Changing faces...

What an inspirational week! The boys in the tuesday group appeared quite dominant in the first session, but the girls definitely grew in confidence after this session and started to share their ideas more. The monday group flourished and really enjoyed inventing stories around their character…

Fun, Fun, Fun

I've thoroughly enjoyed working with each artist so far.

My first session was on 17^th April where I spent an hour with each of Sarah's and Nicky's initial groups. Following Sarah's explanation to the class of art books and her handout of some examples, I joined in Sarah's group warm-up exercise and then explained the idea behind the project's theme. I next led the class in an exercise to challenge any preconceived ideas of conventional narrative sequence in poems and stories. The class was divided into five groups for this exercise which they took to enthusiastically After a brief summation, I left Sarah, who was to move onto some practical work, and visited Nicky's class.

Nicky had done a practical warm-up exercise and work on the archive photographs in her first hour. When I joined the class the pupils were engaged in the 'smells' exercise and were writing down their ideas and responses. I circulated amongst them, offering suggestions where necessary, and finished the session with a brief introduction explaining my role in the project.

Similarly, on 24^th April I divided my time between two classes, this time Lucy's and Nicky's. In her previous session with this group Lucy had, amongst other things, used the 'Interview' workshop that I posted on our site. I listened to the results of that exercise from the pupils and Lucy and I constructed a group poem. We then discussed some myths, legends and ghost stories with the group and I introduced a free-writing exercise to the group based on one of these.

I employed the free-writing exercise (though with different prompts) to pupils in Nicky's class and then took part in a chain story exercise which Nicky led.

John Lindley

A place to begin

A session to evoke the senses and get the imagination flowing... next week we shall build ideas into narrative forms and after that, beautiful structures.

The Story So Far...

After the first session with both the Monday and Tuesday groups, I feel much more able to plan the coming weeks of the project. Last Tuesday the class seemed excited and engaged when I placed unusual objects around the room and set them tasks to examine them and then create imagined narratives connecting two of the objects together. We tried out one of John's writing exercises and they were set some homework to place themselves in the perspective of their local area and answer some 'getting to know you' questions. We will do a lot more imagination massaging tomorrow, by turning their homework into a collaborative poem. And with the use of some of the Touchstone archive photographs I selected we should be well on the way to creative our ghostly stories by the end of the session. Can't wait to hear the results!

Monday's class was a little quieter initially, but very smiley, focussed and engaged. I talked to them about artists' books and showed them some examples of how I gather inspiration from the everyday and banal and create little worlds in book form about those themes and stories. We talked about local myths and oddities and then we used the brown suitcase of objects once more to inspire new narratives. Each table of students took it in turns to stand up and present their short story to the class to 'convince' us all of their inspired connections! A lovely session with a wonderful and energetic teacher.

So many possibilities....

My first two sessions went really well....my tuesday group were very enthusiastic and full to the brim with ideas....the monday group today were more cautious, so i think a completely different approach is needed. We looked at various book artists and discussed what an artist book is.....here are some of the artists we looked at...

Olafur Eliasson

Brian Dettmer

Su Blackwell

In both groups i asked them to use their first letter of their first name to create a design that told a story about themselves....there were lots of brilliant ideas.....

I thought we`d create an origami book of all our ideas and designs for our final book and this would be the perfect first page.

OK...first session was great...Got two planned sessions worth of material from the class and they were really on board. Did a basic introduction asking them what they thought a book was and then revealed my own takes on the 'book' format. I reversed my session plan as I picked up that they needed to get going on some work rather than sit listening to a story so I laid out the tables with 'prompt' material (the maps,props, photos of locations, photos of people, colours, fonts and single sentences/phrases). Began by discussing what makes a good ghost story etc and then talked them through what each table could give them and set them off creating design/story sheets on A3. They sorted themselves into work groups dead easily and there are several pupils who chose to work alone. All of them created a basic story concept in the first hour and a half. I then read a story at the end related to a fictional 'local' character who kids all thought was a scarey person. Then discussed the classes own localities and any 'odd' characters they new stories or legends about and the schools own stories. Really responsive group and Emma was great teacher to work with....Think I'll get this group to do some extension material after their 'books' are done...probably music as we're in a music room....mmmm