One of the most influential books I have read over the last few months is Open: how we'll work, live and learn in the future by musician, educator and fellow Leeds resident, David Price. If you haven’t come across it before, I can thoroughly recommend it.  In his book, David Price explores new trends in working and learning made possible by the internet and the rise of social media. There are several ideas from Open that have powerful implications for education and I will explore several of these on this blog in the next few months. One of the most important parts of being ‘open’ is about reciprocal sharing.  Over the last few years, I have been turning my ideas into buyable teaching resources available from my shop on the TES platform. I put together short and long planning prompts and Medium Term Planning documents for creative writing, literacy, and cross-curricular units of work.   Selling resources is a vital source of income to support my independent wo...

Dr Peter Mugo Gathara (left) and Prof Kisulu Kombo (right) from Kenyatta University   Hello teachers! Jambo from Kenya! I’m here for a visit to Nairobi. When I have not been striding across the Maasai Mara, feeding baby giraffe to the Out of Africa soundtrack, I have been visiting the School of Education at Kenyatta University. Thank you for the welcome – asante sana !  But don’t be jealous UK teachers – it’s colder here in Kenya than it is in Leeds! Book literacy CPD for your school’s September INSET! Whether your school’s literacy teaching needs a bit of a shake up or a new sparkle, an ARTiculate CPD workshop is the ideal for your school’s INSET day in September. If your school is getting back to basics, I have workshops designed to help teachers choose and use quality texts, develop independent writers, engage reluctant writers and use more effective editing or redrafting techniques. For schools looking to develop and enhance their literacy teaching, I can guide your s...

Me (left) and the Doctor (right) in the fantastic grounds of Brookhouse School (no, it's not the Disney castle...) Our second week on our Kenya trip and an opportunity to visit the Karen campus of the Brookhouse School, Nairobi. And quite an experience it was too! A private school, Brookhouse is regarded as one of the most prestigious schools in the country and it is hard to deny that the campus is stunning: a small farm with ostriches, secretary birds and guinea fowl, life size sculptures of safari animals in the playground, the library with the 'learning tree' that is also a staircase (and also the pride and joy of Jonathan, the school's librarian) and a computer lab that is decked out like a space station. These are facilities that most schools in Kenya - and, for that matter, the UK - can only dream of. While this material investment may be out of reach for many schools, the schools commitment to creative learning is not. Meeting the deputy headteacher an...

A lovely way to wrap up the filming today at the primary school in Cape Town. Following yesterday’s session where we focused our imaginary migrant’s first day at school – an unfriendly, unwelcoming place – today we looked on the bright side: what would a positive, friendly school look like? Me filming on our beautiful set! After yesterday’s filming where the researcher and I had modelled a lot of ideas and techniques for the group, I was hoping that the children would get more of a chance to take the lead today. I hoped that this independence would be both in front of and behind the camera. We started off the session by discussing what they could remember from the previous day’s conversation - about what we had imagined might happen to the boy. Making a film had seemed a bit of an abstract process to them to begin with so I hoped that by refreshing their memory with their ideas, the children would see how these ideas correlated into the actual film. We then sat down to wa...

Star Wars: Return of the Shadow Saber (2017)   The Star Wars saga continues with Star Wars: The Return of the Shadow Saber produced by ARTiculate Education and Trinity Vision.  In this continuation of the sci-fi epic, the Sith, the Jedi and a group of vile bounty hunters are on a quest to reclaim the legendary Shadow Saber - a weapon of unspeakable power. Who will get their hands on it first and claim the ultimate power in the galaxy? This film was written, designed and performed by twelve children from Little London Primary School and Pudsey Lowtown Primary School, Leeds. May the force be with you!

The Island - Trailer (2017)   On the day the man arrived, the lives of the islanders were changed forever. This video was the culmination of an ARTiculate Education creative writing project with two Year 5 classes in Leeds that explored the issues of immigration, identity and belonging in modern Britain. If you would like this workshop in your school, email me at articulateeducation@gmail.com and let me know. The Island movie will wash ashore in September 2017 - enjoy the trailer!

Being an author is not just about writing a story - it is about telling a story. I often tell the children I work with that they are like magicians or puppet masters: they can cast the spell or pull the strings of the reader. How they navigate the reader through the story is in their hands. Over the last few weeks I have been working with a group of children at Valley View Primary School on a topic exploring immigration and the voice of both migrants and those who receive them. The work is based on The Island by Armin Greder, a tale of a man washed ashore and the community who decide what to do with him. The key stylistic element I have taught these children is the skill in which they manipulate the reader. Whether it is dropping subtle hints as to what will happen later or using the weather to signal the worsening mood of a story (e.g. the sky getting darker, the rain getting heavier), these tools go a long way to developing the children's voice as authors. Coupled with ...

How do you craft a story for an audience? How can you encourage children to begin to think of themselves as authors rather than children in a literacy lesson? Key questions for teaching creative writing in primary schools and this week I discussed these ideas with a group of Year 5 children as we wrote the openings to our Star Wars stories. The children agreed that a quick pace was important to writing and adventure story. Short sentences, using powerful verbs, limited descriptions - all things that help absorb the reader in a whirlwind of action. What was trickier was knowing how to 'craft' the story for a reader who hasn't seen the planning process. How do we reveal just enough about a character, a place, a quest etc to root the reader in the story but keep them interested by what is NOT said? I call these 'suggestives' - how you suggest something to a reader without telling them. The origin of reading for inference that is taught in KS2, it is essential...

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...

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 lot...

Buy my creative literacy resources for free by using the discount code JUNE-OFFERS at my shop on TES online. Sale ends 30 June 2017! Visit my shop at www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/articulate_education or click here and follow the link.  Small print... - voucher is worth £3 ($3.97) as are most of my resources - first time buyers only - see www.tes.com for full details

A few weeks ago, in a university not far away 12 primary school children teamed up with Trinity Vision media department at Leeds Trinity University for an epic film making project. The task: to write, script and film a new Star Wars film in four days. No pressure. After devising several brilliant ideas for an exciting story plot, the children settled on an adventure quest to find a lost legend (no spoilers, sorry....) featuring merciless bounty hunters, an army of wicked Sith lords as well as heroes of the lightside, the brave Jedi Knights. The children made costumes, masks, lightsabers and even robot armour with the help of the university students and staff. After choreographing the epic battles, perfecting the script and rehearsing their lines, it was off to the woods to film it under the expert guidance of the Council of Elders at Trinity Vision. The children arrive for filming! The project was an excellent success. The children's fantastic hard work a...

Enjoyed a great visit to Anfield Primary School this morning - a lovely school surrounded by beautiful hills and forests in Hong Kong's New Territories.Was great to meet some of their staff and discuss potential plans for the future. Watch this space!

Macbeth Creative writing workshop, KS2 Macbeth is a blood-drenched, gory and spooky tale. To o gruesome for little ones? Apparently not! The Year 4 and 5 children I have been working with this half term have become completely immersed in the Scott ish play.  As well as getting the children to write short playscripts, developing the climactic s howdown between Macbeth and Macduff (more on this at a later date), my groups ha ve designed some concept posters for the play. The children chose a colou r and symbol that represented some aspect of the play (bloody red, royal purple, a black cat for the wi tches, a chess p iece for the king) and overlayed it with words that help tell the story. We used emulsion paint and big worn-out brushes (the ones at the back of the cu pboard that nobody uses...) to achieve a battle-worn, scratchy effect. Gory blood sp latters w ent dow n a treat to o! Here are some fine examples! Royal Shakespeare Company, take note! ...

The Great Wave - Creative writing workshop, Year 6 Week 2: Drafting a narrative After our previous work on vocabulary, this week's workshop was a chance for the children to put their rich language and ideas into action. A first draft of writing based on The Great Wave (Hokusai) - Year 6 boy, Leeds primary school Writing from the perspective of one of Hokusai's cowering sailors, we tried to convey the right mood and atmosphere as the fishermen face down the monster wave. The superb example above, by a Year 6 boy, shows how we captured this scene perfectly... "One again, we faced our nemesis, the flowing nightmare: The Great Wave." Zing! A good author needs a strong command of language. This writing, although excellent, didn't just happen! It was built upon the foundations of creative thought, a rich bank of vocabulary and the experience of applying it in sentences. These were key parts of the process:  Children read a model text to see how a pi...

Macbeth Creative Writing Workshop Week 1: Bard Banter Text: Macbeth, adapted by Leon Garfield. With the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death this weekend, I have taken the opportunity to introduce a little bit of bard banter into my creative workshops. Starting a writing and drama project on any of Shakespeare's plays can be a daunting task, but helping the children get to grips with some cutting Shakespearean language is a great place to start. It goes without saying that getting the chance to insult the teacher with some saucy, impish quips certainly helps loosen up the shy performers! Using the fabulous Shakespeare Insult Kit as a starting point, the children were quick to get to stuck into a little Elizabethan trash-talking. Here are some zingers: Wipe thy ugly face thou fishified, fat-kidneyed ratsbane!     Hark! Thou logger headed, earth-vexing hugger mugger! Lead apes in hell thou toad-faced, gorbellied flaxwench! Hark! Wipe thy ugly face thou goatis...

Buy this book! Image copyright by the owners. ARTiculate Bulletin wc.14.3.16 Bambert's Book of Missing Stories This story is not just a book of writing. It is a book about writing. Bambert lives a lonely, detached life with only Mr Bloom the greengrocer and the characters in his stories – The Book of Wishes - for company. Not convinced he knows enough of the world to make his writing believable, he sets his stories free on paper lanterns to find the characters and settings they deserve. In brief: Have you tried?  Ideas for talking and thinking : How do writers write? That is the question and this book gives you the starting point for a discussion about where ideas come from. Ideas for writing : Collaborate as a class or with another school on creative story writing. Ideas for art : Give your stories wings by building paper lanterns.       If you try any of the ideas I'd love to see the work your children produce! ...

Turn your most wayward apprentices from scruffy-lookin’ nerf herders into Jedi Masters with this creative writing and illustration workshop. Creative writing workshop -- six sessions -- fiction EPISODE IV: THE WRITING BEGINS (ONE STEP AT A TIME...) *all spellings are the children's originals! Before they were to start writing their drafts, I set the group some short writing tasks: one short piece describing the setting and two pieces to describe the main characters that appeared in their story. We watched the first twenty minutes of Episode VI and discussed the different features of the settings. What would it be like to be in the desert of Tatooine? What would you see there? What would the Death Star be like? What could you hear, smell, see? I wrote a short description as an example which included some model sentences. The children analysed it and then used it to help structure their own descriptions. Here is one example for a story set in a junkyard.... This fier...