Creative Writing - Poetry

 
Today we present the first of a unit of three programmes written and presented by Leon McAuley, focusing on creative writing.

Leon draws the children into thinking about telling stories. He challenges them to recognise sounds and then asks if sounds can tell a story. The children are invited to invent their own words to describe sounds and play with language as they would with paints.

Leon’s poem about Henry McAuley is written in the form of a riddle encouraging the children to listen to a fascinating description and guess who Henry McAuley is. Leon helps them to become aware of the rhythm, form and rhyme in the poem. The children follow the thought processes of the writer at work as word pictures and rhymes are selected to complete a poem entitled 'Getting on with Life'.
 

 
SHORT TERM ACTIVITIES

Individual:

• Ask the children to write down their own address in the way Leon writes his at the beginning of the programme starting with the house number and street and ending with the universe. The children might try the same thing for a blade of grass, a chair in their classroom or a brick in the school wall.

Whole Class:

• Have a joke-telling session. Leon's poem was written in the form of a riddle; does anyone know a joke like that? Start the ball rolling with 'What's white and black and read all over?' (newspaper)

Pairs (Telling Fibs):

• Each child tries to convince his or her partner that they've done something exciting, dangerous, mysterious. How convincing can they be?
• One child imitates a sound and the other has to try and write down what it sounds like using letters. The sounds in the programme were:
1. aeroplane
2. racing-car
3. galloping horse
4. telephone ringing
5. type-writer

LONG TERM ACTIVITIES

Whole Class

• Read T.S Eliot's poem 'Macavity the Mystery Cat'.
• Start off a story and then throw a bean-bag to a child. They then continue the story and throw the beanbag to someone else and so on.
• Have a brain-storming session to make a list of words useful for describing people.

Small Groups

• Ask the children to take a familiar fairy-tale like 'The Three Little Pigs' and summarise it as if it were for a news broadcast. This can make a funny news bulletin which the children might record.
• Use several pillow-cases as feely bags. Put a different object in each bag. One child feels the object and attempts to describe it to the others in the group. Can they guess what it it? Suggested objects; plastic bottle, cuddly toy, rubber glove, kitchen colander...
• Invent a new superhero. Give him or her a name and write a description of their appearance and super-powers. It might help to draw him or her first. Cut out the drawings and glue them to a piece of cardboard. Write the description on the back and make a mobile of this new breed of super-heroes.

Pairs

• Ask the children to write down a description of a teacher or pupil in the school. Can their partner guess who it is from the description?

Individual

• Ask each child to bring in a photo of themselves a few years younger. Use the photos to stimulate writing about memories.

Make a Sound Story

• Ask the children to make up a story with lots of sounds: a ship caught in a big storm; a fire; a car-crash. Then, using instruments like shakers, cymbals, chime-bars, blocks etc, ask them to devise sound effects to accompany their story. Each group can then perform their sound story for the rest of the class.

 
Talking and Listening

Pupils should be given opportunities to

• engage in a range of talking and listening activities.
• listen and respond to a range of fiction, poetry, drama, media texts, visual and audio-visual materials.
• listen to live and media presentation.
• tell or re-tell stories based on memories and personal experiences.
• prepare and give a short oral presentation to a familiar group of the class on personal interests or curricular topics.

Writing

Pupils should have opportunities to:

• experiment with rhymes, rhythms, verse structure and all kinds of verbal play and dialect.

 
WORKSHEETS

 
Click on the arrow below to download the worksheet for this programme.