Creative Writing Workshop 2013 – Day 4

Our writers are coming along.

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They really are. I was delighted to come into the Activity room and read the worm stories that our able and gifted interns nurtured to birth on Wednesday.

All our interns are deeply reflective and have connected with the children so powerfully that it shows in the relationship of work. There is much hugging, happiness, grumbling and lobbying for ‘a’ type of task amongst the children than before and this is so good! We are all comfortable and I cannot imagine a better space to write than that of ease and feeling secure.

We missed Eric and Arushi today and I hope they come in on Thursday picking up where they left off. In this writing journey, I feel the continuity is what creates the momentum to write and ideally we should have our group together without any breaks.

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Some moments that I thought were precious as we write and learn together were:

1. Demand for the outdoor walk – the children enjoyed their walk to the Church, so they set off to the field and found so much, including puppies, egrets, cow dung, water buffaloes and more.

2. The word association and illustrating game was fun where we connected words gathered as a group to then illustrate brief stories. Each child has become so much more free and spontaneous in telling their story through drawing that it is wonderful.

3. We are all determined implicitly to enable the children to write in their own voices. More often than not these voices are getting powerfully influenced by a Series of books they are all immersed in and that is also interesting. We are able to talk about it, whose voice needs to emerge, what are the different ways we can write the same thing and why there is a need for authenticity. We must seem like a weird bunch to the kids, but I know we are impacting them and some seeds are taking root.

4. Planning gone awry and that is not a bad thing. I find I write these detailed lesson plans and do only a bit of it. This is important, I am prepared but I also allow the children and the mood of the moment or the opportunity to take the session somewhere else lead me. This I come to realise is what makes a good facilitation and with these small numbers, wonderful, creative, supportive interns in Eva, Karuna and Francesca, I feel we are having some really good sessions write away !

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