Story-building: A Creative Writing Course For Kids
What you'll learn
- Create your own fun, inventive stories
- Understand and apply elements such as character, setting and plot
- Fine-tune story-telling by considering effects of narrative voice
- Use dialogue more effectively
- Bust boredom with your new-found superhero story-writing powers
Requirements
- A good imagination and a sense of fun
Description
Story-building is a fun creative writing course aimed at children aged 8-12 (with parental guidance). This course will give your child a sound introduction to writing their own stories. It covers the basic story building blocks of Character, Setting and Plot. These are presented in a clear, easy-to-follow way that makes use of examples to model the lesson outcomes. The course looks at adding quirks and unexpected contradictions to make characters more interesting, how to create a setting that conveys a mood and, importantly, how to structure a plot so that readers keep turning the page to find out what happens next.
The final building block called Construction Tips covers aspects of writing such as narrative voice and dialogue, as well as how to avoid overwriting by ‘showing rather than telling’.
The lessons are structured as short videos that guide your child through the accompanying downloadable workbook. Rather than presenting lengthy lectures, children are encouraged to apply their imaginations to their own writing.
By the end of the course children will have a sound understanding of how stories are built and can venture out into the exciting world of creating their own stories. The course also includes four story starter ideas and prompts to help fire up their imagination.
Not only does creative writing strengthen your child's language skills and allow an outlet for their emotions, but importantly functions as a means to exercise their imaginative muscle through fantasy. For this reason, underlying this course is the belief that writing stories should be fun and spark creativity.
Who this course is for:
- Children aged 8-12 (under supervision of their parents)
Instructor
I am a writer who grew up with her nose in a book and I want to share that passion for stories with others. I have written three books for children. They are set in South Africa and are committed to bringing more Southern Hemisphere diversity to the landscape of children's literature.
I have an MA from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and have spent the past ten years working as an English lecturer in teacher education where I taught language and literature. My teaching has always been underlined by a love of reading and stories and I hope very much that I've inspired my students to spread a love of reading into their future classrooms!
I've also worked for NGOs evaluating educational projects aimed at whole-school improvement in rural and township schools and taught English to refugees in Durban, South Africa.
For more information on my work, please also see my website.