Reflection 11 - Sydney Story Factory (Marcia the Martian with year 6 students)

Marcia the Matian

 In this reflection, I will be discussing my experiences in volunteering at the Sydney Story Factory with year 6 students. This experience allowed me to look at how the company of SSF works with students young and old to experience story writing as fun and exciting. Students work as a group to conjure up characters, a setting, when it happened and the type of event that is occurring at the time. In this workshop the year 6 students created a character and voted the best one to write a story about. Then they completed the ‘who, what, when and when’. The processes were a little similar to the workshop that Richard gave to us; however student was a co-writer in for the introduction. Once they completed that they had to continue on with their own story following what they had come up with on the whiteboard. Literacy and creative writing seems to be coming hand in hand with creative arts. According to Ewing (2010) literature and creative arts have a positive impact on students who struggle and dislike reading (p. 2). Marcia the Martian was definitely involved and made the year 6 students want to learn more about her. The students agreed on a character with traits like wings of an angel, the character is able to fly at the speed of light and has mind control. Using this strategy within the classroom would take time to establish, but once you as the teacher understands what is happening, then students are able to apply their understanding with their students.

Students ideas on the creative writing

Reference:

Ewing, R. (2010). The Arts and Australian Education: Realising potential. Australian Education Review. Camberwell, Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research.