Writing Club: One Sentence at a Time- My Christmas Star

Writing can often seem daunting and so often an entire writing piece or story is the major outcome of a writing lesson. This is where I believe a change needs to happen. In order for students to feel confident in their writing they need to feel equipped with techniques, tools and ideas to create a successful sentence. Writing is made up of many sentences. Once a learner is confident in various writing techniques, they can apply this to any story or writing piece. In each class we will use a method called sentence stacking. This method of writing is used in many successful schools throughout the United Kingdom. An idea or writing extract is looked at and modelled. The techniques used in the model is discussed and students brainstorm various ways to use this technique in different ways and in their own words. Ideas are gathered between all the students and then a sentence is built.  Together and independently we will then create effective and engaging sentences.  This class is open to students of all writing abilities however, students should be able to write a simple sentence by themselves. Some of the techniques we look at is repetition, similes, onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhyming, personification, adjectives, adverbs, complex sentences and adverbial phrases to name a few. 

In this class students will be writing a lovely and heartwarming story about a young girl who enters a Christmas Talent show. She is so excited to perform and impress her father, however, he is always busy and has so much to do. As the Christmas talent show draws nearer, she keeps practising - but will her Father be able to be there? This story is full of joy, showing how a family supports and loves each other unconditionally.  Come and join the journey and get immersed into this beautiful story. 

We will be watching short video clips from an animated video called My Christmas Star to inspire our writing. We will then analyse the clip and turn it into writing. I will explain and model exactly how to do this and students will send in their writing throughout the week. If students are happy for me to share their work- I will share everybody's work at the end of each week as it is important we learn from each other and also get inspired by others. By the end of the fourth week each student will have a beautifully written, top quality essay that will be full of important writing tools. They will be able to use this as a model for all future stories.  

At the beginning of each week I will load up all the lessons and activities. Each week there will be two video lessons available as well as some activities sent through to the classroom page. Each lesson will show students how to write at least three incredible sentences using certain writing techniques. The lessons will go into details and show students exactly what is expected from them. It is important that students write their six writing chunks (sentences) at the end of each week. I will check in regularly and provide various examples of model writing that they can use for inspiration. Students are welcome to send in their weekly writing at anytime during the week. I will also give extra challenges to those who are up to it which will not be compulsory but will be encouraged.