Creative Coaching at Central Normal School Day 13

Very last session (I was going to leave the students with Tracye for this one, but couldn’t stop myself popping in to make sure everything was going to plan!)

I’ve loved working with the students, and although it’s fantastic to see the finished results I am a little bit sad about ending the project! It’s been just delightful to see their ideas and work out with them how they could develop them, to watch a few brave ones start again and get a better result, and to see their characters and storylines take shape and meaning. It’s a huge task to put so many skills together to make a finished project – starting from writing a workable story through to design and illustration. It’s something that I’ve never had to do myself, and I’m so pleased that they’ve all managed to complete a picture-book that they, and Tracye and I, are proud of.

Having Tracye to work with was fabulous – we really made a good team. She had wonderful ideas about illustrations, kept the class motivated and energetic, and helped me out with grammar!

It’s been a very worthwhile project to be part of, and I hope the students will keep on creating and developing their skills. We’re all very grateful to Book Council for making this possible, it’s been a great team to be on.

Diana Neild, Pig Writer.

Photos Creative Coaching Diana Neild at Central Normal School

Creative Coaching at Central Normal School : Student's Voices

I enjoyed having Diana helping me and giving me her opinion on my writing I enjoyed creating the characters for my picture book; I was not happy with my first attempt and had to create new characters, which I am pleased with how they’ve developed.

The most challenging thing for me was time-management. I found it hard to finish writing my short story, which hindered the start of my picture book.

I learned that it is not as easy, to produce a picture book, as it looks. And that your first ideas are not always your best, because I changed my story twice before I was happy with it.

Stephanie Kelly

I have really enjoyed having Diana Neild coaching us and playing her saxophone and flute to our characters (she was awesome!).

Keeping on top of all the homework was a bit challenging as I’m not really used to that amount; but I did get it all done on time. One of the things I have learned in these sessions with Diana is that the process of making a picture book doesn’t happen over-night.

Miss Katon’s character composting seems to have helped in the development of my main character ‘Little Bunny’, who is based upon my friend Anna, my Mum and myself.

Shannen Petersen

I’ve really enjoyed how we turned nothing into great characters and cool stories! Coming up with a title was very challenging, so I had to get Diana to help me.

I learned what the process of making a picture book was; it was very, very, very exciting, a lot of fun and masses of hard work. I am very proud of my book.

Anna Reynolds

I’ve really enjoyed going through the publishing process, and having Diana in was helpful. ALL Miss Katon and Diana’s amazing ideas helped me sort out a plan to achieve my finished product.

The most challenging thing was doing all the illustrations and going through the roughs and story-boards; it took quite a while.

I have definitely now learned how to rhyme. Before I came to Writing Extension I did not rhyme specifically to carry my story-line, rather I just used random words. I can now rhyme well and I do this by just changing a word or sometimes even a whole line. I have learned to stick to the story-line whilst rhyming.

Brittany Tyler-Whiteman\

I have enjoyed having Diana having Diana Neild help us with our picture books, alongside my teacher Miss Katon. Diana showed us the publishing procedure, which helped us a lot. Now I know that writing and illustrating a book is not as easy as it looks.

My first big challenge was that my original story was too complicated. It had a lot of characters and it was hard to get a story-line that would maintain interest for the reader. It got a bit muddly and Diana and I discussed it and decided that I needed to change my story. I use animal characters in my new version, instead of humans, and I used a much simpler story.

I am really proud of my illustrations and I loved using tissue paper to do them.

Nikita Taylor

I have enjoyed working with an actual NZ writer (Diana Neild), and having the opportunity to be in Writing extension. The thing that I found challenging was the amount of homework that we had to do. I’m just not used to it.

I have learned a lot about making a picture book, it’s been really fun and I hope I can do it again next year.

Zara Matson

I really enjoyed making my picture book. Three words that explain Writing Extension, IT WAS HARD! Especially having Miss Katon gently encouraging me to do the work required each night (the famous bollockings!).

The most challenging part was figuring out what to write.

Diana made ‘my poor book’ into something really exciting. We changed the tense, the grammar and a few other things to create impact and help it flow.

I learned a lot about time-management (if you don’t do the work on time, Miss K will gently remind you!).

Joshua Beattie

PS I love you really Miss K xoxo

At writing Extension I have enjoyed learning the writing process and working with Diana Neild.

Illustrating the book was the hardest (although I love art) with all of the gluing and painting, but I really enjoyed learning how a book was made and developing my characters.

There was a lot of homework, but I kept on top of it with the help and encouragement of my lovely mother, Miss Katon. It has been funny (as in strange and different) working with Miss K as it is not something we do often.

Daisy Roebuck

I’ve enjoyed writing a picture book with the help of Diana, she made it seem so natural. The most challenging thing was completing my illustrations and getting my character to look how I wanted it to.

I learned that Miss Katon wouldn’t lower her expectations in this class, if anything she made them higher.

Two words that describe Writing Extension, Hard work.

Next time I would like to put in more effort. My first story-line was a little confused and I decided to start again quite late in the term. I’m much happier with my new story and I’m proud of my achievements.

Maia Liddy.

I have enjoyed learning about the process of actually writing and illustrating my own picture book. It’s been a long journey back from where we started with human’s characters and lots of descriptions. I don’t think that I kept a single line of my first story. I guess the illustrating was the most challenging. It’s hard to make the characters look how you want them, but I’m really proud of what I have achieved.

It’s been a big help having a real writer working with us! Diana even did little tunes for our characters one day, with her flute and saxophone.

Georgia Berg

I have had an awesome time with Diana! I have enjoyed learning soooooo much about producing and publishing a picture book, what a fabulous ride!

The students have been amazing, and when you think about their ages, totally blows me away with what they have achieved.

We have all worked extremely hard to complete this project; it really is a huge undertaking for all concerned, but well worth the effort.

We still have our celebration to look forward to and I can’t wait to show off my wonderful students and their awesome work!

Tracye Katon

Teacher

PS I love you too Joshie lol

Creative Coaching at Central Normal School Day 12

Well, there are definite signs of finishing the project. Yay. One was totally complete, but there were still punctuation mistakes that we had to correct with twink. There still needed to be more proof-reading in the draft stage by some of them, but they are only year 5/6, and haven’t seen the amount of written work that Tracye and I have in our hundreds of years of reading, so won’t have developed that eye for mistakes. It’s worth developing. One child was definitely behind the others, and it’s become frustrating for both of us with this particularly lagger, as we don’t see much progress from one week to the next and we keep having to go over the same things. Still, it’s a good story and a credible character, so worth persevering.

We’ve got a real variety of characters and styles and techniques with these picture books. We’re very pleased with what they’ve managed to produce out of a blank page – we’re pleased with the standard of creativity and the thought that’s gone into their picture-books.. They are trying to pull together quite a few different skills into one finished project, and without doing dozens of drafts first, it’s a difficult thing to achieve. They’ve done well. There are a million things to think of with a project like this – even remembering to put your name on the cover as writer and illustrator! Most of them have done really well with the time-frame, and showing enthusiasm every week. Remembering their ages, it can be quite daunting to have to re-do two pages of illustrations because something doesn’t fit with the story, or the size isn’t right, or the character is doing the wrong thing. They’ve been great kids to work with, and I think they are pretty proud of what they’ve achieved. I reminded them last week that none of these characters were in existence before – they’ve created them from inside their heads – and shaped them themselves.

Tomorrow the students are going to write a piece for the blog each about what they learnt from the project, what they found challenging, and what they’d do differently next time. And next week (hopefully) they’ll be presenting them to junior classes and parents. It’ll be a good moment, and we’ll have the camera out.

Diana Neild

Creative Coaching at Central Normal School Day 11

This is my second to last visit, and yay!!! We are seeing some things that are looking close to finished products. Tracye’s bollicking yesterday was terribly effective - I really wish I could do that with my kids, but it’s either something you learn at College of Ed or it’s genetic.

The Eric Carle tissue paper pictures are fabulous. When I saw what they would have to do at the beginning with those ones I thought they’d take forever, but once the sheets of paper had been glued it didn’t take them too long to cut out. They really make the characters stand out and are very child-appealing. And adult-appealing.

I helped a few of them with writing a blurb for the back (something I’ve never had success with with my own stories, so I need the practice) and we discussed some cover ideas. I went over some of the titles they’d used with them, and we came up with a few improvements – just tighter language and more specifically relating to the story. We’re still finding editing errors, we’re quite sure that the computer has a gremlin living in it that changes things after we’ve left the room.

They’re meant to have everything finished by Tuesday, and we’ll use that session for checking their work before the final print – we know that they won’t all be finished, but most of them will. There will be one or two that will be gently encouraged to do some homework.

One thing that I would do next time that I’m working with a group over a period of time is to take a photo of all the children and write a couple of notes and their names beside them – I’ve only now really got to grips with who is who, and I really don’t like not being able to use their names from the beginning.

Tracye says that if she was doing it again she would make her group smaller, or split the group into two different types – one very able, and the other that she would like to extend, to bring up to the very able level.

Diana Neild

Creative Coaching at Central Normal School Day 10

Today we had most of them working on final artwork, and just a few stragglers still needing text editing and a bomb under them. They’ve chosen a variety of techniques, and quite a few are doing a variation on Eric Carle’s style. Some are doing the tissue paper with paint (water colour), some with black art pen and some with colouring in pencil. Some have used computer images alongside free-hand drawing, and some have yet to decide and are driving us mad. We’ve decided to give them two more sessions and then they will have to have finished. This gives them a week, and then we’ll have our celebration. On the whole we are pretty happy with how they are turning out. The illustrations are moving the stories and are adding more detail to it – there is good visual interest. I still think that some of the stories would have been better not in rhyme, as it’s made the text a little clumsier than it needed to be. However, the children find rhyming really appealing and they still learned a lot in the process of writing it. They played with the feel and the sound of the words, and they’ve had to learn to change things and find new vocabulary when things would make rhyme or sense. Sometimes they’ve had to look outside word families (Tracye the teacher talking) and think of long and short vowel sound patterns and different spelling choices. So maybe it was a good thing for them to do, and the process was more important than the finished result.

Diana Neild and Tracey Katon