Sparking creativity in students at Southpointe

I wrapped up a writer-in-residency at a local school, Southpointe Academy, in April. It seems like a lifetime ago because, since then, my family has moved homes for the first time in eighteen years (more on that in a future post, I imagine!).

I’ve now had time to reflect on the residency and look back at some of the photos from my week at the school. We accomplished a lot of writing and storytelling!

I was asked to develop a plan for K-5 and so came up with a different project for each grade. 

Kindergarteners: Costuming a Character 

Grade 1s: Magical Boxes

Grade 2s: Enchanted Trees

Grade 3s: Secret Doorways

Grade 4s: A Spellbinding Shopping Trip

Grade 5s: Lost in the Library

I kicked off the week with one general presentation to the entire school, which allowed me to introduce myself—and my philosophy—so that I didn’t have to repeat this each time I visited the specific classrooms.

The fantastic aspect of a residency is that I get to spend multiple blocks with the same class. In general, the system was the same: enter the classroom, introduce the project with some brainstorming and scene starters, then follow up in additional sessions with more specific writing advice, presentation, and an in-depth Q & A.

Of course, the format was tweaked depending on the age.

Another positive to spending an entire week at the school was that I could set up my museum of artifacts in the library and students could come view them throughout the week for extra inspiration. 

Finally, the school asked me to write a story about them during my time there and I did just that. This turned out to be a lot of fun, and I ended up writing about an imagined misadventure with the Grade 5 classroom’s mascot, Yorick the skeleton.

Afterward, I was happy to receive these kind words from Southpointe’s writing coordinator:  

“Everyone at our school loved having Lee as our Author-In-Residence, as he is such an engaging and inspirational writer and teacher! He connected with all our students from K to Grade 5 who loved his fun, interactive workshops, which focused on making the writing process accessible to all! I would recommend Lee without hesitation.”

Verity Pritchard
Southpointe Academy

More info about my residencies can be found on my website.

Advertisement

Mapping magic: discovering the path to story success

I’ve been fine-tuning my plan for my writer-in-residency that I’m doing at a school next week— five straight days with students K-5! We’ll be covering a range of topics and writing approaches, but one of the main goals for the visit will be to amplify overall creativity. 

When it comes to my own writing process, one of my favourite ways to attack this is by mapping, and it’s something I bring to schools as well, either guiding students through a process on chart paper, a white board, or—if I’m presenting via Zoom or to a large audience in an auditorium—through a document camera.

This is a great way to generate ideas or for a writer to simply understand a space. Many of my young students (or even my teens) often craft scenes but leave the reader completely in the dark as to where it takes place (sometimes I don’t even know if the scene is inside or outside)! Mapping out a world, a building, or even a moment can make a real difference! More information about my author presentation, craft workshops, and residencies on my website.  

By the way, if you’re looking for an excellent book on mapping, writing, and creativity, then I highly suggest The Writers’ Map, edited by Huw Lewis-Jones!

Writer-in-residency, magic & monsters style

I recently wrapped up a writer-in-residency with a group of gifted learners through the Vancouver School Board and Artstarts. Over the course of several weeks, myself and fourteen students came together in a central location to talk writing and reading—and to create.

My teaching partner and I led students (and their characters!) in an epic journey, exploring various facets of storytelling. I had students take each week as a scene, doing my best to slow them down and take each part of their plot as an important “moment.” I wanted them to concentrate on idea-building and the process of story development, as opposed to simply the product.

As part of this approach, I had them work on many hands-on activities over the course of the program. There was plenty of visual brainstorming, but also some prop-building. Students crafted magical creature eggs, created potions from kits I prepared for them (you should have seen our house that day!), and wrote riddles in invisible ink.

I was in a gifted learning programming myself as a kid, so am always extremely grateful to work with classes like these, where we can pursue our passions and explore our imaginations. It’s hard to capture the magic of these situations, but I’ve done my best with a few photographs that I could snap along the way . . .

Let’s map our way through story time!

My four-year-old I sat down the other day to do some writing, but instead of doing it the usual way (in which he narrates something for me to transcribe), I decided I’d roll out an activity I often do during an author visits at a school or library: Interactive mapping.

Mapping is a fantastic strategy for brainstorming ideas or to simply getting the creative juices flowing. I have many students (especially older ones) who find it hard to sit down and begin the process of writing—they find it hard to turn off all the other things that are pestering them. This sort of activity can serve as a “warm-up” exercise or a transition for the brain. Plus, it’s fun (and shouldn’t creativity be fun?).

For Hiro and I, we started out in one corner of our respective pages, and mapped our characters’ journeys toward treasures in the opposite corner. We created specific problems and obstacles along the way. We both did separate maps, building off our own ideas, though Hiro asked me to swoop in at certain points to do some drawing and labelling for him. (Hiro had an “ice” theme in his adventure—I especially like his “ice monster.”)

As mentioned above, I do this kind of thing with elementary and middle school students all the time, but it was the first time with a preschooler, and it ended up being far more entertaining for him than I would have guessed. 

Welcome to Enchanted Earth!

At the end of June, I finished up a year-long project at an arts-based high school in Kamloops (about four hours outside of my home city of Vancouver). Over the many months, I delivered a series of world-building activities, all via Zoom, first because of the pandemic and then because the roads were cut off after our extreme flooding (and then because of covid again). 

I do a lot of teaching and speaking over digital technologies, but it’s always a bit more challenging when art is involved because I simply don’t get a chance to lean over shoulders and see what everyone’s working on in the moment. Sure, people can send me photos and files, but it’s never quite the same, mostly because I find it harder to connect with the students.

Luckily, I was finally able to make the trip to Kamloops in the last week of June to deliver a keynote speech to the entire school body and to view their amazing gallery of work. The biggest surprise? The students were so engaged, asking me so many questions, and showing some genuine interest—these were things that I just didn’t pick up on during our virtual sessions. So, there was a connection, and that made the experience extremely rewarding.

As for the specifics of the project, the students were divided into teams to create five different realms: Ice, Sky, Underground, Land, and Water. The worldbuilding was applied to every course in the curriculum—not only the obvious ones such as art and writing, but also science and math. 

The result was really amazing. As I wandered the gallery of their Enchanted Earth, I found sculpture, myths, recipes, maps, constellations, language systems, field guide entries for creatures, dioramas . . . pretty much every corner of these worlds was imagined and explored. 

I’m showing pictures of just a fraction of the amazing pieces.

I want to extend my thank you to all the students and staff at Kamloops School of the Arts (secondary pod), in particular my partner Melanie Gilmar, who spearheaded the entire initiative. A big thank you to ArtStarts, the funding body for the project.

Cherishing our family stories

Today, I received a package from Quilchena School in Vancouver where I did a (virtual) writer-in-residency on the theme of family and cultural stories. 

Over the course of several weeks, the students, teacher Kelly Enns, and I explored family connections through personal memories, heirlooms, old photographs, and legends passed down through the generations. We spoke of different family situations, what makes a family, and the different cultures that have contributed to our lives. Kelly is Japanese Canadian and could speak a lot about her family’s experiences during the internment of World War II. I was able to speak about how my wife and I adopted our son internationally, and what it means to embrace and incorporate a new culture into our daily lives. And, of course, the students had many stories to share.

Along the way, we produced many different writing pieces. We wrote poems or descriptive paragraphs about an item or moment in our lives. We wrote short stories inspired by family legends, and even imagined our family homes telling a story about us.

I loved seeing all of the heirlooms and photographs that the children showed me; some of them very old and beautiful, coming from all corners of the world. Along the way, I showed some of my own family heirlooms and photos. 

It’s not always easy to know what kind of impact you leave as a visiting author, but it’s even more difficult in this age when everything is online. So, I am extremely touched that the teacher prepared this book of writing and artwork! I will cherish it always.

The students drew many pictures of how they connected with me. There are a lot of drawings of the characters from my books: Kendra Kandlestar, Tug the skyger, Fidget, Ozzie . . . plus many pictures of brooms, since I talked to them a lot about my forthcoming book, Spell Sweeper, and how a large part of it was inspired by my grandfather handmaking his own brooms.

You will also notice many pictures of chickens. Students are always amused to hear the stories of me being attacked by the rooster when I was a kid! So, in short, it seems that when kids think of me it goes like this: flying tigers, chickens, and brooms. Seems about right!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Creative kids = creative covers

I’m so proud of the kids! Despite all the extra challenges this past term, everyone finished up a book in my two creative writing classes that I teach through CWC.

Like so many classes,  we were forced to transition to teaching through online platforms halfway through the term due to COVID. Teaching anything creative is hard to do on screen, but we muddled through. The hardest part, though? Designing and illustrating covers for our books.

Usually, when I’m in class, I can literally lean over the student’s workspace and help them sketch or tidy up a design. I often have them work on “thumbnail” sketches first so that they can fine-tune a design before investing a lot of time on a final illustration. I still asked the students take this approach so that I could at least look at their designs—this time, though, I just couldn’t literally get in there and make amendments.

Still, many students succeeded in coming up with excellent designs and/or illustrations. Of course, I have many kids who are fabulous illustrators. For those who aren’t comfortable with their artistic abilities, they decided to draw on the stock photo libraries available through pexels.com and pixabay.com. In these cases, though, the students still had to design their cover, which including deciding upon the right placement of the photo, choosing the font, and thinking about overall impact.

So, here are some of the great covers designed by my students. We’ve got mysteries, science fiction, fantasy quests, and thrillers . . . quite the collection!

The books will go for printing this summer (we print our books perfect-bound, so that they even have proper spines) and they will arrive in our students’ hands in the next couple of months. For them, it feels like forever, I know!

The Creative Writing for Children Society (CWC) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the creativity, confidence and writing capacity of children through well-tailored writing programs, delivered in-class and through digital platforms. In our programs, students from around the world write and illustrate their own books, which are professionally desktop published. Founded in 2004, CWC is based in Vancouver, BC.

Activities for kids: Thinking INSIDE the box

I’m posting my latest activity for all of us kids big and small stuck at home and trying to remain creative! I call this activity Thinking INSIDE the box.

I started delivering this activity to kids in my creative writing workshops after the publication of Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers, one of my most popular books. In that book, a young Een goes in search of a mystical container that holds something all-too precious to her societ

There are many wonderful myths and stories of enchanted vessels. One’s that pop to mind are Pandora’s box, Urashima Tarō’s box, and Aladdin’s lamp all come to mind, and can help provide extra inspiration to the young creators in your house.

What you will need:

• Paper
• Drawing supplies
• The handouts (below)

Bonus:

• Any kind of wooden are cardboard box
• Paint and brushes

There are a few different ways to approach this activity. For younger kids, I like to use this very simple handout, which allows them to take a pre-drawn box and simply concentrate on the design, patterns, and colors.

Here are a few examples of student projects:

 

For older students, I prefer this brainstorming sheet, which allows them to freeform doodles shapes and designs for boxes, and also prompts them to consider more deeply some of the story-telling aspects of their box.

Here are some examples of past boxes designed

Maker-space opportunities

If you have craft containers knocking about your house, wooden or even cardboard, then you can turn your box design into a three-dimensional model. The fun part of this, of course, is that you can FILL the magical container with items!

In my time as a creativity teacher, my students have made quite a few boxes . . .

And here is my model of a box . . . the Box of Whispers. It is pretty big and not only served as a great prop for when I was touring this book, but also as storage for same said books!

Writing prompt

In terms of writing, this project provides the platform for an epic tale—I’ve had many students take this prompt and dive into the telling of a character in search of a mythical box (perhaps after it has been stolen)!

However, I always tell teachers that a good bite-sized project is to have students write the single scene in which a character first discovers the box. This avoids students having to dwell or worry about what I call “plot paralysis”—becoming so consumed with a plot that they forget to think about character development and description. By removing overall story plot as a factor to consider, students can just focus on a character in the magical moment of discovery.

(Also, I’m just a little exhausted of trying to convince my students that they don’t have to start a story with the long boring sequence of invents that involves their characters waking up in the morning to the sun shining through the window, brushing their teeth, running downstairs to eat breakfast, running to the bus, running to school, running home after school . . . and THEN they actually something important to the plot starts! If you’re a teacher, you KNOW what I’m talking about!)

Have fun with this project. Stay safe, stay well, and stay tuned . . .

Activities for kids: Who is this mouse?

I’m posting my latest activity for all of us kids big and small stuck at home and trying to remain creative! I call this activity costume makes the character! Simply print out the handout below and imagine what this little mouse does in its life. Then decorate it accordingly!

Is it a knight?

A princess?

A cat keeper?

The possibilities are endless, of course, and I highly recommend printing out a few of the sheets to make as many jobs as you like! I’ve done this activity several times at schools in Canada, the US, Korea, and Thailand—no matter where I’ve been, kids love this story starter.

And it IS a story starter, because you can write a story about how this mouse achieved its dream job. Or, if you do multiple mice, you can write a story about how this mouse had to change its jobs throughout his life.

Here are some of the mice from the past occasions where I’ve led this activity at schools.

By the way, the one above is one of my all-time favorite mice: COFFEE MOUSE!

Have fun and, in the meantime, stay safe, stay well, and stay tuned . . .

Activities for kids: Let’s get out of this place

I’m posting my latest activity for all of us kids big and small who are stuck at home. Today’s activity: Designing a brochure for an imagined world.

The truth is that when I was a kid, we didn’t go on a lot of vacations. A big reason for this is that I grew up on a family farm and the summer—when most people go on vacation—was the time for us to work really hard and earn the income that would sustain us for the rest of the year.

So, most of my “vacations” were taken through books—either by reading them or writing them.

Of course, reading or writing are great ways to escape NOW, during our world COVID-19 pandemic, but I want to provide a bit more focus with this activity. Who knows, it might turn into a book—or, if you have already written a book or story, this project can be a fun way to view your “world” from a different perspective.

I’ve delivered this activity several times with students at schools or programs I’ve worked at in Canada and Korea, and it’s proven to be a lot of fun.

The imaginary travel brochure

What you will need:

• Paper — you can use either blank paper or use the template I’ve provided
• Drawing supplies: Pens, pencils, colored pencils, fine-liners, markers—your preference!
• Optional: glue

The goal of this project is to make a three-panel tri-fold brochure, which you can do simply by folding a letter-sized piece of paper into thirds. That gives you three panels on one side of the brochure, and three on the other. You can do your brochure double-sided on a single sheet of paper, or if you are worried about your paper being too thin, and markers bleeding through, then just do this project on two separate pieces of paper, which you could always glue together afterward.

There are no real rules to how to fill out the pages, but I recommend:

SIDE 1

• Panel 1 (the cover): Cover art and title, such as “Come Visit . . .”
• Panel 6 (the back cover): Contact information.
• Panel 5: More information about the world the brochure is advertising—I like doing a “did you know” section here.

SIDE 2

• Panel 2: General information about the world, showcasing key points of interest.
• Panels 3&4: A bigger piece of artwork, such as a landscape of the world, or a map.

Of course, I highly recommend brainstorming the content and working on some rough copies before worrying about the final version. You can use your own blank paper folded into thirds, though if you want some content blocks to work with, then you can download my template HERE. You can also download and print out the template with the instructions, just in case you want something sitting in front of you to look at.

If you do print out my template double-sided, you may have to experiment with how your printer works—certain devices seem to flip the second page the wrong way!

Come visit these imaginary worlds:

I always have this rule in my creativity classes: If I ask YOU to do it, then I’ve also done it. So, here are two brochures that I’ve made! One is for The Land of Een, which is featured in my Kendra Kandlestar book series. The other is for the multiverse that appears in my Zoone series–because Zoone features so many different worlds, I decided to do that brochure a little bit differently!

Finally, here are some brochure examples done by past students.

Foodlandia:

Rainbow Island:

Land of Cute:

Ocean Kingdom:

I’d love to see what kids come up with! If you post them on social media, please hashtag #imaginarytravelbrochure and tag me (I’m @leefodi on Instagram and twitter).

In the meantime, stay safe, stay well, and stay tuned . . .