Build a Book in a Day

I did one of these sessions in a school on Monday and I’m doing another one on Friday. One learns and refines as one goes along.

Both of this week are in primary schools, Y5 and Y6.

It’s a hectic but very productive day.

The students do finish between two and four pieces of work. In the afternoon, they’re involved in editing, designing, marketing and illustrating.

Well, on Monday we did it. We produced enough material for a whole book and a good one at that. It was chaos, but chaos always does lurk behind beauty. And it isn’t chaos, really. It is just proactive cause and rewarding effect.

I have worked out how to make the writing part go more smoothly. I won’t expect full length stories. We’ll use the introductions to build plot driven and character driven stories to then write some flash fiction. I’ll ask the Y5 teacher if they feel comfortable introducing the acrostic poems. I’ll then introduce haikus to Y6. Then I go to Y5 to introduce plot driven stories. Back to Y6 to introduce character-driven stories. Then to Y5 to introduce Flash Fiction. Y6 to introduce Flash Fiction. Y5 then do opposite poems, going through the Gargoyles and Angels exercise. Y6 can do Flash Non-Fiction. Finally, default activity, crosswords for Y6, wordsearches for Y5. I’ll create a group story with each year group, which I’ll write up and can be included in the book.

But I haven’t yet got my head around the chaos of the afternoon session. Perhaps that is something which will become clear on Friday.