Telling Into Writing

       I have preparedsome of the resources  for "Telling into writing" a new story writing project based on the work of Pie Corbett. It was originally designed for use in KS1 but our school are involved in extending the scheme though out KS2 as well. Each of these units of work links to the targets for that term.    

     I was focussing on the story of Handsel & Gretel for Yr5 The story is fairly simple to learn but the work of the two week block is more complex with the children having to tell the story from another point of view.

(First in letters to and from the characters, then in a magazine interview format, before finally moving on to a piece of extended writing.) I have prepared a pack of resources to be used to support this, including web sites.

My current favourite is:

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/hanselgretel/index.html

This is another good one, a lovely pan-european selection of stories including Hansel & Gretel:

http://www.eurotales.eril.net/hans0.htm

 All these packs & schemes of work  are available to download from the LancsNGFL website

and the Hansel and Gretal one direct as a pdf from here

How It Works

First the children are taught a story or poem, with a range of actions & visual cues. Then when they know the story off by heart, teachers use it as a starting point for a two week block of work. Each school has produced a range of resources for teachers of a year group to use in a two week block in the Summer term. Each of these units of work links to the targets for that term.

 I was focusing on the story of Hansel & Gretel for Yr5 The story is fairly simple to learn but the work of the two week block is more complex with the children having to tell the story from another point of view.

(First in letters to and from the characters, then in a magazine interview format, before finally moving on to a piece of extended writing.) I have prepared a pack of resources to be used to support this, including web sites.

My current favourites are:

SurLaLune and

Eurotales

This is the second year I have been involved in using this pack. This year's children also worked together on illustrations for the story in their art topic on fabric collage for 3 weeks before the start of the work. I'll post the wonderful images they produced on Monday.

One of the most impressive aspects of the work this year was the hotseating. One of the girls was chosen to dress up and be Gretal and she was stunning. She showed a level of sophistication and subtlety in her answers to her classmates' questions far beyond anything we'd thought possible. She gave us a Gretal with a real dark side, a hidden personality, who knew that her father and brother were essentially too weak to cope with her as the killer of the witch. Her questioners totally suspended their disbelief and accepted that she really was Gretal, questions grew in their depth and emotional range and it really was quite magical. It was hard to remember that this child was only nine years old and made me realise that we often seriously underestimate our charges based on their written work

See some of their work here:

(teacher K. Costley, illustrations by Year 5T Ridge Community Primary School, Lancaster, UK. )