All About English Creative Writing

[mrswongtuition]

Blobbi:

Art - won't go cos \"Why should I draw what THEY want? I should draw what I want.\" Anyway, not drawing at home also leh. We're down to whisking eggs, making bubble solutions etc, but the words are not naturally springing forth from his hands yet. :roll:

Use opportunistic teaching.

When playing with bubbles, ask him to pretend he is the bubble and tell about his adventures flying up into the sky!

When whisking, ask him how would he feel if he was the egg. Would he be happy that he is going to be baked into a cake? Or is he sad because whisking is painful?

Make use of every opportunity to tap into their creative minds.

My 3yo boy often tells us stories based on things he sees around him.
He told us a story about a sad caterpillar because it is all alone on the plant, it's mummy & daddy flew away.
\"The caterpillar is so sad. He miss his mummy. Where's his mummy? She flew away. He miss his daddy. His daddy flew away with his mummy.\"

Just today, he told me about hardworking ants (we were staring at red ants near the playground).
\"The ants are very busy. They are busy looking for food. Watch out! A storm is coming! The ants are going to die! Oh no! Mummy, save them!\"

These stories used to be simple questions that we asked him.
\"Is the caterpillar happy?\"
\"Why is the caterpillar alone?\"
\"What are the ants doing?\"
\"Oh no! It's going to rain! What will you do when it rains?\"

I believe that every child has their stories which they want to tell.
Help them by giving them guiding questions. They'll soon learn to piece them up into stories.

[sleepy]

Does mind mapping help in creative writing?

[mrswongtuition]

sleepy:

Does mind mapping help in creative writing?

It does help to generate ideas and develop plots. However, students must know how to use the mindmap to their advantage. I have students who can draw excellent mindmaps with detailed plots, but they could not put it into proper paragraphs and their composition ended up as a 'haphazard piece'.

[Blobbi]

Tks TAS, these are wonderful ideas! The holidays are coming and it would be a fabulous time to start them out. I especially love the spy story - I used to love that myself when I was a kid :).


Mrs Wongtuition, tks for the ideas. So far, I liken DS to the tribes in Africa - all his stories are of the oral tradition :faint: . I've tried to get him to write them down (very numerous and long running stories of parallel worlds), but he says they're a secret. :roll:

Tks all for the wonderful ideas. It sounds like we'll be busy this hols!!

[mrswongtuition]

Blobbi:

Mrs Wongtuition, tks for the ideas. So far, I liken DS to the tribes in Africa - all his stories are of the oral tradition :faint: . I've tried to get him to write them down (very numerous and long running stories of parallel worlds), but he says they're a secret. :roll:

Tks all for the wonderful ideas. It sounds like we'll be busy this hols!!

You can try bringing him to Popular to buy his 'secret journal' to encourage him to write. Allow him to choose a few pens of his favourite colour. Many of my students start writing once they have a journal to call their own. And the incentive of coloured pens is rather attractive at their age.

Since he prefers it to be a secret, promise him that you will not read it unless he gives you permission to.

Writing in his secret journal is also a form of writing. At least it kick starts his 'unwillingness' to write.

[Blobbi]

mrswongtuition:

Blobbi:

Mrs Wongtuition, tks for the ideas. So far, I liken DS to the tribes in Africa - all his stories are of the oral tradition :faint: . I've tried to get him to write them down (very numerous and long running stories of parallel worlds), but he says they're a secret. :roll:

Tks all for the wonderful ideas. It sounds like we'll be busy this hols!!

You can try bringing him to Popular to buy his 'secret journal' to encourage him to write. Allow him to choose a few pens of his favourite colour. Many of my students start writing once they have a journal to call their own. And the incentive of coloured pens is rather attractive at their age.

Since he prefers it to be a secret, promise him that you will not read it unless he gives you permission to.

Writing in his secret journal is also a form of writing. At least it kick starts his 'unwillingness' to write.

Mrswongtuition, u're a treasure trove!

Hopefully, he will take to it this hols.

Thinking through, my goals are very simple - so long as he does his homework without fuss, I'm quite happy. And I want him to use writing naturally, as a tool.

Work In Progress lah. But I hope to start him off on the writing habit, soon.

[Michteach]

Blobbi:

Michteach:

I found using phrases from storybooks very effective as I am feeding the kids continuously with good vocab and effective writing styles from a wide range of authors.

I could let you know what books are especially good for this if you are interested

Hi Michteach,

I'm rather confused about what makes good writing for top marks. Being of the old school, I just read my way to good marks in English. Compositions were done via osmosis, ie, I subconsciously absorbed whatever I read and probably reproduced snippets in my writing.

These days though, I'm stunned that there is such a thing as creative writing classes where kids copy \"model compositions\" and memorise key phrases.

Is it really necessary? My kid is only in P1, but going through kiasuparents, I'm getting a bit worried that I'm out of touch. :roll:

Hi Blobbi,

For myself, I struggled with helping 2 groups of students: helping the good students really write very well and reach their potential and also helping the weak ones to improve.

For the good ones, they can write well in the sense that their grammar is good and they can use apt vocab to describe the scenarios but their writing can be dull in the sense that they do not know how to 'hook' the reader and to write using a richer range of vocab so when The Alternative Story came to do a workshop at my school for teachers, I picked up some of the strategies and got the students to apply them and I could see that the children's writing became more sophisticated and the tension in the story could be felt.

For the weak ones, I also used the strategies to help the students to learn more easily and not hate writing. So that is why I really like using creative writing strategies and borrowing phrases from books. To me, even if your child is ok, I think it is good to expose him to some creative writing, maybe for a start you can get him to be aware of the good vocab in books and get him to use them but also to read for leisure as well so as not to take the joy from reading.

This is from my point of view as a school teacher.

[Michteach]

The Alternative Story:

Michteach:

You can follow them after you have your own twitter account, the company name is The Alternative Story or you can follow them with their twitter name it is - TAlternativeS, if you have any probs, just pm me..I see if I can help with more detailed instructions..happy twitting!

Hi Michteach,

Thanks for the recommendation, we find using Twitter the best way to provide tips for parents and children to help them do well for English. In this way, the children can learn everyday from us and not just when they come for classes.

TAS

Hey TAS,

No worries, I really like the twitter thing you guys did, its free heehee and very informative..:)

[buds]

The Alternative Story:

Hi buds,

Heyya TAS!

The Alternative Story:

Thanks for the detailed information on Twitter and talking about us:). At this rate, even if you are not at TAS, you can enjoy our privileged card membership haha.

Wow! Seriously?

I'd love that! :love:

The Alternative Story:

We love using Twitter at TAS. You can get further book recommendations on our Twitter account too and we will also update the KSP when we do have fantastic book recommendations.

It's great that you guys are keeping up with the hip and the young uns'
out there... being savvy and all, plus engaging them in more meaningful
twitter following. It's just a fabulous idea! :celebrate:

The Alternative Story:

For parents' workshops, we are having one this holidays- Every Child Can Write. (To teach parents creative writing strategies and showing parents how even movies can be used to teach plot development)

The workshop will be on 29 May and 5 June. Those who sign up in a group of 4 get 50% discount. If you are interested, you can email us or pm us.

Sounds interesting!

PM me the itinerary and content, can?
I'm outta the industry too long, mebbe
getting rusty.. so mebbe a refresher
might do me good? :lol:

The Alternative Story:

TAS

A definite plus having TAS here in KiasuParents! :celebrate:

[junrahmat]

Hey buds,

I'm keen in signing up for the parents workshop too. If we can get 4 people, then we'll be entitled to their 50% disc..