Creative Writing Groups for Children

How lucky was I back in the spring of 2012 to get the chance to start a creative writing group for local 6 – 11 year olds?  As someone who had also started young – and with several years experience of running Creative Writing courses – this was not a new idea to me.

A couple of decades ago, in conjunction with the local library, I had run a number of one-off workshops for children during the summer holidays, which were always over-subscribed.  More recently, I’d done a number of talks at local schools and had even spent a day as a Writer in Residence at one.  All this had convinced me that there was a massive gap in the market of groups like this for children.

One spring morning in 2012 – trying out the goodies on offer at a newly opened coffee shop not far from where I live, I got talking to the proprietor.  Her dream was for her coffee shop to become a hub of the community and she was planning to open it up to local craft  and arts groups.  She also had a young son who loved to write – and Addiscombe Young Writers was born; well if not born, certainly conceived.

We had several meetings and settled on two sessions per month, each running for around an hour, straight from school. In order to keep the youngsters interested, I came up with a Certificate Trail they could work towards; blue for joining, red for four written assignments, purple for eight and rainbow for twelve.  Thanks to my youngest daughter who is a teacher, I adopted her “Two Stars and a Wish” system of Constructive Criticism so that I could always give feedback on their work – the two stars being positive remarks and the wish being a suggestion on how something could possibly be improved.

Having decided how to run it at the coffee shop, and settling on the 6 – 11 age group, I contacted the local papers and distributed posters and flyers all round the area to “spread the word”.  I had a phenomenal response and, over the course of the next few weeks sent out no less than thirty information packs to interested parents!  And finally, two months after that first coffee, the group was launched. It was amazing! Sixteen children turned up to that first session and I could not believe it!

Over the next eighteen months, we tackled everything from letter writing to haiku, short stories to diaries – and lots of poetry.  At its peak there would regularly be twenty or more children coming along.  There was also special events to broaden their experience – competitions, a Halloween tea party, a picnic in the park – even a theatre trip where they got to meet the actors backstage afterwards.  Furthermore, they produced enough quality work to fill an A4 size booklet entitled Word Magic which was published in 2013.

It was all going really well  until last October when disaster struck.  We lost our venue!  The whole thing came screeching to a halt and I was thrown into panic.  Having worked so hard to make the group a success there was no way in the world I was going to let it go.  At last, earlier this year, the local library stepped into the breach and saved the day.  On 8th March we had our first session as the new Writing group.  Six sessions on, things are starting to pick up the pace again and a whole new group of interested children have joined up plus I am still getting enquiries.

It has been a wonderful adventure and, at the end of the day, what I would really like to see is other groups starting up.   If you love writing and you’d like to give it a go, here are a few pointers that might help:

* Find your venue – if it is free, all the better.

* A one hour session, twice a month is just right.  I usually have a ten-minute settling in period, forty minutes to write – and a ten minute Q & A time at the end.

* Plan your sessions well in advance.

*Have plenty of writing materials available – I have “Session Worksheets” – basically just rough paper – and “Assignment Worksheets” which they can take home with them and use for the written assignment set.

*Keep accurate records of attendees and where they are on the Certificate Trail.

* Set up a blog so you can keep the parents up to speed with what is going on, session dates,  assignments set etc

* Make the sessions as diverse as you can to keep their interest and heap praise on them.

Above all – enjoy it and remember you are not teaching, you are sharing something you love.  Nothing feeds better off writers than writers and your enthusiasm will be contagious, I guarantee it.  Further information on http://addiscombeyoungwriters.blogspot.co.uk

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Find out more about Jilly on her  blogs – http://addiscombeyoungwriters.blogspot.co.uk    http://jphenderson-long.blogspot.co.uk