Day 7

Today is our final session with Sandy. A time which has come around quite quickly for all those involved.

Today Sandy began by sharing one of her manuscripts with the children. They were amazed at how long it was. Sandy explained she initially writes down her story as quickly as possible. For this manuscript she wrote for about 3 hours a day for three weeks, tumbling the ideas out. Then she put it away for about 3 to 4 weeks in a drawer to have time away from it. During this time she got on with other things including more writing. When she returned to it a few weeks later she decided which bits she liked and which bits she didn't. After that she reads the manuscript right through and then puts it on to the computer, prints out a copy and then writes all over it making lots of changes as she reads it through.She prints another copy and makes more changes. She repeats this process until she is happy with it. She then likes to read it aloud (when no one is home) to see how it sounds. Once she is completely happy she sends the final manuscript to the publisher. Sandy stressed to the children the importance of rewriting as your work gets better and better every time you rewrite it.

The children then worked on editing their work. Sandy had been through the copies they had given her at the previous session and worked through her suggestions with each child. We were concerned that some children would struggle to complete their work today but by the end of the session all but one had their story fairly well completed. We will have a final tidy up over the next week and then we will email them to Sandy who will provide any final feedback.
The final stage will be to publish their work, something they are quite excited about.
Sandy presented each child with a copy of her book Eureka which she personally signed for them. They were all thrilled to bits.
Tomorrow Sandy is coming back to talk to all the children in the school about being an author as part of our fortnights focus on books.

I would like to thank the Book Council for giving our school this fantastic opportunity of working with a local author. They have gained a lot of new ideas and have a greater appreciation for the work an author does and especially how it is not a quick process and all work can be greatly improved with time and patience. As a teacher I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and have some new ideas to try with my own class especially in the writing of a first draft and in taking time over a piece of work.Anyone offered this opportunity should take it.

Day 6 Des Hunt Waiotahe Valley School Thurs March 25 2011

“Ko Whangakopoikipiko ahau. Ko tenei taku pūrakau.”
“I am Whangakopikipiko. This is my story.”

Today is to be our final day with Des Hunt. It has been so busy, successful and rewarding. Our batteries are recharged after and extremely busy day yesterday. Most of our day was spent in final face to face interviews with Des and individual students. One of our students has started experimenting with illustrations to go with her work which is in the form of a sophisticated story book.

Most of the students had a final draft to go away with for their final edit before sending it to Des at some stage within the last two weeks of term.
For a finale, Des gave another one of his scientific, writing metaphor presentations. He was illustrating the element of suspense and surprise, particularly relating to the end of a story.


On behalf of Waiotahe Valley School I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Book Council, Des Hunt and the CORE Team for this invaluable experience. Our students have gained so much from this project.

Bridie Wilson

Day 5 Des Hunt Waiotahe Valley School Wed March 24 2011

“Ko Whangakopoikipiko ahau. Ko tenei taku pūrakau.”
“I am Whangakopikipiko. This is my story.”

Today was an incredibly industrious day. Every laptop in the school and writers families was employed to bring the students stories to print. Stories were finalised and to make the process of editing easier when Des left, we posted all stories electronically so that we could ‘track changes’ as authors and publishers do quickly between Des and the students.

Once the stories were committed to print and revised by the students it was time for Des to complete a second discussion with the students about next steps in the writing process for them and their writing.

The part of the day that the students responded to the best was the sense of achievement they felt as their first electronic version of their writing whirred out of the printer. The students learnt a great deal about how to use the more sophisticated components of Word and the importance of save, save and save your work!

Day 4 Des Hunt Waiotahe Valley School Tuesday March 22 2011

“Ko Whangakopoikipiko ahau. Ko tenei taku pūrakau.”
“I am Whangakopikipiko. This is my story.”

Our Waiotahe Valley School pupils bask in the limelight of the CORE Team today while staying centred on revising and reworking aspects of their writing.Jahnika Timmins discussing the planning and drafting stages of his story with the CORE film crew.

The review process between Des and the students continued throughout the morning. Again Des gave in depth individualised, specific feed back to the students. Students were beginning to move their pen and paper written stories onto electronic technology.

Day 3 Des Hunt Waiotahe Valley School Monday March 21 2011

“Ko Whangakopoikipiko ahau. Ko tenei taku pūrakau.” “I am Whangakopikipiko. This is my story.”

Writing, writing and writing! We used the pen and paper method with one student exception. Des and I discussed whether the writers should go straight to the computer and write as he had modelled or if they should write with pen and paper . Pen and paper was decided upon so that we could capture the flow of ideas.

Today was to be our first CORE day! Not only were the students excited about being writers, they were awe struck at being captured on film! So exciting but so nerve racking!
The CORE Team of Jed and Jenny arrived this afternoon. The film team and the participating teacher spent time discussing the type of shots that the film team wanted to shoot and to plan interviews with Des and our Waiotahe Valley School Literacy Leader , Louise Larsen to document the process.

The students continued with their writing and were beginning their initial interviews with Des as they finalised their first drafts. Des gave the students specific, detailed advice and constructive criticism and set them off on their revised versions.

Day 2 Des Hunt Waiotahe Valley School Friday March 18 2011

“Ko Whangakopikopiko ahau. Ko tenei taku pūrakau.”
“I am Whangakopoikopiko. This is my story."

Day two started with a fantastic presentation from Des. He had created a power point presentation which he augmented with little chemistry experiments. This presentation helped the students learn a little more about the relevance between the properties of chemistry and the structure of writing. Des explained the chemistry of ‘attraction versus repulsion’ in positioning characters which was well received by the students. He also illustrated with an experiment the importance of being precise and adding just the right amount of action or tension in the students’ writing.

We moved on to individual students planning for their stories. Des had shown in his presentation how he went to the computer straight way with his ideas. Des was very responsive to our Year 7 and 8 students using a ‘big picture approach to planning’ which involved using big pieces of paper and felt pens as he recognised that the students did not have the sophisticated word processing skills to commit their ideas to electronic print.

One of the skills that the students found helpful and learnt on the day was how to keep the reader interested in the story. Des read from his latest book The Peco Incident to illustrate how he does this, by telling a little story in a story. The students were then able to use this example as a model to follow in their writing. The students also liked the idea that they could begin to plan their own story and enjoyed creating their characters. The students responded best to the chemistry presentation, particularly the melting steel! This experiment was conducted to illustrate that if something doesn’t work in your writing then pull it apart and come at it again from another angle. This was a very affirming analogy as the students are involved in peer and self review. It was beneficial for them to hear that even experienced authors undo their work and have to rework it.

Throughout the whole day we all could have been forgiven in thinking that we were here for the purpose of writing. We were having so much fun learning.

Creative Coaching Residencies Taumarunui Day 5 with Kathy White

I got told off today. The kids at Taumarunui Primary told me I didn't finish my story A Hairy Tale properly. They didn't want me to end it where I did - they wanted it to carry on, so they could find out if Vince and Joelle ever got lovey-dovey. I tied up all the other ends, but there was only a hint that the love prospect may come to something. It just goes to show that the author often doesn't know it all. Or perhaps it's a good sign that they were enjoying it so much that they didn't want it to end.

We had a fabulous discussion about the characters in the Harry Potter books and movies and how they changed throughout the seven volumes. I couldn't believe how much these kids have remembered and how much they absorbed that I missed. Hihiri would probably score 100% in a Harry Potter knowledge quiz. Their teacher Kathryn is wondering whether they might have to go on a school outing to the new movie. Personally, I can't wait for Part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Kathryn has proposed that the kids create a collection of short stories, get them illustrated and published, and sell them. It's a great idea. It will also prompt some tough decisions. Some kids are struggling to make progress in the middle of their stories. It's a tough part of the story. All writers sometimes have to abandon a story if it isn't strong enough to go the distance, but it's difficult to know when to give up on it. A couple of students have done that already and they've become inspired by their second idea. We're going to get on the computers tomorrow so we should start to see some of these stories springing into life.

A number of kids at Ngakonui Valley School are nearly finished their first draft, so some people read out their stories and we all made comments and suggestions about what we thought worked well and what we thought would make them even better.

The most common things were:

• Too much telling. Show more with dialogue and body language. Less narrative.
• Change the pace for the important bits. Add tension by changing the length of sentences, and use the senses to create mood and feeling.
• Use verbs like ambled or shuffled (good suggestion from Madison) rather than walked slowly.
• Reduce words like 'was', 'were', 'started to', suddenly, and 'then.'
• Avoid cliches. Try and think of an original way to describe something.

I suggested that sometimes simple is best but not everyone agreed with me. I always used to think that my writing was better when I used a lot of words, especially adjectives. Sometimes it is, but I have to be careful. It's easy for me to fall in love with my own writing. I confessed to everyone that I'm struggling with one of my books at the moment because I've written a beginning that I love but it really doesn't fit with the rest of my story. I suspect I need to dump it. But it's such a lovely piece of writing!

I said "Sometimes you have to kill your babies."

They all roared with laughter.

It's a particularly bad phrase, isn't it?

I don't even know where it came from.

Anyway, I also confessed that I overuse a few words too - actually, suddenly, just and anyway. No one seemed to have noticed but I'll bet they notice from now on.

Kathy