Every time James Carter visits a school, children ask “Where do you get your ideas from?” to which he replies that he gets his ideas from the magic wood at the back of his house. It’s reassuring to know that if you look hard enough you can find your own magic wood. The writing workshops he held at JAPS today delved into the imaginations of every girl from Year 3-6. “Take things from your life,” he told them, “things you’ve done, seen, daydreamed, remembered – and turn them into poems.” White Horse is based on a dream he had about the white horse carved into the chalk hill at Uffington. Reindeer Haikus was inspired by the reindeer skeleton in the Natural History Museum in Oxford. Some poems, like The Big Things and Empty Bucket, are true stories.
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| Bouncing round the Library, James bombarded us with his enthusiasm for writing, making us mirror the rhythms of his speech. He told us, “Books are made of paper, and the sticky black stuff called ink, and illustrations and words = magic!” Pondering the question “Orange, silver, sausage...do poems have to rhyme?”James showed us some of his books – ‘Greetings, Earthlings’, ‘Time–Travelling Underpants’ and ‘How to Turn Your Teacher Purple’. “I saw this little baby being born,” he said, holding the book tenderly to his chest! He loves shape poems. They have to be the right words in the right place at the right time. Try reading ‘The carrot and the hat’ (Once I was a snowman and melted overnight....) |
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| Today, with James’ help, Year 3 wrote Happy poems, Year 4 conjured up Magical poems, Year 5 got seriously cool with their Fairy Tale Raps, and Year 6 acted their way through Boasts and Lies. Year 5 created versions of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, The Emperor’s New Clothes and The Three Little Pigs (or should that be 3 Lil’ Pigs?), to name but a few. Miss Turner and James were delighted with the fun they had.
7 February 2011
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