29 March 2024

Posted by Suki & Claire

Young Writers - Week 10 (The Art of Writing) – Final Week Showcase

Hi Writers,

This was our last week of the spring term and our final week of our current theme, The Art of Writing, so

this week we ran a Final Week Showcase and got to share parts of our favourite books and some of the

writing we are most proud of!

During our check-in we all described our weeks as something to do with Easter

1. Claire - a bear, hibernating

2. Poppy M - a sloth, slow

3. Sukie - a beaver, busy

4. Berry - a panda, not doing much

5. Poppy C - a tiger, a crazy, wild week

We also had an exciting announcement this week: The Winchester Poetry Festival’s Young Poets

Competition has opened! The theme is ‘Our World, Our Planet’, and the task is to write a short poem (no

more than 14 lines). This is being organised by Hampshire Cultural Trust, so it is open to anyone living or

studying in Hampshire (that means if your school is in Hampshire you can apply, even if you live across

the border). There are three age categories: 4-7, 8-11 and 11-16, and the winners will receive a National

Book Token as the prize. The closing date is Wednesday 31 st July at midnight so we will definitely be

setting some time aside during the summer term’s Junior and Young Writers workshops to develop pieces

for this competition.

Hampshire Young Poets | Hampshire Cultural Trust (hampshireculture.org.uk)

We prepared for our showcase with some vocal warm-ups before launching right in with Berry’s sensory

poem from earlier in the term. She also shared a new one with us on the joys of sunshine, which was so

clear and relatable that we all understood immediately what the subject was, and had the chance to talk

about how sensory writing, whilst often abstract, can be a very direct and evocative way to share one’s

experiences.

Poppy C followed with a fantastic horror piece, involving a man peering through a window in a mask. We

were all thoroughly spooked, and spoke about how effective her moments of slowing down and ‘noticing’

were.

Poppy M gave us a fantastically performed rendition of her side story to ‘Murder Most Unladylike’ from

Daisy’s perspective. Her use of voice and dramatic pause was particularly effective and gave us the

chance to talk more deeply about the differences between ‘reading’ and ‘performing’ a piece, and the

ways we can imbue our writing with character through our body language and vocal technique as well as

the words we use.

After our Showcase, we had a round of Show and Tell, where we each read out a part of our favourite

book.

Poppy C read us the opening to ‘Mistletoe and Murder’ by Robin Stevens, which was a great example of

a seasonal genre piece.

Claire’s choice was the opening to ‘The Northern Lights’ from the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip

Pullman. We discussed how it immediately introduces the concept of daemons and gets us familiar with

them within just a few pages.

Poppy M also read us some Robin Stevens, this time ‘Death In The Spotlight’ from the Murder Most

Unladylike series. It opened immediately onto drama and tension and was a great example of sequel

writing.

Berry shared the beginning of ‘The Last Bear’ by Hannah Gould with us. We remarked on how quickly

we got a sense of the loneliness and isolation of the main character, and how it gave us a sense of bigger

things to come.

Sukie finished off by reading us the opening pages of ‘Alanna: The First Adventure’ from The Song of the

Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce, when Alanna first decides to pretend to be a boy and trades places

with her twin in order to become a knight.

We followed up our Show and Tell with a Spring writing exercise, where we had to write a piece about

spring without using the words ‘green’, ‘flower’, ‘yellow’, ‘bunnies’ or ‘Easter’. This led to some great

imagery from everyone, such as Poppy C’s ‘children no longer hibernating’, Berry’s ‘animals dancing at

a ball’ and Poppy M’s golden daffodils.

To finish off the term, we then played a quick round with the story dice and a game of character

consequences.

We’d love to see some more new faces this coming term (starting Saturday 13 th April), so if anyone

knows a budding writer aged 11-14, we’d love to hear from them! All of our Young Writers sessions are

free and bookable through the Forest Arts Centre website, so come along and have a go with us! We also

offer a Junior Writers group on Saturdays for writers aged 7-10.

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Young Writers - Week 10 (The Art of Writing) – Final Week Showcase