For the love of Writing

2014 was a year of trying to convince my lovelies that there was a reason to write. With 30 kids having 30 different ideas about what writing is about, and why we need to write it felt like an uphill battle.

I don't consider myself a writer - heck I hated writing at school - so I know where they were coming from with their complaints about why we had to do speeches, why we had to write explanations and why we had to write persuasively. When we finally got to term 4 and narrative writing they were worn out.

I attended Lane Clark workshop (http://www.laneclark.ca/) in the September holidays - and felt she was speaking my language. She talked about inquiry not just being about students independently, self managing mucking about. It struck a chord - I had many self managing students - a guess a few were probably mucking about. She said give them the knowledge, give them a reason and a purpose to learn! Lane also spoke about cognitive overload - and how when we let our students inquire they often get overwhelmed and click on multiple pages, click, click, click...and have no way of knowing what information is the right information for them.

You know when you go on PD and the whole time you're thinking I can't use that - this isn't just in time learning for me - we're doing stats next term and they are talking about algebra. Lane's first example on the course, was writing narratives specifically picture books to send to students in Africa who lived without books. This matched our term themes perfectly - Narrative for writing, and social studies links, especially with our new cyber safety program and Keeping ourselves Safe - all the morals in fairy tales really linked in for me.

Thus started the journey of  30 year 7 students to becoming published authors. 

I followed her advice:

I used Task Cards to give the students clear outlines of what I wanted them to investigate - with a maximum of 4 tasks to complete. I gave them Thinking Charts that clearly outlined the information needed. Then we read picture books, we read fairy tales, we watched Hoodwinked - a fairytale mashup (they asked me if it was ok they were watching movies in week 1 of the term!)

We compared, contrasted, completed think charts and really pulled them to pieces - what did they all have in common, what was the first line on the story, what was the last line... What did the characters act like, was the a commonality? Our school magically had Rapunzel production visit in week 2 of the term - and it  too was a mashup fairy tale. Perfect! We used our IT suite sessions to look into the history of fairy tales, and the purpose or morals behind them.

Suddenly they understood the structure and purpose for writing narrative.

They asked questions all the way along - and there was no small questions, thick, thin - they all got recorded and answered.  This was a big deal for me - I hadn't realised the importance of answering ALL questions. 

Some of the questions they asked:

What is the most expensive picture book?

When was the first fairy tale published?

What fairy tale is the best? Most popular for 12year olds?

What is the most common first line, last line in a fairy tale? ( Once upon a time.....and they all lived happily ever after)

Who should we write for? Answers - Kids our age - 12 year olds!

What do 12 year olds like to read? Answers - Adventure, mystery, blood, guts, Zombies, things that aren't the way they should be, funny things

What is the difference between Fantasy and FairyTale

Who needs to laugh? Answers - sick or sad kids

That led to a conversation about writing books and illustrating it ourselves. We had looked at picture books in the first term, and had continued reading one a week - so they thought themselves experts. Room 9 decided as a whole (democratic votes all the way!) that they wanted to complete individual books with their audience being sick 12year olds - at StarShip Hospital - their idea was that when you're sick, you can't read a whole novel, so short stories or picture books would be ideal - but they felt that there aren't many aimed at their age group. They had a purpose and an audience.

I decided to do a bit of the leg work, as it was Week 3 Term 4 - and we were off to camp in Week 9. This didn't leave much time for kids doing all the work. I googled - Self Publishing - then Self Publishing NZ and found a small publishing house in Nelson. They answered the phone - and listened to my story. Dave offered us a great deal - which meant students would have to do all the leg work including choosing the font, doing the set out and cover design. I am beyond grateful for all the help they gave my class! 

This lead to a whole lot more questions - 

What type of fonts are there? (We learnt what Sans Serif means)

What is the easiest to read? 

How do books get set out? How big is the margin?

and many many more....

We use Google Apps for Education, and Harapa teacher dashboard. This task would have been a bit of a longer processes without Google Docs. I was able to drop into students work -  make comments, share video tips on how to correctly use speech marks and other tricky punctuation. I had students working at level 2 with little correct punctuation prior to this experience, who were now using speech marks and ellipsis correctly (and knowing the dot dot dot was called an ellipsis!) 

Each student had to share their work with three other classmates for 'Audience check'  - did their intended audience like what they had written - and laugh at the right places? They then self edited and sent to me for feedback. I have never had ALL of the students in my class want feedback generally there is always someone who fails to share their work - and I have to go on a mission to find their work and give them feedback. Once we decided their stories would be published - in a real life book - they went nuts! I had students emailing me after school, on weekends, and coming in at 8.30am to type up their work they had written over night. They would reply to my comments asking for 1:1 time with me, or for clarification. 

The students set themselves a deadline, and with a lot of hard work and encouragement of each other they achieved what I had thought was impossible. Completed pieces of writing ready for the final proof copy deadline set by the publishers. All illustrations were completed by students by hand. They were then scanned and added to the book document  - There was a class vote for the cover art work. 

The back cover has a blurb written by a small group of students, the inside cover has a collage of all the authors photos. 

The Proof Copy! 

Our proof copy arrived five school days before we went to camp - at the end of week 7. The students all had a chance to read their work and decide if there was any changes that needed to be made. By no means is this book perfect. I know there are parts that need editing - but decided this was their book and they needed to take ownership. 

This set of another wave of excitement - as a small group of girls decided we needed to have a book launch and signing. The girls gave themselves a set of jobs to complete for this next tight deadline. Planning and organising an event in 5 days. They designed an invitation, dealt with the guest list and RSVP's, they spoke to the school Librarian about hosting the event after school hours in the library. They even wrote a press release - contacted the local book store and newspapers. 

Books all ready for the book launch 50 copies - PRESOLD! 

The party! 40 guests, and kai to celebrate! 

For those who would like a sneak peek - http://goo.gl/8kmSOO

If you would like to order a copy of "Twisted Tales for 12year olds" please contact rmoran@bohally.school.nz