I love 'what ifs'.What if there's another me on the other side of the mirror?What if a half-boy-half-deer wanted to fit in?What if someone experimented with smells and could create them?What if an old Bajaj scooter began to fly?These were some of the what-ifs that inspired the stories in The Story-Catcher. What-ifs can go anywhere. We don't need to rein them in and pull them back.And so, during creative writing workshops, I love to see where they can take us. Here's what a few children came up with yesterday.I love 'What if all my what ifs came true'! What's your favourite?The children then went on to write poems called 'What if', which were delightful. They played with opposites and humour, as well as beauty.What if a boy could become a girl? What if a speck of dust was as precious as a pearl?Aren't ideas magical?What's next?The Lit Bug Fest, … [Read more...]
Creative Writing Workshops
What's better than a creative writing workshop with enthusiastic children?Two creative writing workshops with enthusiastic children!On Saturday, I did a workshop at Meridian Kids Club for the first time. New place, new children - it's always fun! An activity I love is creating monsters together, and this time was no different.We played a game during which the children came up with a huge greenish monster with twenty heads, a hundred eyes, one tooth, no noses and just one foot. The interesting thing about this monster, though, was that he was ugly and good. He would clean up the world. Good and ugly was a wonderful combination, and I'm glad it came up. (I've written earlier about attempting to investigate why all the monsters children create at my workshops are black and fairies are blond.)I asked the children to create the monster's enemy too, for conflict is central to a … [Read more...]
The Writers’ Club 2018-19
Another year at the Writers' Club has come to an end, and what a wonderful session we had to bring a creative year of stories to an end!We began, as always, with an announcement of the winners of this year's Writers' Club competition. Competitions are such fun! They create a mood of anticipation and celebration, which ensures that the energy stays high throughout the session.As before, two girls from a previous batch evaluated the entries, for I feel that learning to critique work is an important part of growing as a writer. Their responses and comments were heart-warming, as they paid attention to detail and identified why they liked what they liked.The highlight of the session, though, was our special guest, Dr Sreeja Nag, dear friend, ex-student of St. Mary's and research engineer at NASA. She was wonderful, warm and expressive, and we had a lovely hour with … [Read more...]
Reading and Data
Adults love data. They love graphs and statistics and numbers. During workshops with adults, the moment I put up a graph, I have everyone's attention as if I'm finally saying something 'real'.And that's why I started working with real-time polls through Mentimeter. I show my audience a question and all those with smart phones (usually nearly everyone in the room) vote. And they see numbers, which makes everyone happy.Question One: What do you read most often?For this question, I allow participants to choose more than one option. This helps them feel comfortable, not pinned down to choosing one and being 'wrong'.I give them four options:Blue - Newspapers, magazines, etc.Yellow - Facebook/WhatsApp postsGreen - StorybooksRed - OtherAs you can see, there's nothing really, solidly conclusive about this. Yet, on the whole, have a look at this graph, which combines the … [Read more...]
Making Creative Writing Engaging
Sometimes, I wonder whether secretly, I conduct creative writing workshops more to inspire myself than to inspire the children I work with. Whatever it is, I do know that I enjoy myself tremendously whenever I teach creative writing. I feed off the enthusiasm of the children and I come home ready to write, which is invigorating.Children and WritingMany children love to write. I was one of them, and I wrote all kinds of things, mainly inspired by what I read. I wrote about magic and school, and things that I thought would be moving - like earnest poetry about war and poverty. Writing is fun; it may even be good. But when publishing is so easy, I find that many parents and teachers think everything that children write is perfect. I don't always agree. Here are my pet peeves:Forced rhymeI … [Read more...]
Reading Workshops: Why? What? How?
Many, many parents ask me what a reading workshop is. What happens during a reading workshop? Who should attend a reading workshop and why? What will the outcome of a reading workshop be? This post tries to explain all that.What children read and whyOften, at reading workshops I conduct, we talk about books we love. I'm not very fond of the question 'What is your favourite book?' because I think it is impossible to have a favourite book. I do realise, however, that it's a promising start to a conversation, plus a way for me to get an idea of the interest and reading level of the group I'm working with."What do you read?" I ask, attempting to be neutral in my question. I don't ask them how many enjoy reading because that feels like a trick question. They are already conditioned enough to know they are "supposed" to like reading. The question has to feel less threatening; … [Read more...]
World Read Aloud Day at the Writers’ Club
The Writers' Club at St. Mary's School meets only twice a week, so World Read Aloud Day sometimes becomes Writers' Club Read Aloud Day, but so what? I celebrated it for the first time last year and it was so much fun that I did it again this year.This time, children came forward and read work of their own, which was heart-warming. Others read out poetry, including a hilarious poem by Ruskin Bond. Still others read scenes that moved them - excerpts from Train to Pakistan, from Good Wives, and from Wonder.Yet, as the girls came forward to read, I realised that many had no idea what to pick. One child in class IV chose an excerpt from an abridged version of King Lear. She struggled with Goneril, Regan, Cordelia and Albany. Aged nine, who wouldn't?Another child chose to read a section from an encyclopedia. She read fact after fact, stumbling over all the figures … [Read more...]
Working with Librarians
During the first two weeks of the year, I made lists of books I loved, and more than once, I found myself writing about how reading levels differ so much that it is difficult to associate a level with an age. Thinking about all of this, I decided write about a reading programme I've been working with for a couple of years now.Two years ago, I was approached by Experiential Learning Solutions and asked whether I would design a reading programme that can be administered effectively by a group of librarians in municipal schools. As a CSR initiative, D-Mart had invested in eleven libraries for schools and eleven librarians, but they wanted to go beyond that. They wanted to ensure the success of their library programme in the form of children taking a step towards reading.What could we do to get children to read? How could we surmount huge obstacles, including the indifference of … [Read more...]
Big Books at the Writers’ Club
Aren't lit fests delightful? Last week, I was invited to St. Mary's School's first lit fest, and it was lovely. We walked into books like this one ...And we had a panel discussion where we spoke about stories, poems, writing, dancing and music. We then visited classrooms and saw the work the children had put together through the course of the year - book reviews, poetry, charts, models ...And we saw eight big books that the tenth standard girls had made for the prep school children. I saw those books and knew I had to share them with my Writers' Club, so I invited Remanika and Riya to talk to the girls and share their books with us.Here's one of our favourites - Mr Banana Climbs a Tree.Mr Banana wants to meet a lady bird, who lives on top of a tree. He begins to climb, but there are all kinds of obstacles - bats, a noisy crow and monkeys.The monkeys are the … [Read more...]
Our Own Voices
I just skimmed through yet another article about how, growing up, we associated 'white people doing white things' with 'people doing people things'. This is an idea that I have to confront all the time, for racism is everywhere.It has forms that we unwillingly perpetuate too. For instance, I have an Indian friend who is studying in the US, and she is not working on South Asian writers. This is something she repeatedly has to defend. "Why don't you work on your own culture?" everyone asks.In the beginning, this is a seemingly harmless question. In fact, it is a relevant question, even an important one, when we look at representation and diversity. Yet, very soon, this begins, insidiously, to translate into the idea that brown people must write about brown people.Must I write about my own culture? How is this a duty that I must fulfil while western writers may write fantasy … [Read more...]