Junior House get creative in historical fiction workshop
Today is World Book Day, and what a busy day it is around school as we celebrate all things books. From designated reading time in class, to discussing what we like to read, to dressing up as our favourite characters, everyone at Junior King’s has books on the brain.
While all year groups are involved in the action today, Junior House have been enjoying a dedicated Book Week all this week. A crucial stage in the learning journey, Years 3 and 4 represent a developmental period where reading ability really begins to flourish and become key to the learning process. With research underlining the many lifelong benefits of reading for pleasure, it is important to us that reading becomes an interest in and of itself for our pupils, rather than something associated solely with work.
Intended to spark the imagination and develop a passion for stories, much of Book Week’s focus has been on reading and engaging with books, with pupils enjoying a number of class-based activities, as well as a trip to explore and read in our local library, and the chance to buy books at our very own Junior House book shop. On Tuesday, however, the tables were turned when pupils were invited to try their hand at writing a book themselves during a special historical fiction workshop hosted on-site by Stewart Ross.
A prize-winning fiction and non-fiction author whose work focuses on bringing history to life, Stewart was a fabulous speaker, really engaging the class as he took them through some crucial writing basics. After explaining the difference between fiction and non-fiction, Stewart surprised everyone with his insistence that every story should have ‘three snakes’. Clearing up the class’s confusion, he explained that the “snakes” represent the three ‘S’s that can help you structure a narrative: ‘ssssomething going on, ssssomething goes wrong, ssssort it out’. With a bit of help, the classes then had to construct a story together based on this structure, using knowledge gained from recent history lessons.
Having thought up the events of the story together, at the end of the workshop our authors were each tasked with writing an opening line for the book, using mystery to draw the reader into the narrative. It was very exciting to hear the bare bones of the story brought to life as suggestions were read out.
We can’t wait to read what everyone comes up with when the writing process is continued in class time! Thank you to Stewart for tapping into our imaginations and for helping us to appreciate how the books we read come to be written.