CFE Levels 3 and 4 (Age 12-14)
David Almond
learning resources –
everyone is a writer
Writing and art activities
inspired by The Savage and
Half a Creature from the Sea
Resource by Scottish Book Trust
Contents
Activities inspired by The Savage
Shorter activities, inspired by Half a Creature from the Sea
3
9
About this resource
This resource has been created to help you engage pupils of a wide range
of abilities in writing activities. There are also some opportunities for crosscurricular activities and projects. Adapt and use as you see fit!
About David Almond and Dave McKean
David Almond is the award-winning writer of a host of best loved books for
children, teens and young adults. He is perhaps best known for Skellig,
which won the Carnegie Medal in 1998, and the haunting Kit’s Wilderness, as
well as his more recent books My Name is Mina and A Song for Ella Grey.
Find out more about David at his website www.davidalmond.com or at
Walker Books’ site www.walker.co.uk/contributors/David-Almond-5033.aspx.
Dave McKean is an illustrator and author whose work is never less than
completely arresting and distinctive. He is well known for his illustration of
the Sandman comics written by Neil Gaiman, as well as the Arkham
Asylum graphic novel. Recently Dave has worked on several children’s
picture books and moved into filmmaking. Find out more at his stunning
website: www.davemckean.com/personal/biography/
Two things to bear in mind for writing activities
If pupils have a genuine audience for their written work, this can help to
create motivation. Often, their work is solely written for a teacher to look
at, but if they write for an audience which is likely to engage with their
work, this can instil the task with more meaning. Why not try setting up a
class blog? David Mitchell, a former deputy Headteacher, has set up the
Quadblogging website to help you gain a genuine audience for your class
blog: http://quadblogging.net/.
Instead of always showing your pupils exemplars that you’ve chosen, get
your pupils to go out and find texts that they like. They can bring these to
class and you can have a discussion about them. This doesn’t always
work – some pupils don’t have the confidence to do it, but in this case you
can try directing them to a source like a book list. We have lots of lists to
browse here: scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists
2
Activities inspired by The Savage
Regular free writing Eng 3-31a
Blue writes his story of the savage with no thought of showing his writing
to anyone. It’s just for him, serving as an outlet.
Set up a regular, brief period where pupils can write freely without being
marked for spelling and grammar. Five minutes at the start of every lesson
works well. Use a stimulus which you think will inspire your pupils. In this
blog post, a teacher explains the kind of stimuli he uses for free writing:
http://bit.ly/2cncDQQ.
You can find some good stimuli at the Writing Prompts site:
http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/. These prompts from the TES website
are also great (you’ll need to create a free login): http://bit.ly/2cKQq3V
You can choose whether you want to look at pupils’ work or not. If you do
ask to look at or hear what they’ve written, give feedback on the potential
of ideas and nuggets in their writing to lead to longer pieces. Sometimes
the prompts above will clearly point the way to a story, but if not, ask
pupils to come up with two ‘what if’ questions based on their free writing.
To hear more from a teacher’s perspective about how free writing can
work in the classroom, have a look at this blog post: http://bit.ly/2cKTH2O
Less is more – creating an illustrated story
For less confident writers who struggle with extended prose, an illustrated
story provides an opportunity to write limited amounts of text but put a lot
of effort in to creating high quality prose (see The Learning Spy blog for
some thoughts on the idea that ‘less can be more’ in writing:
http://bit.ly/2cplBNo).
This activity will help pupils to create a character, create an illustration of
that character and write a short description introducing the character to
readers. Bear in mind that the previous activity may well have yielded
some good ideas for characters for pupils to draw on.
You can extend the activity if you want your pupils to spend more time on
a particular skill covered here, but first, here’s a self-contained version
aimed primarily at getting pupils to write engaging prose.
First, get pupils to come up with a character. In this video, author and
poet Steven Camden reveals that he always starts with an image, either of
an object or a person www.youtube.com/watch?v=L75i-SnVyF4. Have
your pupils browse some images online and invent a character based on
those images. Humans of New York is a great place to find interesting
images of people - there are lots of pinboards on Pinterest which have
collected images from HONY, but here’s one to start you off:
3
www.pinterest.com/liljac3/humans-of-new-york/. Once they’ve found an
image of a person who interests them, get them to ask some questions
about that character. This site has a handy list of questions to help get to
know your character better – you can pick out the ones you think will be
most helpful to your pupils:
www.miniworld.com/adnd/100ThingsAboutUrPCBackGround.html
Make sure pupils come up with a goal/motivation for the character to
have. Ask your pupils to write down something your character really
wants, something they need, something they fear and something they
resent. This will really help them feel get a sense of what motivates their
character – and if you later want them to write an extended piece, it will
help them shape their character’s path in the story. Use our Creative
Writing Masterclass videos with Phil Earle to help your pupils further
develop their characters – the video on characters is obviously of most
relevance here, but the whole series is definitely worth checking out:
www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning/learning-resources/resource/philearles-creative-writing-masterclass-characters
Then, ask pupils to draw a picture of their character. If you want to
focus on developing pupils’ enthusiasm for illustration, you can use
upcoming activities in this resource and merge them into this one. But for
now, tell pupils that the purpose of drawing the picture is to help generate
more ideas about appearance and setting. Ask them to draw a picture
with the character placed in a setting in which they’re uncomfortable.
Again, this helps to generate ideas, as it creates an immediate conflict if
the character is in a situation they’d rather not be in.
Now, ask pupils to write text to accompany their illustration. The text
should introduce the reader to the character, where they are, and how
they’re feeling. It can be written in first or third person. Here’s a good
example from ‘The Little Match Girl’ by Metaphrog, although your pupils
are going to be writing in slightly more depth than this:
4
For the next part, here’s the key: your pupils are going to use the slow
writing technique outlined by David Didau in this blog post:
http://bit.ly/2cpsEFM. You can introduce this technique in different ways –
if you wish, you can ask pupils to write their text first, and then ask them
to refine it using Didau’s method. You can also choose to model the
technique by trying it yourself and sharing your writing with pupils. As
Didau explains, the technique can generate writing which pupils are proud
of, and helps them to appreciate that quantity isn’t everything when telling
a story – the graphic novel medium really helps with this because the
pictures can act as a complement to the words and show physical details,
leaving the writer free to convey the character’s thoughts and feelings
through text.
Extensions to this activity
The obvious extension to the activity is to write an extended piece. But
since the activity has involved both writing and illustration, there are
several options you can choose, each of which achieves slightly different
aims.
If you want to continue to focus on pupils’ ability to use language, as well
as their ability to structure a story, then try the next activity, which focuses
on planning a narrative.
If you also want to incorporate illustration skills, try the rest of the
illustration activities in this section, which will help pupils think more
deeply about how to use illustrations effectively.
All of these skills can be developed using our How to Write a Comic Book
Scene resource: http://bit.ly/writeacomicbook. This resource does focus
on adapting an existing scene from a novel rather than coming up with
completely new characters and plots, but still requires a lot of critical
decision making.
Planning and writing a story
It’s hard, and not necessarily advisable, to write stories to a formula.
Instead, give pupils a few questions to think about at each plot point. If
you’ve used the previous activity to establish a character and a
problem/motivation, then you can use these questions to develop pupils’
thinking at each plot point:
l
l
l
l
What does your character want at this point in the story?
Who or what is standing in the way of your character getting what
they want?
What does your character do to try to overcome this problem?
Does something unexpected happen?
These questions help to keep your pupils going. It’s usually really effective
to model how to use them, because they won’t all apply at every stage of
the story. Plan your own story as your pupils plan theirs, and share how
you use some or all of the questions to create plot points.
5
If pupils are doing an extended piece of prose, it’s important to remember
that a first draft is about getting the ideas on pape . Spelling and language
shouldn’t matter on a first draft – try to give feedback about structu e,
characterisation and setting.
The second draft is the time to focus on language. The slow writing
technique outlined earlier may work well.
Discussing and selecting illustration styles
Dave McKean has illustrated many different texts and his style is always
striking and powerful. In this activity, your pupils will identify features of his
style and compare it to other illustrators’ styles. They will then look at how
different art materials can be used to create different effects, and finall
choose their preferred materials to create an illustrated text.
Firstly, look at McKean’s style with your pupils. Before you discuss his
work in The Savage, encourage them to think about how illustration styles
differ. You can pick any artist or illustrator you like to do this, but the
example below, showing McKean’s illustrations of Batman against some
of the early Batman comics, might provide a good start:
Which illustration style do the pupils prefer? How do they feel about the
character as depicted in each image? What do they notice about each
artist’s use of colour, lines and shapes?
You can move from here to discussing The Savage. How do they think The
Savage might be affected if the illustration style was more like the right
hand picture?
6
The page below is a particularly good one for talking about McKean’s
stylistic decisions – you can ask pupils why they think McKean has chosen
to repeat an image with different framing and why he has chosen to depict
the savage from a particular angle in a particular position, as well as more
general questions like why he has chosen to use a limited colour palette
and whether his drawing style is realistic or more abstract.
It’s particularly important to ask your pupils if they feel that the
illustration style is an appropriate one for the story. How would they
describe the atmosphere of the story, and how does the illustration style
capture this? How well does the illustration style convey the characters
and setting?
Image from The Savage by David Almond and Dave McKean, Walker Books 2008
It's particularly important to ask your pupils if they feel that the
illustration style is an appropriate one for the story. How would they
describe the atmosphere of the story, and does the illustration style capture
this? How well does the illustration style convey the characters and setting?
To consolidate the learning from this discussion, you can encourage pupils
to visit different illustrators’ websites and report back to the class about
their favourites/least favourites. You could get them to use Padlet to
compile a digital wall of images, with comments beneath each illustration.
The comments could be biographies of each illustrator, or brief critiques of
what the pupils like about each image.
7
Trying out different illustration materials
Approach an Art and Design teacher in your school and ask if your pupils
can come to their classroom for a demonstration of different materials
being used to depict a subject. Ideally, pupils will have a chance to try out
four different materials, but within one lesson it’s only realistically possible
for them to try out two.
After they’ve tried every material, have a brief discussion, giving pupils the
chance to say what they liked and disliked about each material and what
their favourite one is.
Now, ask them to use their favourite material to do some illustrations for
the stories they wrote in the ‘Planning and Writing a Story’ activity on page
5. One or two detailed illustrations will be better than numerous less
detailed ones – the task is all about trying to convey character, setting and
atmosphere as effectively as possible through illustration, so give the
pupils time to think carefully about their illustrations.
Afterwards, get the pupils to look at each other’s work and give feedback.
Depending on the needs of your pupils, you can ask them to give very
general feedback about what they like about each other’s drawings, or
you can be more specific and ask them to critique how e fectively
drawings have conveyed character, setting and atmosphere.
Podcasting about bullying
In The Savage, Blue experiences verbal bullying at a particularly
challenging time of his life. In this activity, your pupils will create a podcast
on the topic of bullying. To get some technical advice about how to start
podcasting, check out both our Malcolm McNeil learning resources at
http://bit.ly/2cP19ub and this blog post from secondary teacher Peter
Kelly: http://bit.ly/2cP0NmY. These resources will give you advice about
software and other practicalities, as well as introducing pupils to
podcasting and structuring a podcast.
Researching for a podcast
As you’ll see in the Malcolm McNeill resource, there can be space for up
to four topics in a podcast. This resource from teacher and author Phil
Beadle can be a great start for pupils in establishing some ideas and
insights about bullying and bullies: http://bit.ly/2cP3KEi.
8
After this, additional topics for research can include:
l
l
l
The effects of bullying. This page from the Stop Bullying website is a
good place to start research: www.stopbullying.gov/at-risk/effects/
Cyber bullying. What are the particular dangers of the internet, and
what can be done to protect yourself against cyber bullying? There’s
lots of information here: http://bit.ly/2cP5woU.
Bullying in the workplace. It’s important pupils know that bullying can
happen, and be challenged, in any environment. As this page points
out, bullying can often be dismissed in a workplace: http://bit.ly/2csrl99.
Informative or persuasive?
You can choose whether pupils’ podcasts are purely informative or
whether you would like them to express opinions backed up by evidence.
In either case, all of this work can easily lead to written pieces too!
If you and your pupils loved The Savage
Check out these lists of graphic novels:
scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/themes/graphic-novels
9
Shorter activities, inspired by Half a Creature
from the Sea
Write tweet summaries of the stories
A tweet is composed of 140 characters or less. Challenge your pupils to
compose summaries of the different stories using only 140 characters.
These summaries should try to describe a main character and the conflic
they are experiencing in the story. To make it more challenging, ask pupils
to try and include descriptions of setting and atmosphere in their tweets –
the character limit forces them to think hard about how to use language
creatively and economically.
Use your local town to inspire a talk
Ask pupils to create mood boards representing their thoughts and feelings
about their local town (a mood board is very simply a board onto which
you stick images which have a common theme). The board can contain
images of the places which mean most to pupils, or images which
represent their feelings about aspects of their town. Then, ask pupils to
use their mood boards as the basis for a talk about what their town means
to them. You can also ask pupils to create a digital story, where they
record narration over a series of images – find out mo e at the
Tech4Learning website: www.tech4learning.com/digital-storytelling.
Misunderstood characters
Half a Creature from the Sea features many characters who are
misunderstood or even rejected by society. Ask your pupils to come up
with a character who is misunderstood in some way. It can help to think of
this in terms of dichotomies – for instance, the bullying and mean-spirited
traffic wa den who secretly performs at sick kids’ hospitals, or the
dishevelled tramp who is wealthy but gives all his money to charity. Ask
your pupils to come up with a character and a thing that no one knows
about them. Get them to write two short paragraphs – one featuring the
character as others see them, the other in a situation where the
character’s true nature can be revealed.
If you and your pupils loved Half a Creature from the Sea
Check out our list of short story collections:
scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/8-short-story-collections