The mystery of the lost temple.... STAR WARS creative writing workshop, Year 5

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away a young warrior discovers a lost temple that will change everything....

This is the context for a Star Wars writing workshop that began this week with a class of Year 5 children. Drawing on their ability to think creatively, their understanding of how to craft an exciting adventure story and the Force (obvs), this week the children began to draw out story maps outlining how their adventure will unfold.

First we jotted down key questions to be answered: is the warrior a hero or a villain? what will they discover? what will stand in their way? What will they learn about themselves on the journey?

Some of their ideas have been terrific - especially the understanding that a great adventure story needs to have thrills and spills, a gripping opening scene and (mild) peril!

Star Wars is such an excellent vehicle for engaging reluctant writers in the classroom. They all want to shape a well known story that they love, there is lots of material to work with (characters, settings, tropes) and you cannot fail to write something exciting. For a group who in class seem to struggle to generate ideas, this writing workshop is working a treat!

Next week... drafting an introduction.

Progression in primary drama - going beyond the National Curriculum

Drama is an integral component of primary English teaching. It is the engine that drives creative responses to stories, helping children explore characters, settings and predicaments. Yet the primary National Curriculum for England (DfE, 2013) makes scant reference to drama. Some generic guidance indicates the importance of speaking, listening and performing although these points are both too obvious and too generalised to be useful to teachers and subject coordinators hoping to embed drama across the whole school. When writing our forthcoming book, Teaching Shakespeare in Primary Schools: All the World's a Stage (Routledge, David Fulton, 2021), both Maureen and I felt that whole-school drama guidance for primary teachers - so integral to teaching Shakespeare's plays - was notably lacking from online resources currently available (apologies if you have produced such a document but we could not find it!). We decided to compile our own. In fact, you may have found this blog post...

Filthy wretch or poor thing? Rethinking the Island, KS2, Week 1

A treat for the final half term - a new workshop at a delightful school in Leeds! This half term I am working with two Year 5 teachers to develop a cross-year group, cross-curricular writing project based on my favourite picture book, Armin Greder's The Island . I've done this book many times and every time the response is different! This week, we got to grips with the facts, possibilities and mysteries of the story. What do we know about the story so far? (we only ever read up to page 6 to leave it on a knife edge...) What doesn't this story tell us and what could we infer or predict? We looked at the crowd of islanders who 'welcome' the stranger's arrival. As in every class, country or community, no group ever sees the world the same way and we discussed how the islanders might react differently to the man. Is he a poor thing who needs to be rescued? Is he a curiosity? Is he a threat? We each adopted an islander and took on their perspective f...

Computer games and 'deep play'

“Computer games are not a waste of time. They help me think strategically.” That is the best excuse I could come up with when my wife asked me whether I had spent the day wisely playing the strategy game Rome: Total War all afternoon, rather than tackling the pile of assignments I had to mark. In a way, this is true. I don’t run a business or manage other employees. I work alone, usually teaching online, managing my own workload and switching between a variety of self-generated creative projects. So, growing a city, managing an army, designing a profitable dinosaur amusement park: these activities demand a different kind of mental engagement than my usual work. And, yes, gaming is also fun and, as a career in professional football management is unlikely at this stage in my life, it offers a simulated experience for things I am probably not cut out for (although, at 39, I still feel I have a season or two in me as a non-league reserve goalkeeper). Classic city bulding game, The S...

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