ARTiculate Bulletin wc 22.2.16 Have you tried Flotsam by David Wiesner Buy this book! Image copyright by the owners.  This is a strange book; the good kind of strange. The sort of book that will keep you and the children puzzling and poring over it in the hunt for hidden meaning and the intricate details you almost certainly missed the first ten times you read it. Almost completely wordless, children of any age or ability will find this a stimulating and thought-provoking starting point.  If you try any of the ideas I'd love to see the work your children produce. A  'Have You Tried?'  ideas sheet for  Flotsam  can be found  here .  To request this in pdf format, please join the mailing list by clicking  here  and sending me your details.

This week, ARTiculate is launching a weekly-ish bulletin from ARTiculate Education where I aim to push great ideas for creative literacy your way. Like a pygmy, crocodile plumber, the bulletin will be short, snappy and useful. I will point you towards books that are perfect for you and the classes you teach, some helpful planning ideas, videos, examples of work, details of new workshops I offer and so on that might give you great ideas for teaching effective, creative literacy. Heck, I might even chuck in the odd cat picture. If you teach primary school aged children already, are a student working in education or if you were cleaning the tables and signed up for this by accident, there will almost certainly be something in this for you to use now or in the future. To sign up, click here and send a blank email - I'll add you to the list.

Lessons on vocabulary gave us a clutch of exciting new words to try out; the drama let us explore the man's inner thoughts; the art work had given us a mood to recreate.  It can take time to immerse children in another world, but it is certainly worth the wait!  First draft! Week 4 After three workshops worth of discussing, acting, playing around with language, making notes, analysing and discussing how in fact you might catch a seagull to eat it*, we were ready to pour out ideas onto paper in a first draft. Analysing a text had given the group a five paragraph structure that they were going to follow to explain t hese mysteries, unanswered by Armin Greder's sparse text: Where the mystery man had come from? How did he come upon the raft? What were his first impressions of the peculiar island? Who are the strange and wild inhabitants of the island? What might the future might hold for the man. The narrative would be in the first person: the children retell...

"Raised pupil's writing by at least 1 sub-level - developed their ability to apply knowledge. Hopefully we will see ARTiculate in our school again!" A Howdle, Literacy Coordinator You're entering the final stretch now, everybody! Well done! But before you hang your whistle up for the summer, there is a way to get a head start on next year by guaranteeing your children's writing will get off to a creative flyer. ARTiculate is launching a new creative literacy workshop that includes discussion and debate, drama, writing and art: a dead cert to get your new class buzzing! Our new workshop 'Human Zoo' is based on the book Zoo by Anthony Browne. Turning the world on its head in true Anthony Browne style, we ask how would the animals see the strange behaviour of the human visitors? Indeed, who really belong in the cage? Not only does this workshop meet the National Curriculum objectives for literacy, it fulfills the art ones too. Pretty nifty, eh? By ...

Text analysis is key to helping less confident writers build a framework to hang their ideas on. I t is the solid foundation that supports the imaginative flourishes of a quality finished piece.   A good author is a good reader! Week 3 "I love books. I love that moment when you open one and sink into it, you can escape from the world into a story that's way more interesting than yours will ever be." Elizabeth Scott   Do we at ARTiculate have a catchy slogan? If we did, it would probably be the best slogan in the world. But, if I was going to adopt one here and now it might be: "Read. Then go for it!"  The importance of reading for an author is difficult to overstate. How can you write convincingly if you've never read a convincing book? Drawing on other people's ideas, being inspired by another's use of language, seeing how a text is structured - all essentials  for a budding writer. When you're working on a short, picture bo...