Some of the Completed New Ghost Books

After 8 weeks of hard work from both the Monday and Tuesday cohorts a total of 55 8-page hardback concertina books were created! They are a wonderful mix of detailed, outlandish, delicate, confident, sensitive, experimental, bizarre, beautiful, weird, scary and elaborately told new local ghost stories. As a collective they appear like a graveyard of haunting headstones ready to be displayed in the school hall during the exhibition and showcase event to mark the end of the project. Wonderful! 

Text Time

Both the Monday and Tuesday groups took so well to applying text onto the pages of their books using one of two old typewriters I took into the classrooms, a wide selection of rubber stamp alphabets, along with copious stacks of 'letraset' rescued from a defunct graphic designers. The students took to the typewriters surprisingly well, taking their turns and keeping patient when they made mistakes and realising there is no Delete button! The boys seemed to love them the most and wanted to know how they worked mechanically. The 'letraset' also worked brilliantly, as the students in both classes gained the skill and confidence to apply the transfered letters seamlessly to their books. Finally the books looked as though they were coming together. 

More beautiful moments from mondays group...

 

and some final touches.........

This seems to have gone incredibly quickly and now all making sessions are over and its reflection and exhibition time. I'm really pleased with with the outcomes of my 2 groups. Don't want to do my Monday group a disservice, but at the beginning I really wondered what they were going to achieve. They created some beautiful books in the end with a diverse range of texts and techniques and I'm really chuffed for them. I'm especially happy with the Monday groups story-boxes. They've been brilliant and responded amazingly to being given a lot of creative freedom. Their making skills really came into the fore and they problem solved without the need for too much adult assistance. The process is always key for me in projects like this and it was great to see these go from the design sheet first stages through a series of experiments to the finished proucts. I purposely wanted both groups to develop simple stories that grew with the design process as I picked up early on, that grinding out lengthy writing sessions may not prove productive. It was great to hear the 2 boys groups develop as 'raps'. I'm always slightly wary when 'rapping' rears its head as a song writing style, but my anxieties were unfounded on hearing these guys tell their stories brilliantly, considering the style, sound and delivery of the New Ghosts theme. Hope they get to record them for the exhibition. Special thanks to Emma and Jenny for being so great to work with,all their support and going with the concepts. Massive thanks to Vik for coordinating the whole logistal nightmare of the secondary timetable and a brilliant project. And lastly but not least Lucy, Nicky and Sarah for being such fun to work with and their long lasting inspiration...keep in touch.

TA DA

The last few weeks have gone by in a whirlwind of energy, we've been exploring sunography, textiles, graphic design and as a final treat, badge making.

Here's a snapshot of the last few weeks, the exhibition will be held in school next Wednesday so the final pieces will be unveiled then...

Some beautiful moments...

The tuesday group are almost finished.....