We hope you've all had a wonderful summer!
Bound by Words was a course for 11 - 13 year olds and it was all about writing and making books. We had 5 students (after one sadly had to go home ill - we missed you Jack!)
We started the week thinking about words and language and how to present them on the page. We wandered about the grounds of Kilve collecting similies, metahpors, onomatopoeic words and any other interesting descriptions we could think of. These musings were then turned into class poems. The boys' poem was called Small Worlds: 'The tree is a huge, many armed giant, so sleek, so silent. The bark has fissures, the tree is weeping. It's heart is broken.' The girls' was called Garden of Dreams: 'A firecracker of colour, sugar lilac bleaching to dainty pink, the whoosh of a breeze.'
We spent Tuesday afternoon at Cleeve Abbey, soaking up some wonderful sunshine as well the peaceful and beautiful ambience of the site. Students let their imaginations fly free. What was the old ruin - the shattered shell of a bombed cathedral? A fantastical castle hidden in the Somerset valleys? Or maybe not a ruin at all but a grand palace decorated with rich tapstries and painted walls? We all took our time writing up descriptions and imagining characters from our stories arriving. What would they do here? What would bring them to such a place? Jennifer found this exercise so inspiring that she ended up writing a whole new segment to her book!
Students had all brought stories with them that they had been working on at home. We spent the rest of the week working on these, writing, workshopping and editing until the stories were honed and polished - sparkling prose.
Next step was to design and create books to keep the stories safe. Jennifer and I were really impressed with the huge variety of covers and stories. William had a suitably frightening cover for his gothic ghost story Hide and Seek, with boggling eyes peeping out between blades of grass. Ellie however opted for an elegant black cover with the sun being consumed by darkness for her book Shadows and Zak went for a battered journal look for his story set in an alternative World War Two.
Once the covers were done, students had to think about the insides as well. Marbled end papers, illuminated lettering, illustrations and borders were all used to wonderful effect by everyone. I particulary love William's charismatic ghost and Rowanne's beautiful illuminated lettering.
Thanks to everyone that joined us there, we had a brilliant summer week being creative and enjoying the sunshine!
I had a great day thinking of devilish piratical tales on Tales of the High Seas at Walford Mill in Wimborne. The day was spent making log books, flags and writing adventurous stories. Students learnt about the different characters that would have lived on board, from boatswains to cabin boys, and everyone had a chance to dress up and imagine themselves as a pirate character! It was a fun and fast paced day, with wondeful weather to help dry out tea-stained pages!
Now the summer holidays are over we are gearing up for the autumn term. On Saturday 19th we will be in Poole town centre making wings of words and flags of fables with anyone who'd like to join us. The event is completely free so if you're near Poole just drop by between 10-12 or 1-3, we'd love to see you. (It's part of the Street Arts Festival - see Borough of Poole website for other events!)
In October we have a few day courses: World of Wonder, Grisly Grimm and Tall Tales and Wonderful Worlds. We'll be discovering stories from across the globe, making fairytale puppets and discovering fantasy settings. For more information please see the 'upcoming courses' page of our website.
Don't forget to send us entries for our 'story beginnings' competition on the latest newsletter. Deadline is the 30th September.
Hope to hear from you all soon,
Rosie (and Jennifer) x
