My First Writer In Residence

Wednesday was my last official session with a bunch of Grade 4 children at a primary school connected with the Ardoch Youth Foundation. Earlier this year I was invited to do a Writer In Residence. I would spend five weeks with the kids and their classroom teacher, then produce a book of their work. I went to observe someone else’s class to give me some idea of what was required. She was doing the actual writing and the kids were helping to develop the story and doing the illustrations.

“Oh, I can do that!” I thought. It was a relief, because I had been allotted a special school to work in. I prepared some stuff - and then the special school changed its mind and I went instead to a regular school. And the teacher had chosen students she thought might enjoy it the most. So, I switched back to having the kids do the writing. I was sent a couple of previous books to show me what was expected. One was by a friend of mine. I emailed her to ask how long she had had, because her stories were chosen by the kids from a number of pieces they had written during the time she was there. She had had a term. I had five one-hour sessions - obviously not something I could do.

I was lucky enough to have assistance from a fellow Ardoch volunteer who is a qualified primary teacher and art teacher. She had a look at some of my ideas and suggested what might work best with primary kids - my experience is with secondary students.

The first week, we introduced ourselves and what was going to happen, and got the kids to write using writing prompts they had suggested, to give us some idea of how they were writing. I made it clear that this was not an English class - the idea was for them to have fun.

The next week, they continued with their stories, after making it clear that they just wanted to write! So, they wrote and we went around the classroom looking at the stories and suggesting edits. They did self portraits /head shots to go in the book. I took home photocopies of the stories to start typing up.

Next week I printed out the stories, finished and unfinished alike, with gentle editing suggestions. Those who were finished were asked to check their work and edit, asking a friend to swap. I then asked those who didn’t think they would finish to stick with me while the others did their editing. A few did, and I offered th m instead the option of writing an acrostic poem, the easiest form of poetry, or using a template to do an “about me.” In the end, only one student did that, and I put together his answered questions in a paragraph. It worked well. Most of the acrostic poems were one-word lines, but one young lady wrote a very fine acrostic piece and a haiku on the same theme!

So, in Week 4, I read her poems aloud to the class and they understood  what I wanted! And several kids who had done one-word poems went back and did it properly. Having finished their pieces, poetry and stories alike(and one article!) the kids started on their illustrations.

They also voted on a title for the book. There were some in their ideas box and others added to the list on the board. Interestingly, the chosen title was one I would have suggested if they hadn’tcome up with something. I wanted them to own it.

I had already started playing with my new toy, a scanner I bought for this project and it was working smoothly. It’s an updated version of the one I used to have, that died on me. And today I sat at my computer, scanner attached, and got stuck into the kids’ art and typed up the last bits tya were handed in. I’m not even finished that; there have been kids turning up suddenly, one of them only this week, after having done one unfinished piece. We gave her the option of an acrostic, which she did, but I haven’t typed it yet.

There was some drama, with a couple of kids doing very little, but turning up anyway. Under threat of not being in the book, they produced. Some of them finished their stories in class, or simply rewrote stuff they had done for class. Hopefully, being published will inspire them to write some more.

Three kids produced the cover art between them, and it is very good indeed.

It really has been a fascinating experience, a learning opportunity for me as well as the kids. There were times when it felt like just another classroom.

But after I said farewell, a young man wrote something on the board. Here it is.