Creative Coaching Residencies Bay of Islands – Rural Residency with Don Long

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

After a quick check that everyone knows the jobs that sub-headings, opening paragraphs, and closing paragraphs do, prompted by one girl’s question, each group then confirmed every writing team member’s tasks and the writing teams began work on their first drafts.

With all four groups writing about the same topic, everyone’s questions, ideas, answers, and feedback are a help to everyone else.

One girl had found out how air brakes work from her dad. She explained this to everyone. On the way to Opua this morning, I asked several truck drivers the same question and took some photographs, which were the perfect visual supplement to the explanation from the dad.

Another girl found a fabulous click-on about the walk-around safety check that a truck driver is supposed to do. And I love the flowchart that one team is developing, using numbered, overlapping photographs that they are planning to take.

These kids have really understood the writing challenge and are doing a terrific job of putting their first drafts together, guided by the storyboards they prepared.

The police officer is coming late on Thursday morning to do a read-through check to ensure that everyone has got the safety issues and alignments with the road code right. So we need to have our first drafts mocked up and ready by then.

At the last session at Paihia a group of Room 5 students, who had been rehearsing, read their play to a parent, the school librarian, and to me. It was terrific to see the depth of their understanding, which was evident in what they were doing with their voices. The parent and the librarian, who hadn’t heard the play before, were laughing at all the right moments – always a good sign! The class had also prepared a display of their illustrations to show me. There are lots of fun ideas for what the aliens look like.

Tomorrow, Paihia School is off to an offshore island for a two-day school camp. The children plan to present their play to the rest of the school as part of the entertainment tomorrow night. They’ve also offered their play to the Feet First website.

I had a quick meeting with Eveleen at Russell on the way back to Tapeka, and we agreed on a change of tack for tomorrow. With her students all writing individually (or, in three cases, in pairs) I’m going to spend the day working with individual writers (and pairs). We’re both convinced that this will solve the group dynamics thing that isn’t quite working at the moment – they need more individual support.

Don Long