Zealous Lessons – English, ICT and Creativity in the Classroom

I was surprised last week that some students in our class just wrote a title, like “Hi guys, what’s up?” rather than entered an observation or information.

But then I remembered, I have at least 10 years on you guys! I have been reading blogs for a long time, and have been writing blogs for five. Some of them were diary-style entries, some of them were informative, and some of them are purely professional. But for those of you who are unused to the conventions of blogging there are specific requirements, and expectations, that you need to be aware of.

Today we will read the handout that I gave teachers at blogging PD, and then come up with some class guidelines for our blogs.

We will also nut out any remaining issues with passwords, posting, etc.

I am really looking forward to seeing how these blogs grow.

credit: farm5 static Flickr

I am currently reading ‘Kraken’, by the fantastic China Mieville.

I loved ‘Perdido St Station’, and a colleague recommended this one to me. So far I am really enjoying the ideas in it – Squid worship for one – but am finding the characters a little less compelling than the fascinating characters in city of ‘Perdido St Station.’

You need to complete your first complete reading journal on your blog by next Tuesday 7th May. Use the table on your sheet as a guide for what to include. You may, of course, add informal observations as posts whenever you like on your blog.

Over the last few weeks we have zoomed through a small selection of creative writing genres.
In the space of four weeks we have covered sequels, poetry, mystery, supernatural, creative non-fiction and sport writing*.
I am conscious of the miniscule amount of time I have been able to afford each of these noble genres, but am also bound unbearably by the shackles of term dates and report deadlines. (Phew, how dramatic!)

Luckily, we have a class of fast learners. Charlie explains creative non-fiction in this post, Grace and Jackie explain sequels in this post and this post respectively, and AJ’s post is about one of his favourite supernatural creatures.

I am envious of people to whom poetry seems to come easily. Tom’s poems are very witty as seen here, and an example of Ammar’s poetry can be found here.

I would also like to acknowledge some recent examples of terrific blogging:
Maggie gives a terrific explanation of our class excursion here,
Matt gives thoughtful and appreciative feedback on Leon’s work here
and Yue gives some great blogging tips here.

The Anthology task at the end of the year will be a collection of each student’s favourite three pieces from their classwork. I am looking forward to reading the huge range of ideas from our class, and am also excited to see how each student will approach their ‘preface’ task.

Classwork:
New topics have finished now and the last few weeks are reserved for writing and refining your pieces for the Anthology. Have a think about the pieces you will include, and how you would like to publish them.

And remember: your pen is a vorpal sword. One two, one two!

*Not technically a field of creative writing, but my decision to include it was based on student interest, and recognition that the skills we develop by being creative are highly sort after in a range of vocations. We are lucky to have a sports reporter on staff, who acted as a guest speaker this week. Lee explained how the sports sections work, why sports reporting is vital to generating readership (and sales!) and outlined some of his experiences working in the field.

This week we have been looking at writing sequels.

This is what we agreed good sequels should do:
* they should follow-on from the original. They shouldn’t just tell the same story again but with different characters/settings – this would be a retelling, or an adaptation.
* they should have the same characters/the same general idea/ or be in the same ‘vein’ as the original. Sequels shouldn’t stray so far from the original that they become like a new story altogether
* title conventions – use numbers to indicate Eg. Mission: Impossible II , or new titles Eg. Alien, Aliens.

Here is an example of a sequel I didn’t even know existed…

How useful might a sequel to ‘Cinderella’ actually be? One of the students suggested today that sequels are sometimes made because people liked the first one, and want to read/watch something similar, with characters they already know and like. This ‘Cinderella II’ sounds a lot like most ‘regular-girl-becomes-princess/cheerleader/CEO-but-doesn’t-think-she-can
-do-it-but-then-believes-in-herself-because-there-are-people-around-her-
who-believed-in-her-from-the-start’ kinda movies. So it’s a cliched concept, but with a character we love… is this good enough?

I’m starting to guess why I might not have heard of this movie before. It sounds a bit dull.

The homework this week is to upload one of your favourite pieces from classwork this week, or to explain our process for looking at poetry or sequels.
The challenge is to make your sequel sound interesting enough, while still being true to the characters/ideas of the original. If your sequel-idea posters are anything to go by, they will be great.

Post your new words or funny story
Comment on at least one other person’s funny words or story.

hahahah

lol

mwahaha

ROFL.

I like to think that creativity, and caring about the environment, runs in our family.
But, maybe it’s just something in the water. Swan Bay is a special place to our family. The water seems to change colour with each passing hour – sometimes it’s green, sometimes grey, sometimes an azure blue. At four o’clock on a Winter afternoon, the water is violet. It seems fitting that this piece of water has inspired a work of profound beauty and innocence, and I am proud to present a piece of creativity from my family:

This is my cousin’s poem. She is eight years old.

What do you care about? Are these the same things you cared about when you were eight?
What if everyone remembered what they cared about when they were little, and just had to wait until they were big enough to change things?

I have decided that my community story will be about a group of ‘big babies’: people, like my cousin, who use their innocence to ask ‘why’, and use their personalities, language and powers of ‘getting along’ to create change in the world. What their ‘world’ will be, I haven’t decided yet…

This year, in an effort to reduce paper waste, our school started publishing our newsletter as a pdf and then emailing to parents. The newsletter includes a principals report, important dates and notices, and news from our students.

Achievement comes in all forms. Sometimes we report on sporting success, or debating wins, or excellent in the performing arts. But members of the school community also love hearing about the other activities that our students do, including interesting excursions, innovative classroom practice, and student reflections.

This semester there are two blogging classes at our school- ours and year 8 Kendo. We are both quietly feeling the waters, experimenting and getting a handle on how it all works. I am very proud of the work that has gone into our blogs so far, and think it is time to unleash them on the wider school community! In next weeks newsletter I would like to do a feature on blogging in the classroom. I will write a short spiel on the pedagogy (teacherspeak for ‘the educational reasons for what we do and why we do it in schools’) of blogging, and then there will a short pieces from the students, and some photos. I will also include the link for my blog – which other people can read, and then click the student blog links if they would like to read more.

Today’s Lesson:

You can work in pairs or on your own.

Choose one of the following to write for the newsletter:

* A creative response to our Melbourne Writers Festival excursion (like I did here)
* Your reflections on using the blog for class (what’s good? what are the challenges? do you like it more than writing only in workbooks?)
* An explanation of what the creative writing subject is
* One of your favourite discovery drafts so far (feel free to edit/polish if you think it needs it)

Please paste your piece in the comments below.

Dear Humankind,
Please read books. Please listen to the stories your grandparents tell you. Please look at paintings and think about what is happening. Please learn the songs of your people, and the songs of others.

Please find out why we ‘have always done it like this’, and where things can be changed for the better. Please ask questions. Please imagine, just sometimes, that you are a child, or an alien from outer-space; What would this situation look like to them?

Please imagine that things come alive when you’re not looking. Please look under your bed for monsters. Please see the best in people.

And please, if you can at all help it, don’t fight, or feel great because someone else is down.

love Karlee

P.S. This was inspired by Isobelle Carmody.

Isobelle Carmody spoke to a packed BMW stage at Federation Square last week about using animals, and children, as a way to discuss power relationships between people. She also explained that her approach to writing is to try to answer a question that she has about life. Isobelle Carmody’s fictional worlds allow her to explore the question, and means that her characters can find solutions to these questions for her. I particularly liked that Isobelle explained how the Obernewtyn series is an exploration into a more peaceful, and humane, way of dealing with each other. I think this links very nicely with the idea that creative writing is, in essence, about putting across an idea or argument, in a way that will be engaging and resonate with people.

A student asked me the other day, “if creative writing is about arguing, why didn’t [he/she, I can't remember the exact example now.] just write an essay?” A fair point. However, (and admittedly I don’t know about all those other English teachers out there), I’m not that interested in curling up on my couch reading a book of essays. Where are the new friends? Where are the new worlds? Where are the monsters under the bed?

Setting/Weird/Gross/Character

This weekend I went on a little photography expedition. I walked around the alleyways in my neighbourhood, looking for interesting things to take photos of. As I picked my way over cobble-stones all sorts of stories were forming in my head. I thought about the people who might live encased between the tall back walls and the picketed front fences. I wondered if anyone was missing the toy fish that had floated away in the storm, or whether the garden gnomes had heard anything funny lately. By the time I reached Merri Creek I was glad to have a break from the stories. I listened to the water rushing over rocks and through drainpipes. I took close-ups of wattle, fluffy yellow in as much of the viewfinder as possible. I relaxed my pace and breathed. Then I noticed the clouds. Through my camera lens I saw tiny pink blossoms against huge grey messy-masses, and I guessed it was time to head home. The clouds were honest and up-front about their intentions. Grey means rain, and rain they did. I zipped up my camera bag and hoped for the best as I ran home. I arrived home soggy and cold, but with some interesting photos and a quiet head.

The task for today is to find pictures to inspire you:
Setting
Weird/Cool
Gross
Character

Here are some of my photos:

Some possible 'conflict' ideas - 1. A chicken bomb (let off in the alleyway to stop casualties) 2. Neighbourhood food fight (this was fired from a cannon) 3. People were fighting over it because they were hungry, but it was greasy and they dropped it.

This week your homework is to write a new post about PLOT.

1. Explain one of the activities we have done over the last two weeks (read my posts to remind you) – reflect on what you think/know/have learned about PLOT
2.Type up your idea for linking your four photos into a plot (include the photos too, if you can)