'S no Joke ....

Hi everyone.  I am sorry I had to cancel today's Young Writer session.  I received an email from Cathryn at the library asking if I'd be coming along today and at that moment I was on a bus in the middle of a blizzard so I said I had my doubts.  We agreed it might be better for everyone if we cancelled today because of the weather as it was looking doubtful that anyone would be able to make it with the snow coming down like it was.  I hope not too many of you turned up but if you did have a wasted journey, I am truly sorry.  Things are looking much better this afternoon and I am confident I will be there next Saturday (which was the next scheduled session anyway).  In the (almost) six years I have been running AYW, that is the first time I have had to cancel because of adverse weather conditions, so from that point of view, I guess I shouldn't grumble.

What we will do next Saturday (10th) is start with the brief mentioned last post, which was to attempt to create your own short poetry form and we will see where we go from there.

Once again I am sorry I let you down today but looking forward to seeing you all next Saturday.

Let's Get Creative!

Hi gang. I hope you are all well and surviving the arctic weather!  Considering I live in a suburban back road, even we have had a good couple of inches of the white stuff.  Hopefully, it will not jeopardize this Saturday's session but if it looks as if it will I will do my best to let you all know.  Assuming everything is ok, my plan this week is to get the Young Writers to attempt to create their own short poetry form which should be a lot of fun as well as something of a challenge. 

Don't forget to encourage the Young Writers to come up with some ideas for our poetry title, Too.

See you all Saturday.

Thinking Caps On Please ...

Hi everyone. Brilliant Young Writer Group last Saturday.  Considering it was the first Saturday of the Half Term, I was delighted that 10 youngsters came along.  We were looking at I Wish poems and how they can be varied.  It is an American poetry form I think, but the Young Writers soon cottoned on and were coming up with ideas of their own.  One brave young lady attempted a poem with a rhyming word at the end of every line, making a pretty good job of it too.   Others soon realised that such poems are an excellent vehicle to make a particular point, such as an aversion to the colour pink, which came from one of the girls rather than one of the boys!  All in all, it was a very successful session and a big well done to everyone for giving it their best shot.  The assignment set was to create a brand new I Wish poem, preferably with a theme to it, and any brought it for marking will of course count towards their next Certificate.  And talking of Certificates, well done to Tyler who was awarded his Rainbow last week.  He has been a member for just under a year so to achieve this in such a short space of time is testament to his hard work, so well done, Tyler.

I have also set the young writers a challenge and that is to come up with a title for the poetry leaflet we will be putting together, so get your thinking caps on everyone.  We want something short and snappy (like 'Word Magic' for example) which is specific to poetry so if anyone has any ideas, please bring them along and if need be, we will put them to the vote.

The next session is on Saturday 3rd March  and not the 24th as originally planned, which means of course that there will be two sessions in a row since the next scheduled session would then be 10th March.  I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you all but it is out of my hands and something I could not avoid; so please don't turn up on 24th because I am afraid I will not be there.

One last thing before I shoot off, just a quick reminder that all poems featured in our leaflet will earn its author a Special Award certificate and, due to limited space, I need short poems, in order to fit in as many as I can.

See you on 3rd March, then.

Introducing I WISH poems

Hello everyone. Very good Young Writer session last Saturday with Poetry at its centre.  I introduced the idea of creating a Poetry Leaflet before the summer.  It will be less expensive than producing a book yet still give everyone the opportunity to see their work published.  If it is successful, perhaps it can be done again, but we will see.  The assignment was to write a poem on the theme of ANIMALS in any of the many poetic forms we have already covered.  All poems completed and returned on 10th February session will count towards the next certificate so it is definitely worth a go.

At that session I will also be introducing  new poetry form - the I WISH poem.  This is a comparitively easy poem to write.  It only runs to 8 or 10 lines and is doesn't have to rhyme - although if anyone would like to try it in rhyme, that is perfectly okay.  An example of an I WISH poem is:

I wish the sun would always shine.
I wish the birds would always sing.
I wish that flowers would always bloom.
I wish my gran would always smile.
I wish the baby wouldn't cry.
I wish the stars would twinkle bright
I wish that fairy tales came true
I wish, I wish, all day and night.

In this example I have rhymed the last couple of lines but because it runs in couplets, it would be quite easy to make the whole thing rhyme!  Obviously a common theme running through the poem would make sense, but I particularly like it because it is a very child-friendly poetry form that does not require too much work - just a love of words and some lively ideas.

So don't forget the date of our next session then, same time, same place.  Look forward to seeing you all.

Let's Get Poetic!

Hi everyone!  As mentioned in the previous post, for the next few sessions we will be looking at poetry, so I hope the Young Writers have geared themselves up to all things poetic.  My plan is to introduce a theme to each session and hopefully find at least one Young Writer-friendly new poetry form to try, so fingers crossed.  At this week's session, 27th January, I will provide a work sheet reminding everyone which poetry forms we have already tried and how they are set out, and I will probably bring in some of my poetry booklets for them to read through.

Looking forward to seeing you all there, then, same time, same place!

GREAT START!!!

Wonderful to see fourteen Young Writers in attendance at last week's session - the first since the Christmas break.  I also had several enquiries which bodes well for the future.

We started off with the easy task of writing a short review and most of them rose to the challenge - even the younger ones.  As a pre-cursor to the next few sessions, the assignment set at the end of the session was to write a free-style poem since Poetry will be the on-going theme for a while; I will explain why next time.

It was nice to welcome a new member and congratulations to Naya who received her Purple certificate.  For the benefit of the new members, I will just clarify how the Certificate Trail works.  Each member gets a Blue certificate to welcome them into the group.  Upon completion of four written assignments, they receive a Red, upon completion of eight, they receive a Purple and upon completion of twelve assignments, they receive a Rainbow and that is the highest accolaide.  If they decide to stay on, they move into Band 2, and then Band 3 and so on.  I have a couple of members who are almost on their Rainbow Band 3.  As always there are little awards plus sundry competitions they can participate in; anything to give them the incentive to Keep Writing, so please encourage your young wordsmiths to take part in the assignments.

I will also just add that I am not a teacher.  I share my passion for writing and in doing so, I help the children to express themselves and grow in confidence.  I also think it is good to have a bit of competition as well as to help one another along.

I look forward to seeing you all at the next session on 27th.

Let's Get Writing!

Hi everyone.  Happy New Year!  I hope all the Young Writers have made a New Year Resolution to write more because I am convinced there's at least half a dozen future successful writers out there somewhere!

Quick reminder that we have our first session of 2018 this Saturday (13th) so looking forward to seeing everyone there between 9.30 and 10.30.  We will start off quite gently; it is never easy to get straight back into things after a break, is it -  but I am planning some new projects to try from February onwards so watch this space.

Dates for forthcoming sessions are as follows:
13.01.18
27.01.18
10.02.18
24.02.18
10.03.18
24.03.18
07.04.18
21.04.18
05.05.18
19.05.18
02.06.18
30.06.18
14.07.18 - possibly the last session of the school year.

All these are yet to be confirmed by the library team and are subject to change, but I thought you'd like a rough idea.

See you all Saturday!