Day 4 of the Summer Institute

Today Claire provided us with a demo that had been inspired by her work with a writing group in her school.  She noted that she draws on Donald Graves work and his four essentials -  All Children Can Write.  She noted those essentials for us:

1. time 

2. child choice 

3. response to child meaning 

4. establishment of a community of learners.

Claire emphasised the importance of play and how at one point she had forgotten that play is important for all our students - for all of us.

She noted how much we need to remember that writers ask themselves questions about the world - not just about big global issues but also about the apparent trivia.  She talked about seeing the world afresh.  It triggered for me that line from Kavanagh which resurfaced now years after hearing it first but which has often echoed: 'And the newness that was in every stale thing.'  

As a group we played an A-Z story making game which led to a lot of laughter from the various contributions.  We followed this with choosing a picture from a newspaper, cutting it out, building a character and putting them in to a story.

Today we also had writing time with our groups in part preparation for the Author's Chair today.

The day finished with a contribution from Lawrence Cleary, from the Regional Writing Centre in University of Limerick who urged us to consider writing processes.  He used some of their wonderful 'How I write Ireland' footage to demonstrate the sort of questions we could ask of ourselves as writers and of our students.  He also provided practical advice about how to make similar videos to what UL has produced.
Tomorrow is our last day  ...