Losing Focus - Day 11

The group story writing project begins!

We took over Clive's class with the year 7s and used it to have then begin to create their own stories in their groups.

Some of them complained about the groups but I decided that they shouldn't change this late in the game. Regardless of this they still got work done. We both walked around and helped them with developing their ideas and making sure they all took part.

The groups were very talkative and that made keeping them on track rather frustrating but we managed. There was an incident with two groups where they were shoving each other over an apparent attempt to steal elements of a story. I walked over and asked for an explanation, whe I was told what had supposedly been happening I told the student from the standing group that remained to go back to his table.

I then made an announcement to the class that they were to remain in their own groups and that I didn't want to hear anything about stealing ideas.

There was a particular group that was fascinated by Ciara and I speaking Irish (not as well as we should be able to though). They even included Ciara's name in their story, I'll try not to be jealous.

The year 8s definitely did not take to it as easily as the 7s but they had some interesting ideas.

I had to bring one student up to date because he had been out due to an arm injury. His group were fixated on war in their story and I told them it was about going somewhere new and being like the character in The Arrival. They eventually got the message.

This exercise was more difficult compared to previous days but we have one for them tomorrow in which they create their characters in more detail.

Both groups still struggle with the concepts of metaphors and themes and it is in truth rather tiring to have to explain it several times in one class.

I think with help and the right inspiration they can make great stories, just getting them to do the work is the challenge. They get distracted quite easily without the book.

Hopefully tomorrow's exercise goes more smoothly.

Until the next installment.
- Reece