HELPING CHILDREN TO WRITE

Writing exercises

 and Web Resources for Wendy's "Lit Kids."

SECTION 1
 Litkids: What do you look for in a book?

SECTION 2
 Litkids: Picture Storybooks

SECTION 3
 Litkids: Writing checklist

SECTION 4

Litkids: Writing Newspaper reports

SECTION 5

Litkids: The Winner of the 2008 Tudor Ghost Story.

 

Useful links for creative writing.

Creative Writing

 

Grammar book

 

Writing Fun

 

Australian Word map

 

Prompts

 

Fifteen craft exercises

for writers.

 

Interactive:

Elements of a Story

 

I am poem

 

Understanding Narrative

 

Writing Tips

for young authors

 

Writing a children's book

 

Ursula Le Guin
 discusses plot and narrative.
Plays: 
The Drama Magazine for Young People
Teacher resources

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Back to Wendy's index page

 

 

"More than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness."

--Walter Ong

Orality and Literacy: the Technologizing of the Word

 

Happy New Year from Wendy's writing students and The Bell Team!

 

What's new?

 

There is no full stop to story making, rather just possibilities and growth of understanding birthed from imagination and reflection.

 

Writing is an evolving artform. More and more writers now embrace the internet as a means to explore and present their narratives. Want to see how we might read short stories in the future? Sturday Kempnich's Bread and Butter bears witness that life is indeed a never ending,  open ended story....

 

 

Read a taste of the seventh edition of The Bell in Blog Three

 

The Bell Blog:

 

Blog Three

 

 

The recently published seventh edition of The Bell shows how much we love poetry at Eltham North Primary - we have poems from all grade levels, as well as from the Bell team.

We have poems about fish, mini beast and even a beautiful, heart-touching poem about the tragic death of a baby whale.

This edition also has our  usual interviews. The Bell spotlights  Eltham North's wonderful Mrs. Francis, Aliejana interviews Mark Carthew, poet, writer and educator (page 4) and Saina and Julia speak to Catherine Charles-Brown (page 12), non fiction publisher at Oxford University Press.

Enjoy a taste of edition seven!

 

I am a Whale by Rosanna W.

I am a whale,

I swim in water as cold as hail.

My baby swims by my side,

We glide and glide through the low tide.

Everything is calm beneath me the blue water swishes,

But wait...

Something creeps closer in the distance.

I think of my good wishes,

The object is tall and white

I hope it doesn't bite.

I edge closer to my baby

and I clutch its tiny fin,

She might be thinking the same thing as me, maybe.

I heard screams and wails,

Nobody remained beside me.

I opened my eyes,

The sea that surrounded me was a darker colour, not blue.

 Blackness, blackness was all I could see, 

As my heart gave off its last three beats.

I was a whale,

I swam in water as cold as hail.

My baby used to swim by my side,

We would glide and glide through the low tide,

 Of the place I used to live.    

    

SAVE THE WHALES!

 

Blog Two:

 

 We've just published the sixth edition of the Bell - our wonderful school magazine. I feel so proud of our Bell team who work so hard to make this mag a reality. Again, we have stories, poems, a yummy recipe, a thoughtful article about Black Saturday, a student interview, jokes and even a play. I also received a submission from a former student and member of the Bell Team: James Ashfield (now a resident of Geelong) with a promise of more to come. 

Some of the pieces focused on Bullying, not surprising considering how seriously we take the issue of bullying at Eltham North Primary, but it was great to see this also reflected in the submissions for the Bell.

Finally, please don't forget all students at Eltham North are freelance writers and artists for the Bell. Edition seven will come before the end of the year. Please send us your  artwork, stories, articles, poems, jokes, recipes and book and movie reviews. Remember, this is your magazine,  and you are the secret to its success!

All the best!

Wendy

 

 A taste of The Bell.

 Invisible

 by Anon

The invisible child cries to sleep at night wishing school would disappear. The invisible child is always last to be picked for a team. The invisible child tells their mum a joke. When asked "Who told you that?" the invisible child replies "I overheard it while I was eating lunch alone."

The invisible child feels they are not real and no one likes them. The invisible child never has a partner in class unless someone is away. The invisible child had a good day because someone talked to them in class.

Look around. Can you see an invisible child? If you can, please smile or say hello because one day you might look in the mirror and see the invisible child looking back at you.

Blog one:

 

Dear Parents & Students,
I am writing to Inform you about The Bell Magazine 2009. We have some Interesting new columns and articles that will be featured in the Magazine this year.
There will be lots of funny jokes, author interviews (our first 2009 mag features Felicity Pulman) and heaps of reviews of cool music. So read the Bell 2009! Isabella V, for the Bell team.

 

 

 

 Below all of this, the lake, and in the lake, a perfect reflection of the heights above.  Here, even in the intangible mirror, you can see your hero, scaling the depths of the reflection -- the echo of the outer world.  Here below, in perfect symmetry to the tangible plot above, is the hero’s inner journey.  The story.  Here is where we find our premise.

Screenwriting: The Dual Landscape of Plot and Story by Robin Catesby


I am an art piece

I feel art in my hair,

I wonder about the world of art,

I wish to fly in the sky,

I hear voices of art,

I see art,

I am an art piece.

 

I touch the paint I feel,

I worry that I will get taken off the wall,

I understand that people have their own world of art,

I pretend I am a swan,

I cry that people don't have imagination,

I am an art piece.
 

I want people to gaze and use their creative side,

I try to find a bright side to life,

I say to life we can have a creative side,

I dream of dancing on clouds,

I am an art piece.

Anon ENPS student.

 


 


 

Don't know how to get going and really start writing? Here's advice from other writers!  

Here's a great technique I used in the past: write for one hour only with a clock in front of you. Tell yourself you have one hour, and that's it. You'll panic watching the minutes go by, and you'll write like crazy. It's like doing an exam and you have to do it now. Telling yourself you've got all day to write means you won't write a word. One hour. That's it. Ready, set, go....the clock is ticking.

Laurent Boulanger "One of Australia's top four criminal writers." Geelong Advertiser.

For me, the writing journey means overcoming procrastination (I really must answer those emails, clean the stove etc.), having perseverance (coping with rejection), and last of all, promotion (how to get your work noticed).  However the one quote I keep chanting to myself when the going gets tough, is 'Writing is 1% inspiration and 99%  perspiration.' Stay true to your dream and keep writing. It doesn't have to be perfect, just as long as you keep putting words onto the page. 

Glenice Whitting, author of Pickle to Pie.

When I first started writing, the best advice I got was from a friend who said: "Don't worry about anything. Just write the book."  Her point was this: when we start writing, the sentences might make us cringe. They sound stupid or don't flow. Or, we worry that we don't have enough information and need to do more research. But the reality is that a good writer has to go over every paragraph many, many times. So you should never worry what it sounds like the first time through. Rather, only when you get something down on paper and keep going do you begin to learn, as you go, where your story should be going and what you will need to do to sharpen it up on the second, third...and fourth drafts!

Chris Lowney, author of Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World, A Vanished World: Medieval Spain's Golden Age of Enlightenment and Heroic Living. 

The Titanic theory is all about worldbuilding. When you build a world you build the complete iceberg that's going to take down the Titanic. You don't describe the whole iceberg, though, just the bit that gets seen from a distance and the bit that tears into the hull. And even then, the focus is on the drama and tragedy of the sinking ship. People don't want to hear about how the iceberg is formed - they want to know who dies and when. They want story, not science.

Dr Gillian Polack, author of Illuminations

Regarding facing that blank page.  The trick is:  I never do it.  What I do, when I have a story 'cooking' in the back of my mind, is open a folder and I start scribbling notes - ideas that come in the middle of the night, the 'voices' of my characters that speak to me, plot possibilities, and so on.  The fattening folder is my 'security blanket' and I just keep adding to it until one day I realise I've actually scribbled the beginning of the story or book.  Yay!  That's when I open the computer, type the (working) title and copy out what I've already written - and off I go.

Felicity Pulman, Australian crime and fantasy author.

This is not an original idea, but I think it is a very good one: keep a notebook with you at all times and jot down thoughts/images/dialogue that catches your attention. It's amazing that amount of thoughts and ideas (little wells of inspiration for potential writing projects) we have every day that simply dissolve into thin air, unless we can anchor them to our memory somehow. Here's where the notepad comes in handy. I am not disciplined enough about doing this, but do manage it from time to time and it's so worthwhile. I amazed myself the other day when I looked back through some notes and saw some delicious little snippets that I just know will find a great home in some story, some day ...

Karina Machado, author of Spirit Sisters