Ah well, another day and another post but isn't that what new toys do? Inspire us to keep using them?!
So today in Lit we started our work on how to find a plot for our stories. If you read a previous post by me you'll know I am a bit of a Pie Corbett fan! I have a wonderful book by him called 'How to Teach Fiction Writing at KS2,' and am using his ideas to help me to teach how to write a plot. I love the way he steals things - we steal words and phrases ALL the time. We steal from authors whose books we are reading, we steal from each other and we steal from anyone who might visit...So stealing a plot formula came quite naturally to us all!
In his book Pie talks about how most well-known stories follow a formula - The Wishing story, The Warning Story, The Red Riding Hood kind of plot, The Finding something story..etc etc So I have followed his ideas and made them my own to suit my class.
We started off by studying the plot of Little RRH altogether on the carpet. We worked out the setting, the main character and a couple of special details about her before we headed into 'plot' land. I used an online version of the story and we discussed it afterwards...ie what happens first, 2nd etc
They then went away and had to sequence the story - 11 strips of paper each (x 33 children..) in piles on tables. They all had to go on a walk round the room to pick up all 11 strips and they did very well! Most managed to sequence all of it, some got a couple of bits muddled but I think that they all got the hang of the idea that good stories follow a logical sequence and it's not 'a bit of this and then a bit of that'...
In the last 10 mins of the end of the lesson I introduced the idea of stealing a plot. We looked at the Little RRH formula and quickly made up a new story that followed that pattern.
'Hanley was a small cheerful boy aged 9 who was asked to deliver some very special papers to a house in the woods in a tiny village in France! He was a bit stuck as to how he would get to France when along came a friendly guy called 'Joe' who just happened to have a rocket that was ready to launch and was actually going to France!
Unbeknown to them a nearby rattlesnake heard their conversation and plotted to blow up the rocket because he knew what was special about the papers that Hanley had been asked to deliver....They were made out of GOLD PAPER and were the only ones like this in the whole wide world. The rattlesnake WANTED them! They were also guarded by 5 special jewels...anyone who tried to to open the case in which the papers were held was put under a spell by the jewels...only the rightful owner could take them without being put under a spell. The rattlesnake thought that as snakes weren't human he could steal the papers and not be put under a spell.....
Obviously I have embellished it a bit but the bones of it all came entirely from them. Then it was lunchtime and we'd run out of time!...We ended it on a cliffhanger! They were all very engaged and full of ideas for the Hanley story. We made it up aurally bit by bit - always following the formula on the IWB. I shall do another session on aural storytelling to a different formula tomorrow!...cant' wait!
So today in Lit we started our work on how to find a plot for our stories. If you read a previous post by me you'll know I am a bit of a Pie Corbett fan! I have a wonderful book by him called 'How to Teach Fiction Writing at KS2,' and am using his ideas to help me to teach how to write a plot. I love the way he steals things - we steal words and phrases ALL the time. We steal from authors whose books we are reading, we steal from each other and we steal from anyone who might visit...So stealing a plot formula came quite naturally to us all!
In his book Pie talks about how most well-known stories follow a formula - The Wishing story, The Warning Story, The Red Riding Hood kind of plot, The Finding something story..etc etc So I have followed his ideas and made them my own to suit my class.
We started off by studying the plot of Little RRH altogether on the carpet. We worked out the setting, the main character and a couple of special details about her before we headed into 'plot' land. I used an online version of the story and we discussed it afterwards...ie what happens first, 2nd etc
They then went away and had to sequence the story - 11 strips of paper each (x 33 children..) in piles on tables. They all had to go on a walk round the room to pick up all 11 strips and they did very well! Most managed to sequence all of it, some got a couple of bits muddled but I think that they all got the hang of the idea that good stories follow a logical sequence and it's not 'a bit of this and then a bit of that'...
In the last 10 mins of the end of the lesson I introduced the idea of stealing a plot. We looked at the Little RRH formula and quickly made up a new story that followed that pattern.
'Hanley was a small cheerful boy aged 9 who was asked to deliver some very special papers to a house in the woods in a tiny village in France! He was a bit stuck as to how he would get to France when along came a friendly guy called 'Joe' who just happened to have a rocket that was ready to launch and was actually going to France!
Unbeknown to them a nearby rattlesnake heard their conversation and plotted to blow up the rocket because he knew what was special about the papers that Hanley had been asked to deliver....They were made out of GOLD PAPER and were the only ones like this in the whole wide world. The rattlesnake WANTED them! They were also guarded by 5 special jewels...anyone who tried to to open the case in which the papers were held was put under a spell by the jewels...only the rightful owner could take them without being put under a spell. The rattlesnake thought that as snakes weren't human he could steal the papers and not be put under a spell.....
Obviously I have embellished it a bit but the bones of it all came entirely from them. Then it was lunchtime and we'd run out of time!...We ended it on a cliffhanger! They were all very engaged and full of ideas for the Hanley story. We made it up aurally bit by bit - always following the formula on the IWB. I shall do another session on aural storytelling to a different formula tomorrow!...cant' wait!
LOVE the fish ;o)