26 October 2024

Posted by Frankie

Junior & Young Writers: Week 7 [Wild Words] - Spooky Stories

Hi Writers,

For check-in, we described our week as an item of furniture. Henry. R described his week as

a toilet because he had a lot of water. Evan chose a coffee table to showcase a chilled and

casual week. Claire went for a comfy chair because she had a nice comfy week, and I went

with an annoying creaky bed because I'd been struggling to sleep.

Claire then read 'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley, and we discussed the descriptive elements

that made the tale spooky.

We then played a game of 'Pass the Pumpkin' in which Claire

read a story that contained lots of rights and lefts, and depending on what was said, we

passed the pumpkin in that direction.

Then, we warmed up with some free writing using specific words to get us started.

First was 'bats', then 'castle, mirror, cold, and ending with cats.'

We put a Halloween twist on Buzzy Bees and played Punk Pumpkins, with some very

funkily enacted pumpkins bumbling about the room.

For our first exercise, we chose a spooky character from a list we collectively created and

wrote a story where we tried to use as many words as possible that began with the same

letter as our spooky character. For example, if you chose clown, you would use plenty of

words beginning with C.

We then discussed how we could achieve the spooky effect and

concluded that detail, unexpected twists and using the five senses all contributed to the

spook factor.

Claire read 'Haunted House' by Charles Dickens, which inspired the following exercise:

Describe a haunted house. Would you go in? What could be inside?

Henry. R took us on a multi-choice adventure. We entered a spooky house, found sweets,

and thought we were in the clear, but after we went home and consumed the sweets, we

found out they were poisonous!

In the young writer's group, we checked in as items of haunted furniture. Lily had a slow

week and chose a grandfather clock. Catherine was very specific with an electric flickering

candle that was lost down the back of the sofa because her week had been forgotten. Berry

chose an armchair with fake spiders, as her week had been boring. Sonny was glad school

was over for half-term and chose a bed that used to be haunted but was now lovely, comfy,

and calm. Poppy described her week as a hard plastic chair as she couldn't relax.

Claire read Frankenstein, and we played Pass the Pumpkin before discussing the difference

between spooky and frightening. Is fear subjective? And is spooky more generic? We

concluded that spookiness is often related to the supernatural, whereas fear is usually

associated with very real and physical things.

For our first exercise, Claire chose prompts a minute apart so the group could work on the

prompts into stories. The prompts were

1. singing children

2. dismembered limbs

3. eyes

4. noise(s)

5. the unknown

We then repeated the exercise in which everyone chose a character and created a story or

poem using as many of the same letters as possible. Then, using the paint swatches Claire

brought in, we used the names of the paints as titles of stories and poems. The paint names

chosen for titles consisted of

*warm milk

*dead salmon

*berry picking

*candle wax

*plummet

To tie up today's spooky session, we had a quick game of one-word stories in which an

elephant jumped over heads to scuttle to the dentist.

more next time :)

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Junior & Young Writers: Week 7 [Wild Words] - Spooky Stories