The Manning Odyssey

Writer: Mark Gwynne Jones
School: Manning School, Nottingham
Co-ordinator: NAWE/Creative Partnerships

The project was based on the Storyspinner scheme developed by Creative Partnerships in conjunction with NAWE. Storyspinner is a programme within which writers work with schools remotely, online. It offers an original alternative to the conventional writer's visit, and makes an appealing and productive link between IT and English studies.

StorySpinner is structured as a series of six sessions, covering key curriculum areas. The online writer initiates the story and presents the class with a series of narrative dilemmas which they have to solve. After each session, their solutions are fed back to the writer who provides comment and generates the next stage of the story. This is sent back to the school to form the basis of the next lesson. A specially developed website acts as a hub for all communications, and sends automatic confirmations or reminders to keep both writer and teacher in pace.

A significant extra dimension is added by the writer providing a movie-style trailer for each episode. This is made possible by the use of simple software provided. It enables the writer to blend text, images and sound - either drawing on StorySpinner’s own library, making use of pictures provided by the pupils, or created or sourced by the writers themselves.

At Manning School, the pupils certainly liked this way of working. There was always a sense of anticipation over where the story was heading and what the trailer was about to reveal. The trailer proved particularly exciting, as the pupils were keen to know what of their work was about to appear in sound and vision. Furthermore, the fact that someone in ‘London’ had given their work a filmic treatment made them feel important, validating their ideas and boosting their sense of self-esteem.
 
The main areas covered in the six sessions were: Characters and Situations; Third Person Narrative; Drawing a Map; Describing the Journey, Writing Dialogue, and Thinking of an Ending.

For each session, the Storyspinner  (in this case, Mark) provided clear ideas for the teacher to work with. The session on character, for instance, was based on presenting options under various headings (character; emotion; item; place) which the pupils could combine in random ways by rolling dice.  Development of characters was then prompted by a series of questions: What does my character look like? Does he/she have a name? How old is he/she? Do the emotions I’ve selected belong to my character or are they other peoples’ emotions that my character is having to deal with? Do the two emotions sit comfortably with each other or are they conflicting? How do these emotions display themselves? Do the items that were selected have any special significance? Do they belong to the character or is the character searching for them – or trying to steal them?
How does the character feel when placed in the locations selected? Does it feel like home or somewhere to get away from? Is the journey from one location to another the basis of a story?

At the end of the session, the pupils’ work was sent back to Mark. His task was then to
develop a storyline and write short episodes of that story, based on materials and ideas generated by the pupils. He also wrote a letter to the class, describing his reaction to their contributions, revealing thoughts about how the story might develop – and sharing information about both the general creative process and specific writing techniques. And finally (with a little help, this still being the pilot phase!) he produced the trailer to summarize ‘the story so far’.

This was the general pattern of the project, repeated over the six weeks. Where pupils had produced visual material to accompany their writing (e.g. a map, or a drawing of a character), this of course could be worked into the trailer. In other cases, there was a magical mystery to the way the pupils’ ideas found ‘concrete’ representation.

The ‘template’ style structure of the process might seem prescriptive but, in practice, everything is driven by the particular imaginative ideas of the pupils.  At Manning, the principle of using guidelines and prompts certainly proved productive. The pupils were highly inventive but also covered all the essential aspects of constructing a story. It was intensive work, and they were required to think hard about what they were doing and why, and with reference to some of those familiar curriculum targets - to imagine and explore feelings and ideas, focusing on creative uses of language and how to interest the reader. Within a single session, pupils would each produce perhaps only a couple of hundred words, but by the end of the project they had everything they needed to finish their own complete story.

After the last session, Storyspinner generates a final album that contains all the character descriptions, all the story texts plus images and from the movie trailer.
This album can then be used by the pupils, either to remind them of the work they’ve done or as research material from which to create further versions of the story.

There is a small pool of trained writers available for this work, and any school interested in becoming involved should contact the NAWE office.

NAWE, PO Box 1, Sheriff Hutton, York YO60 7YU Tel: 01653 618429
Email: info@nawe.co.uk Website: www.nawe.co.uk