Junior Writers - week 1 - 'from deep inside a forest'

Warm Welcome to the FIRST Junior Writers class,

We are delighted to launch our first term at Forest Arts. Over this 6 week term we are focusing on ‘Stories from the Forest’. It’s very exciting to meet 5 budding new writers. Today we kept things simple, with introductions, getting to know each other, warm up games, and a few writing exercises.

The group came up with their writing ‘team’ name: The Antler Pencils

We discussed our favourite books and authors, the top 5 were;

Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
The Northern Lights Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
The Great Gatsby by Scott. F. Fitzgerald
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

*Special mention to The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey [there’s a Hamster character called Marmalade who is evil and wants to take over the World.]

We also discussed our writing experience and what we would like to achieve this term - as writers. In the group we have a range of experience and goals;

Writes fan fiction
Written a series of 3 books with a friend
Entering a 500 word writing competition
Writes at school

Our group goals are;

To impress Grandad - who already thinks our student will become an author one day
To gain new writing skills - for school work
To learn how to be a better writer - for fun

We played a game called DEER, BOAR, TREE to get warmed up and spark our imaginations. We had some pretty good BOAR grunts going on!

Then we read a poem together: The Small Dragon by Brian Patten

I’ve found a small dragon in the woodshed.

Think it must have come from deep inside a forest

because it’s damp and green and leaves

are still reflecting in its eyes.

I fed it on many things, tried grass,

the roots of stars, hazel-nut and dandelion,

but it stared up at me as if to say, I need

foods you can’t provide.

It made a nest among the coal,

not unlike a bird's but larger,

it is out of place here,

and is quite silent.

If you believed in it I would come

hurrying to your house to let you share my wonder,

but I want instead to see

if you yourself will pass this way.

We thought about the poem, and discussed what we liked about it.

We talked about Halloween and our Trick or Treat costumes, as these are examples of characters, and how they look & behave tells us about them. The group had dressed up as;

The Ghost from Scream
A girl crying blood
A Gothic moth
A Storm Trooper
A Witch

Then we did a writing exercise thinking about the poem, and the Stories from the Forest theme;

Our own unusual visitor who must have come from deep inside a forest.
Character: We invented characters and gave them names.
We wrote character profiles - adding details about how they look, sound, speak.
Settings - where might we find this unusual visitor? [at home, at school, at the supermarket, in the car, in the kitchen, at the park]
Plot - action. What is our visitor doing? What are they making/eating/carrying?
Plot - narrative. Are they on a mission/quest? Why have they come?

The class then worked on developing these notes into the beginning of poems & stories. Some really great pieces of writing came out of this session. Students shared their first drafts - and we celebrated our achievements for this week.

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Junior Writers - week 1 - 'from deep inside a forest'