English Studio 2 students have spent term one looking at the module “Writing for Young Audiences”. They started by thinking about themselves as writers and created a collage to reflect on what they enjoy writing, their ideal writing space, how frequently they write and other writing practices. From here, they completed two small pieces of writing – a “Dribble” (50 words) which they then expanded to a “Trabble” (300 words).

Here is an example of a Dribble from Ruby:

The rain fell down hard, drenching her umbrella as she stood still in the alleyway. The neon lights above her head flickered and buzzed, casting red-blue colours over her face. She stared at the glow, lost in thought. Waiting for any sign that life might change, even for a moment.  

The next step was to promote their work by writing a blurb for their Trabble and incorporating this as part of a complete back book cover.

The course focuses on “reading like a writer” so that students become familiar with the structures and conventions of different texts. One text type that students had fun with was analysing the children’s book Hairy Mclary of Donaldson’s Dairy and then writing and illustrating a few pages of their own children’s story. These ranged from concept books, such as the Animal Alphabet to a book about birds, to Simon the Sardine in conflict with Fred the Flying Fish! As the term concludes, students will be crafting extended creative responses in a variety of forms and genres.