Chaperon Rouge - Year 6 workshop @LeamingtonPri

I had a great two hour session today at a great school called Leamington Community Primary School in Liverpool.  This Y6 workshop with a group of mixed ability children lasted two hours from 1pm to 3pm.
I thought I would share what we did because I really enjoyed myself and the children enjoyed the challenge too.

The aim of the lesson was to create a piece of writing that was both mysterious and filled with tension, based on a fairytale which the children were familiar with, Little Red Riding Hood. 

As the children entered the room I asked them to sit and listen carefully to a woodland soundtrack.  On the second listen I asked children to complete the 'paragraph builder' grid - pictured right.

This allows us to collect the building blocks for sentence/paragraph construction. 
Once the children have listened a few times and listed their vocabulary they have opportunity to share their language with their peers around the classroom in order to build a bigger bank of vocabulary. 

I then modelled building interesting sentences using the language before the children practised and then shared their new sentences.  We discussed how language could effect the atmosphere and mood of the piece so children set about creating new sentences using language such as rotting, decayed and shrouded for effect. 

It is at this point that I introduced the opening to the stimulus. 'Chaperon Rouge' a short film which can be found here on The Literacy Shed.  This short 86 second section introduces the setting and our heroine; an unconventional Little Red! 

With the class we discuss her feelings as she looks around the derelict city, how we could show her apprehension and thoughts.  We discuss what could have caused the destruction and whether or not it happened before or after the last time she visited her grandmother's house. 

In order to enable the pupils to create a great opening sentence and get their narrative off to a great start I use 'Slow Writing' which is a method developed by David Didau @learningspy (read more here) 
The prompts are shown below.  In this two hour session I do not do a modelled write but briefly discuss each sentence with the group. Discussing points such as what would be a good emotion to use, which verbs are more powerful?

When discussing sentence 5 I show the children this image to help them create similes related to the Little Red Riding Hood narrative.  The moon becomes a watching wolf eye and branches mat together like fur. 

Click to enlarge these images of the opening paragraphs.  You can see that they have attempted to use the 'Slow Writing' prompts to varying degrees of success. 

Once children had completed their opening paragraphs we watched the second part of the film stimulus. 

A really short section approximately 6 seconds. 

It is not obviously that what is happening is a dream until the end of the clip when the girl awakes.  I demonstrate to the children that this is what our writing should do.  That this method is called 'Show, don't tell' we show she is having a nightmare by the fact we show her waking up. 
We also refer to the 'wolves' as shadows, silhouettes and mysterious creatures.  After she woke up the children then describe her fear, using actions rather than saying.  'She was scared.'

These short paragraphs were then written independently following the discussion. Some more freedom to write rather than the show writing technique. 

It is time for the conclusion of the narrative.  Perhaps it wasn't a dream after all. 

I demonstrate how short sentences can be used to build tension.  How long sentences can intersperse the action in order to relieve the tension. 

It was at this point that I gave the children to complete the narrative however they wanted.  Whilst asking them to use the short sentences to build tension.

This was a long session but we did try to fit a lot in.  These last paragraphs possibly suffered due to time running out on us.  The class teacher is going to revisit and redraft these in school later. 

I wanted to demonstrate the process of scaffolding at the beginning and the gradual (usually) removal of those scaffolds in order to complete the narrative.    

Thank you for reading, I welcome your comments and questions.   Cheers  Rob
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