had weeks

ranging from slow, like VW beetles or a bicycle to fast, like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.

We followed up by discussing what we're all reading at the moment, and after a few books that

featured magical elements and creatures in real-life settings, we discussed what magic

realism is.

Next, to burn off some energy, the group buzzed around the room like buzzy bees

who had to freeze and become an animal that became with the letter Claire would call out.

We also repeated vowel sounds in various emotions, with some very angry E's and some

peaceful O's.

On theme with this week, each group came up with a list of books and poetry that featured

animals and birds, such as Charlotte's Web, Alice in Wonderland, and Dotty Detective.

Claire then recited 'Her Mouth' a poem by Pascale Petit, which influenced the next exercise:

Pick a person in your life and describe them as an animal.

One fabulous example is when Izzy described her brother as a monkey!

Claire then read 'The Fox in the National Museum of Wales' by Robert Minhinnick and

encouraged the group to write their own piece of poetry or prose about an animal or bird in

an unusual place.

Izzy had a cockatoo riding a boat. Noah wrote about a fish who stole Poseiden's castle.

Henry. D placed a rabbit at the beach, and both Elsie and Indies swans took naps. Evan took

a penguin out of its natural habitat and sent it to the beach. Henry. R created a cheetah out

for breakfast, and Hamish imagined a lion who was stuck on a ride at a theme park called

the Looper.

In the young writer's group, we had some more weeks described as modes of transport. This

time, the group suggested lorries to represent a lot going on, a steam train that at one point

seemed fast but was actually pretty slow, and lots of weeks that were like buses, slow and

dragging on with the constant stopping, starting, and waiting.

To get comfortable and stretch out our bodies, we stood in a circle and copied the movement

of the person to the left of us in a sort of Mexican wave. Everyone did the same movement

before the next person created a new movement for us all to copy.

We also composed non-human languages and acted out conversations using these sounds and movements.

Again, we chose a person and compared them to an animal, with Poppy and Berry both

writing emotive poems about one another!

Next, the group placed animals in unusual settings, and we found a penguin at Trafalgar

Square, a whale on top of a castle, a duck in an oven, and a leopard in a dungeon. A few

individuals discussed plans they had formulated. One such example is a sheep in a

submarine describing what it's like for the sheep to experience seeing fish for the first time.

To end today's session, we played the one-word story game, in which everyone contributed

one word and collectively created a narrative. Our narrative involved a penguin who wanted

to go to the moon on a boat to find cheese but then examined a basket of chocolate to see

microorganisms. However, the penguin didn't see any and died...

Join us next week for more!

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Junior & Young Writers: Week 4 [Wild Words] - Animals & Birds