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[ICTs in English] RE: Children's books unit


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  • From: "Peter Boyle" <pboyle AT waikato.ac.nz>
  • To: <ictenglish AT mailinglist.tki.org.nz>
  • Subject: [ICTs in English] RE: Children's books unit
  • Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:13:31 +1300

Hello David
I used to have classes of Year 9 / 10 write and publish children's story
books based around the "Jolly Postman and other People's Letters" structure.
In that story, the story structure is based around the postman delivering
mail to different characters from children's fairy tales. Eg, a postcard
(from overseas) from Jack to the Giant, invitation to dance for Cinderella,
letter of apology from Goldilocks to the bears, a formal legal letter
seeking damages from the wolf, written by the solicitors acting for the
Three Pigs.

The point is, each page contained an envelope with a different genre of
writing, often combined with a visual (eg postcard was produced as postcard
(complete with scene, stamp, etc), the legal letter had logo, etc.

I used to have my class go to local primary school, pair up with one of the
younger ones, find out what interests the primary students had, then for
next 4-5 weeks my students would write drafts/edit/produce final pages and
produce their books. My assessment criterias were based on three different
writing genre as well as visual layout. Then at the deadline, my students
would go back to primary school students and read their stories.

Important to have audience/purpose - as we all know. Helped so much with
motivation and enthusiasm to get things right. My students sometimes used to
check out some with their student audience before final book produced - type
of ongoing dialogue while book being produced.

I also used a similar format with stories (based on individual research and
genre writing) using the Mystery of the Mary Celeste story. Read the story,
showed examples of diary/log writing, formal writing, artifacts that were
found, and the Court of Inquiry documents that attempted to explore certain
theories explaining the mystery. Students then wrote their own mystery
(past, present, future), produced evidence, writing etc to explain their
mystery. This was both written, visual and they gave a speech summarizing
their explained mystery.

I have another similar book based around a Batman story - various types of
writing contained in pullout pages in the book - this for an older audience.
But book contains maps, telexes, memos, story fragments, etc - all made to
look old and authentic.

I wonder what such a story structure (esp Jolly Postman) might look like
using online resources with online links to bring up the various genre
writing. I have never tried with computers but I am sure it could be very
effective.

Sorry - bit of a long response. Maybe something for you here though.

Kind regards
Peter

Peter Boyle
Te Kotahitanga/Literacy Adviser (Secondary)
School Support Services
"Your Learning Partners"

Waikato University
(Tauranga)
07) 577 5314
027 472 5086


-----Original Message-----
From: David Schaumann
[mailto:dsc AT mcglashan.school.nz]

Sent: Monday, 14 March 2011 1:46 p.m.
To:
ictenglish AT mailinglist.tki.org.nz
Subject: [ICTs in English] Children's books unit

Hi all.

I'm lucky enough to be teaching a top Year 9 class who all have laptops.
We're soon to begin a unit on Children's story books - exploring conventions
and style, then producing their own.

I'm looking for good ideas for the teaching of this - resources and
activities which make good use of the laptops to enhance student learning.

Any ideas?
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