Main Curriculum Area:
English
Create literary texts that adapt or combine aspects of texts students have experienced in innovative ways.
Understand, interpret and experiment with sound devices and imagery, including simile, metaphor and personification, in narratives, shape poetry, songs, anthems and odes.
Analyze strategies authors use to influence readers.
Participate in and contribute to discussions, clarifying and interrogating ideas, developing and supporting arguments, sharing and evaluating information, experiences and opinions.
Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts choosing and experimenting with text structures, language features, images and digital resources appropriate to purpose and audience.
Reread and edit their students’ own and others’ work using agreed criteria and explaining editing choices.
Cross-curricular Links:
Media Arts, Music.
Exploration and experimentation with the codes and conventions of media: technical, audio and written.
Exploration on how narrative structures and tension engage an audience.
Exploration of stories and ideas from different viewpoints.
Improvisation with, and manipulation of, the elements of music to create simple compositions and arrangements.
Communication and recording of music ideas using available technology.
Project Overview:
This year I was paired with Paula Churchward and her chatty and curious cohort of Year 5 and 6’s at Westfield Park Primary School. WWPS is located southeast of Perth and provides students with beautiful grounds featuring several public artworks by local artists as well as cosy and welcoming spaces in which to learn. During my first meeting with Paula, we discussed the challenges of working with a mixed year group and she mentioned that she wanted to work on improving engagement, confidence and expression in the students written work. Literacy levels in the class varied significantly so the aim was to create a program that would stimulate the more confident students whilst supporting and inspiring those who found writing tedious and difficult. In the initial planning sessions, I found myself reflecting a lot on my own childhood struggles in learning a new language and how I eventually came to love reading and writing. A lot of my creative work had been based on actual events and recollections of how a place or space was experienced sensorially, so finding something authentic the kids could tap into was important.
Paula mentioned the theme for the term was “Fears and Phobias” and that the kids would be looking at how to create suspense in their story telling, so we settled on a program that would allow individual fears and phobias to be explored in a photographic novel - a fictional tale of suspense and trepidation using the school campus as the backdrop. The objectives of our project, which we named Westfield Park After Dark, were to encourage lateral thinking, inspire the imagination and improve literacy and learner agency.
For the first couple of weeks, we focused on mindfulness and getting the class to make basic sensory connections to language. This involved listening to specific texts and identifying the areas of the body that experienced the most visceral responses. We also had them describe these feelings in a short poem using figurative language. Getting the class to focus and listen to the words before committing to any writing helped ground them and prepare them for activities requiring greater discipline and persistence. Once we had the class engaging their senses, we began to unpack their individual fears and phobias in small groups and allowed ideas to cross-pollinate.
As the weather began to improve, Paula and I looked for more opportunities to move our sessions outdoors, which seemed to invigorate the kids and breathe new energy into the project. The school grounds became the subject for the photographic component of the project and gave the students space to explore their learning environment through a different lens. As the stories continued to evolve and mature, the groups had to consider how to stage and capture photos that would best support the suspense and mystery they were trying to evoke in their written work. These images were later uploaded and edited using various apps to create a short movie accompanied by a spooky soundscape recorded by the kids themselves. The learning was made visible in an in-house screening of the movies followed by a scoring and feedback session. The students also converted their movies into comic strips so that we could print them off and share them with the other year groups.
In Term 4, Paula suggested introducing a performative element to the project, as the students didn’t get to do a lot of drama at school and felt they would really enjoy it. In our first few sessions we focused on imaginative interpretations of random props, which were then used to create new characters and storylines for short group skits. These skits were then merged with existing stories from Term 3, encouraging the students to look for connections and find imaginative solutions for integrating new information more seamlessly. With a focus on collaboration and developing skills in giving and receiving constructive feedback, the group were able to rework storylines to improve clarity, transitions, and audience engagement. All four groups performed their plays at the school assembly and were very well received. After the assembly, we had the students watch recordings of their performances and asked them to write short theatre reviews with star ratings, encouraging them to find their own voice in their writing.
Over the course of the program, we noticed an overall improvement in learner agency and increased confidence in expressing and sharing ideas with others. Being able to explore language across multiple modalities and including sensory learning allowed for a more fluid learning environment where students with low literacy felt supported and still able to contribute in meaningful ways. Although focus and listening remained an ongoing challenge, the class learned to collaborate and critique one another effectively to produce cohesive and imaginative narratives.
“I’m learning collaborative and persistence. For persistence it teaches you to push through difficult stages. For collaborative it teaches you to work with other students. You have to be more social. I don’t usually like working with people. It’s helped me practise it.” (Student)
“It’s focusing on the five habits of learning and it helps you expand your social circle and your creativity. It gets you to work with different people, it’s opening you up to different activities, and then you discover that you like doing those different things.” (Student)
“I notice that people are contributing and doing the work. There is way more talking in Creative Schools.” (Student)
“They are progressing, their initial thoughts are in the box, because that is where they feel safe, and they are looking for permission. But now we are starting to see that they are going with their creative ideas more. The good thing is that Steph will start with the creative ideas and then we do more of it during the week and add to it. With the five habits of learning, they talk about them during other classes too. Persistent comes up as something they want to work on. They are an inquisitive group of kids. But they still ask if it’s ok and are looking for permission. I chose literacy as we’ve got lots of boys in the class and literacy is hard for them. It’s helped with their writing and we’ve linked it to our Talk For Writing program.” (Teacher, Paula Churchward)
"They are a lively group so every week is an adventure. There are kids with low literacy, which is a factor to consider when assessing engagement with the program. It’s about identifying where the disconnect is and then matching those students with the more confident kids. The technology distracts them a bit so self-regulation is still a work in progress. There are some really creative stories taking shape and Paula and I are helping facilitate those sensory connections. Some are learning through sound or visual means while others are becoming more confident in expressing creative ideas through their writing. I’m really enjoying the 'Fears and Phobias' theme.” (Creative Practitioner)
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