Bookish Christmas wishes from the AES writers

Lots of

sweet words

tasty phrases

delectable books

Lots of 

literary goodies!

Learning to write dialogues in a fun way!

In the last Becoming a Writer meeting for 3rd graders students continued writing dialogues. They learned them in a fun way - through a dialogue game and by creating dialogues to the famous and equally ambiguous painting The Ambassadors.

Dialogue game with students' names

The Ambassadors - a challenging but engaging painting for creating dialogue

Most of the postcards have been sold!

Large sums were shouted out! The Christmas Auction is now over. It seemed like a happy event and one of tremendous success! Also, most of the 3rd grade writers' postcards were sold. We can therefore be proud of our modest contribution to the worthy endeavour. Below, photos of the "Christmas postcard counter":

Postcards by members of Becoming a Writer club

Postcards by members of Becoming a Writer club

Postcards by members of Becoming a Writer club

A limited collection of Christmas postcards on sale tomorrow at the Auction!

Younger members of Becoming a Writer club are impatiently looking forward to tomorrow! For, it's tomorrow that they will show and sell their Christmas postcards: a limited collection of twelve (only 12!) cards holding famous Nativity scenes. So, to see and purchase you must simply drop by the AES Christmas Auction and look for Becoming a Writer members' Christmas postcards! 

First come, first served!

Putting pen to paper!

This blog has been silent for quite some time... However, to assure writing is ceaselessly thriving at the AES, it's crucial to say it's not because students lost their interest or that the club stopped growing. To a great extent it's due to the simple truth that writing is after all a quiet and solitary pursuit. Writers have a tendency to draw back once in a while; to retreat in order to gather thoughts. 

Regardless, you may still wonder, what stage are they at? Thus, in Becoming a Writer for 5th and 6th grades students are beginning their stories after having already planned them. This is when really not much work can be exhibited apart from a couple of unpolished literary bits and pieces. It's these pieces, however, that will make up the final stories.

However, younger members of Becoming a Writer club are impatiently looking forward to tomorrow! For, it's tomorrow they will show and try to sell their Christmas postcards: a limited collection of twelve cards holding famous Nativity scenes.

Writers design Christmas Cards. A limited collection will be on sale during the AES Christmas Auction!

In preparation for the upcoming AES Christmas Auction, younger members of the Becoming a Writer club are designing Christmas Cards. They hope to sell their limited collection and look forward to see how their modest literary contribution makes a difference. The cards will be composed of images - Nativity scenes, and, of course, words! Composed of what kind of words? Well, you can surely expect top-shelf words, like: shepherd, Nativity, halo, incense, myrrh and more... The cards will be signed by their authors! 

One of the postcards will be based on Chagall's Nativity

A painstaking moment for all fiction writers - coming up with a plot!

5th and 6th grade writers are now in the moment of moving on from carrying out specific writing exercises to writing their actual short stories. In fact, they are now in the most crucial and creative stage of coming up with story plots. This task, however, is not simple. It's often discouraging and not at all spectacular!

They are creating plots that are to grab their readers' attention, bringing to life real and interesting characters, coming up with suspenses and satisfactory or unexpected endings. They are choosing, often subconsciously, their modes of expression - some choose realism, some fantasy, others horror...

Mapping out story plots...
can be a struggle!

Soon, their current brainstorming will take on a shape of actual literary forms - short stories that, at the end of this school year, will be published in form of an anthology. Just as it happened last year.

3rd grade writers respond to another famous painting

C. D. Friedrich Wandarer above the sea of fog

During our last Becoming a Writer workshop, 3rd grade students put themselves in the shoes of the wandarer from Friedrich's painting. This is what they saw and felt:

"It looks Russian because the colors are cold."

"The sky reminds my of vapour from behind a plane."

"It is so cold that it makes my mind cold."

"The rocks in the water look like sharks in the sea."

Transforming a painting onto words

One of the most famous paintings - Monet's Sunrise has been transformed by 3rd and 4th grade AES students into words. The young writers are on the right track to understand that painting, music or writing are just different ways for expressing something. They begin seeing that words are like a palatte with drops of paint - the more colors a painter has, the more interesting pictures he can create. And, parallel to that, the more words a writer knows, the greater his literary images. 

Monet's Sunrise in painting

Monet's Sunrise in words

A writer's imagination

A writer's imagination has to go beyond what most people see. It has to exceed the mundane reality taken for granted. A writer needs to perceive more than just a 'fat man,' 'a cone,' 'a beautiful woman,' 'a seashell,' 'a leaf'... Instead, a writer should ask him or herself: What does a leaf remind me of? What can I compare it to in order to describe it best to my readers?

Therefore, in the AES Becoming a Writer club students practice sharpening their sensual perception of objects, people, surroundings… This is what they have recently noticed: 

What do these objects remind you of?

Students looked at the above objects carefully through a magnifying glass. A dry leaf became a saucepan and a boat, a seashell - a band shell and a fingernail, a cone - a fat Christmas tree and a flower. This is what writers see!

Vivian Maier's photograph (detail)

The man, however, is not simply an obese man, but "an obese man who looked at me as if he wasn't prepared to be photographed" - isn't that a much more interesting way of showing him to readers? 

Johannes Vermeer's painting (detail)

And this lady became "a girl whose lit face looks like the lighter part of a rape peach."

Creating a character

Creating a character, bringing it to life, imagining it from head to toe... isn't that fascinating? And all of this can by done merely by playing around with words! In Becoming a Writer for 3rd and 4th grades we are currently working on shaping fascinating literary personas. We not only describe them, but endow them with dilemmas, biggest wishes, darkest secrets... We make them real.

Have a look at how we have animated this lifeless and dull figure: 

 

At first, the above lady meant nothing to us. We were indifferent towards her until - as a group - we've made her alive... We gave her a name, a character, a dilemma... We turned her into a real human being. This is how:

Sindy Dead seems like an ordinary woman. She is pretty, but not breathtaking. She is good, nice and calm, but prefers to keep to herself. One thing is for sure, no one would ever suspect that Sindy Dead’s job is to bury dead people! No one could also guess that now, for the first time, she herself wishes to be dead. Why? Well, she has lost somebody whom she loves very much. He was an actor. Now, she wishes she could join him in heaven, but it’s not that simple... Sindy has a family and friends who love her. She cannot abandon them. Therefore, will Sindy decide to kill herself or will she learn how to stay alive with a tremendous wound in her heart?

Painting images with words

Just yesterday a great word-based image has been created by one of the young AES writers. Instead of simply saying "a fat woman" the student described her to us. He painted her image with words:

Can you see her? Can you see the fat woman?

Learning to write a description

In the AES "Becoming a Writer" club more and more students come to realize what creative writing is all about. They begin understanding that creative writing is not only about writing but also about... being creative! What does being creative in case of writers mean? What type of sensitivity do writers need to nourish in order to develop literary works? 

Well, what we are currently working on is creating images with words. Creating images with words? Yes, for example - how, using words, would you illustrate an old woman? Well, instead of saying "an old woman" you could say, "a grey, hunched figure in a kerchief on her head." What about creating an image of how it is to be a tall person? We could say "while most of us see others' faces, a tall person sees head tops." This is why, in order to create such imagery, writers need to be good observers and pay attention to details around them. It's the details, nuances, imponderabilia... that help creating original sentences. 

Two creative writing clubs at the AES!

Since the middle of September two creative writing clubs have been on the road at the AES. And where does this road lead? Of course, to the final publication that will appear in June 2015! The publication will hold stories and poems of those students who won't get off in the meanwhile, those who will continue writing throughout this school year. So far, both of the clubs are going very well. Students learn about what it means to write and consider deep thoughts like, 

"Hmm, would I want to be a professional writer in the future?" 

First creative writing sample of a 3rd grade student (September 2014)

Character's description of a 6th grade student (September 2014)

Becoming a Writer 2014/2015

Last year, both of the literary workshops: Merry, Scary, Fairy Tales and Her Majesty the Fantasy turned out to be successful. A group of students not only developed their literary skills through reading and writing, but also published their own literary work in form of a professional anthology.

This year, the literary workshops will continue and will focus on writing even more! So, if you feel like writing your own story, poem or play, come and join the club and ... become a writer!

Feel like writing? Join us!

THE 2014 AES LITERARY EVENT!

The publishing of the AES students’ short stories! 

We welcome you to have a peek inside the book!

The six short stories included in this anthology were written and illustrated by a group of AES students. These young authors worked on their first major literary endeavors throughout the period of several months in 2013/2014 school year. This book is a culmination of a long and rich process that included learning about literature and “making” it. We invite you to have a look inside. 

You may also find the hard copy of the book in the school library.

Anthology of short stories written by AES students
in the 2013/2014 school year

Short stories written by AES students