Book Week Bravado

I have recently been invited to participate in and conduct a number of creative writing workshops at our local primary school as part of this year's Book Week. The aim being to promote and foster the fun and worthiness of literature within a child's world.

Running from the 22nd to the 26th of August, it promises to be a packed, productive and I wonder, if not slightly punishing week.

Of course I'm looking forward to engaging the creative minds and spirits of every child from Prep to Year 7 with a stomach turning mixture of sheer excitement and trepidation. After all how many similar workshops have I attended thus feeling well confident with my content and subject matter? After all how much passion do I possess about the subject matter? After all how difficult can it be to persuade kids to feel the passion too? After all they're kids...They're kids. And there in lies the rub. They're kids; possibly the world's most difficult group to publicly address.

And so with this in mind I feel it prudent to properly prepare myself for Book Week. I'm pretty sure bribes of sweets and gifts won't sustain their attention for long so am issuing this little prayer instead:

God bless all the lovely children. Give them the ability to forgive (and possibly forget if it all goes pear shaped). Allow them to find humour in all that they see and hear from me and equip them with humility and compassion in sufficient enough quantities to get all of us through this wonderful, wonderful week.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Comments

Aussiepam said…
Dont be concerned - kids this age are so exciting to be around. They are interested, show understanding and dont judge. Relax Im sure you'll settle quickly and really enjoy your time in the classes. You wont need bribary - kids love books and creative writing especially during book week. Pamela
Karen Tyrrell said…
Hi dimity,
Congratulations on your Book Week workshops.
My only piece of advice is ... Relax, enjoy and take lots of photos.
DimbutNice said…
I'm sure all you say is true Pamela but they also have super intergalatic x ray vision that can see deep into your soul don't they? I'm looking forward to it really :-)
DimbutNice said…
Karen - brilliant Almost forgot I should take pics. I take pics of nearly everything else. Thanks for advise and support.
So exciting. It's funny but my high school is getting me to go and work with Primary school students in the next few weeks to show them what sort of activities we do in high school English. I'll be doing creative writing workshops too!

Mine are split into 3 sessions, so we'll have one on different ways to generate ideas, one on character development and one on writing our story and finding challenges for the characters. Then they'll finish up their stories and we'll print them up in books for them :)

Let me know if you find an activity that works well with the kids! Best of luck!
DimbutNice said…
That's intriguing Charmaine - good for you too to shake things up a bit. We were going the whole hog from idea to binding but I will be focusing more on 'fun' work shops based on pbs. I hoping to engage the preppies and younger grades with heaps of visual and hands on interplay, using props, drawings etc. The older grades will have group exercises based on the criteria you've mentioned. If you know of any other 'angles' happy to hear them too!
Anonymous said…
I would love it if Solli wrote a poem about virtue signalling.

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