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