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04 May 2024

Posted by Sukie & Claire

Junior & Young Writers – Week 3 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Home

Hi Writers!


This week to continue our ‘Writers’ Inspiration’ theme, we discussed Home.


In our check-in we shared our weeks as a kind of furniture:


  • Indie: a fridge, opening and closing all the time

  • Evelyn: a table, helping people to carry lots of things

  • Evan: a shelf, lots of things going on

  • Hamish: a bedside table, wanting to help people by carrying their burdens

  • Tabitha: a purple sofa, tired and cosy

  • Sukie: an armoire, busy and jumbled

  • Claire: a bookcase, lots of things going on

  • Poppy: a bed, very tiring

  • Berry: an awkward designer sofa no one can sit on


In our reading check-in we had a lot of Roald Dahl again, as well as ‘boy’, ‘The Song Walker’ and ‘Charlotte’s Web’.


We talked again about our collaborative agreement for the workshops and went through the three rules:

1. Share respect – both for ourselves and each other. This looks like: no self

diss; no dissing others’ work; listening when others are sharing their work

2. These workshops are not school and there are no teachers or tests – we’re all

here to learn!

3. Have fun and have a go!


Buzzy Bees has become a favourite of everyone’s in both groups so we played a few rounds of alliterative, next-level Buzzy Bees before reading some examples from a recent Faber poetry anthology, including ‘Boys In Hoodies’ by Caleb Femi and ‘Winter: A Biography’ by Eleanor Penny.


Our first writing exercise was to write about our home, with a few potential prompts to get us started, such as:

  • What if an object in your home came to life?

  • Use all the senses to describe walking through your home

  • Describe what mementos and treasures you have in your home


Hamish wrote ‘Briancroft’, in which a toaster came to life and the floor tried to eat your leg, but ‘it’s a lovely place, do come and visit’. Tabitha wrote a set of acrostics while Evan shared ‘My Town’, full of musicality and great soundplay. Indie and Evelyn both wrote a poem called ‘My Home’, one of which was very warm and cosy, while the other had an effective journey from discomfort to peacefulness.


We played a round of one-word story before diving into our second exercise, in which we chose a colour swatch from the swatch sheet and an emotion from the feelings wheel and wrote a poem based on the combination. We had ‘Sea Foam Sadness’, ‘Spritzer Joyful’, ‘Borrowed Light Envy’, ‘Kittiwake Sad’, ‘Duffel Bored’ and ‘Bamboozle Threatened’ - what a great set of descriptions!


Don’t forget: 

Once Upon A Dream is now open, seeking submissions from anyone around the ages of 7-12 (older or younger welcome too) on the subject of dreams. The closing date is 24th May.


AND:


The Winchester Poetry Festival’s Young Poets Competition has also 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.


Our Junior and Young Writers groups run every Saturday during termtime at the Forest

Arts Centre in New Milton. To sign up, just head to the Forest Arts website (it’s free!). Junior

Writers is for ages 7-10 and runs from 09:30-11:00, and Young Writers is for ages 11-14 and

runs from 11:30-13:00.


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