Creative Writing Training
Creative Writing Training The International Board on Books for Young People – Children in Crisis
Introduction
PBBY made a training session in creative writing with distributing the novel ‘Diamond’ to the children by the writer Hani el Salimi who made the training.
The training was done in Al Shawka library in Rafah and Al Ataa’ library in Beit Hanoon, and it included the techniques of writing a short story for the children and how to discuss stories.
The Goal of Training
• To encourage the children to read and write so that they become continuous friends to the library and to participate in the activities.
• Training the children to write a short story.
• Distributing the novel Diamond for the children.
• The mechanisms of discussing stories.
The place
• Al Shawka library, 20 children in the company of the librarian.
• Al Ataa’ library, 15 children in the company of the librarian.
The Mechanisms and Activities of Training
The training was done in two stages. Discussing the activities and targets in both Al Shawka library and Al Ataa’.
The First Meeting
The importance of creativity and writing, reading and its effect in enriching the personality of the child, the student gains many skills during the session, among them: developing the tools of writing, getting introduced to the different kinds of literature, prose, poetry, theater, children’s literature, novel. Making the participant gain a linguistic fortune, learning to build creative phrases, reading chosen texts by local and international writers, the student presents his writing and it is discussed, also group texts are written.
The Second Meeting
Enabling the child to write poetic phrases and tie the words to his own name. In the beginning we divide the child’s name to letters, and making poetic phrases for each letter linked to his love and hate for things, and to say these phrases in a poetic way in front of the group.
The third meeting writing daily things…
Motivating and developing the ability of remembering in details for the trainees, finding space for verbal expression, we write and read a text about a friend at school from the book “Ideas in the neighborhood and home” and we discuss and do dialogue about the words and meaning of the text. We leave them speaking about a nice day with the school friend to answer some questions, who is he and how did he become your friend, and speaking about the favorite teacher and why so, and the school and its director and in the end to record the situation with this friend on paper if possible.
The fourth meeting discussion of the story “Diamond” for children
Knowing and analyzing the axes of the story (the characters, the events, the plot…)
We start with dialogue and discussion about a question, how can we help others to achieve their dreams? Whereby we leave enough space for dialogue and discussion and listening for long, in the end to insert the element of excitement we choose a title for the story which is appropriate or we expect the title of this story.
The results from training
1. Distributing 37 copies from the novel Diamond for the children in Al Shawka library and Al Ataa’ library.
2. Introducing the children to the mechanisms of discussing the stories and parallel writing.
3. Discussing some books of the children in Al Shawka library, 7 stories and in Al Ataa’ library, five stories.
The difficulties
• The period when the children were cut off from the continuous activity by not coming to the library because of the corona pandemic made the training difficult because of the separation between the children and the library
• We had to start with the first steps on writing and discussion because it was the first training session for these children.
The recommendations
• Caring for the stories the children wrote by publishing them.
• Working on drawing and designing the stories the children wrote.
• Increasing the training for the children in many fields; from creative writing, expressive arts and library activities.
The fifth meeting A trip to my planet
Developing the spirit of imagination for the children and increasing the ability of the child to express himself in drawing and speaking of the planet. We start with a number of questions which motivate the activity, for example: What is the color of the sky? What color does it become at night? Do you like night or day? What is the difference between them? Describe the night for me?
Imagine if a star visited you at night, and carried you gradually to space taking you from planet to another, imagine the best planet.
What is the name of this planet? Its shape? Its color? What is in it inside and outside? Describe it totally. What is the time you prefer to be in it?
Here I leave them to imagine while hearing music and I give them enough time to imagine, and then we ask them to draw this planet and everything they imagined about it, then we leave them after drawing to speak about this planet.
Each child wrote a story some are rather interesting.
