22 June 2024

Posted by Sukie

Junior & Young Writers – Week 9 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Editing & Performance Tips

Hi Writers!

This week we took a break from out Writers’ Inspiration theme and had a focused session

on editing & performance tips.

We have the exciting news that our Autumn Term will be running from Saturday 9th

September to Saturday 9th December – don’t forget to contact the Forest Arts Centre

to book (and if you’re having trouble, just come along and we can sign you up!)

And what’s this? More exciting news? All of our writers will have the opportunity to

perform at the Play On Words Festival Showcase in November. More details to

come…

Now…

We started out as usual with a check-in, and this time we described our week as a flavour of

ice cream.

 Noah: chocolate ice cream because it had been a muddy week

 Evan: mint chocolate chip because there were lots of little things happening

 Hamish: diamond-encrusted blackcurrant ice cream because there was an

expensive, drawn out thing going on all week

 Indie: mint chocolate chip because it was an exciting week – she performed at the

summer fair!

 Catherine: nutty Magnum – kind of sophisticated but an acquired taste

 Poppy: lemon – tasted okay but got worse with every lick

 Berry: Mr Whippy with sprinkles, strawberry sauce and jelly because it was a very

mixed up week with many highs and lows

 Claire: Rocky Road because it had been a tough week to get through, with many

unpredictable textures

 Sukie: honeycomb because they’d wanted to lie in the sun and be cosy

In our reading check-in we had yet more great variety:

 Berry was continuing with ‘The Lottie Project’ and ‘Frozen in Time’

 Poppy was still working on ‘Wild Oak’ and reading ‘Thomas The Tank Engine’ with

her brother

 Catherine was reading ‘Skylark’s War’ and ‘The Crooked Kingdom’

 Indie was continuing ‘Charlotte’s Web’

 Hamish dove back into ‘Bunny Vs Monkey’ with ‘Bunny Bonanza’ and ‘The Multiverse

Mixup’

 Evan was still working on ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules’

 Noah had just started ‘The Firework Maker’s Daughter’

We played a few rounds of Buzzy Bees and The Numbers Game to warm us up before

starting out on our freewriting exercise: ‘The Summer That Changed My Life Forever’.

Next we had two more freewriting exercises: ‘A Summer Day That Changed Me For The Better’

and ‘A Summer Moment That Changed Me For The Worse’.

We gave ourselves a break by playing some Riverbank and Making A Machine games,

testing our improvisational skills and reaction times, before settling down to edit and clear up

our favourite pieces. Then it was time to perform!

Together we went through a set of performance warmups, including lip rolls, belly breathing

and stance practice.

Some highlights of our mini-showcases included ‘Jaws Brought Back To Life’ by Catherine,

‘Water & Litter’ by Berry and ‘Embarrassed Grandfather’s Shed’ by Poppy, which we all

agreed deserved to be submitted to the competition listed below!

Don’t forget: 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.

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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Junior & Young Writers – Week 9 (Writers’ Inspiration) – Editing & Performance Tips