Kate Williams

Hello schools!

Let’s celebrate World Book Day (WBD) by inspiring our next generation of writers! 

No doubt you’re booked up for WBD (March 2nd) and I am too – all week in fact – but children need inspiring every day! So what better than a thrilling, hilarious, mysterious dazzle of dragon poetry to sweep away the February gloom? Or later, to fire a flash of fantasy through the elf-green treetops of later March? 

Children have been setting their classrooms buzzing in my dragon workshops this term, with adjectives and similes, metaphors and ‘moving words’, onomatopoeias, rhythms, rhymes, alliteration – poetry galore. The funny thing is, they don’t realise it’s work. Give them a double lesson, and they want more!

We’ve had dragons cartwheeling over the moon and dancing down the M4. We’ve had dragon menus with ‘Teachers on Toast’ (sorry), ‘Candyfloss Curry’, ‘School Hall Stew’ and ‘Magic and Mash’. We’ve felt the rush of a gust (yes, their words) from a beating wing, spied the glint of an eye, smelt a strange whiff of smoke, felt a thumping tail on the classroom roof, heard shrieks resounding round the sky. We’ve talked and sung and acted out dragons of different colours: ones in red who stay all day in bed; others in pink, who wash their tails in the sink; and naughty dragons dressed in blue, who like to creep up and shout out ‘Boo!’ But some are invisible, camouflaged or see-through, and remain for ever a mystery. Children have conjured up every conceivable dragon character too: creepy and crafty, jolly and fun, gentle and timid, bossy, grumpy, wild and mad, and the brave and bold, protecting us with their fire and armour. 

Of course I throw ideas at the children, but they throw more back at me – ideas I’d never think of! They bounce ideas off each other too, with frequent sharing opportunities, so the whirlwind of images, language and poetry invariably spins round the classroom or hall in all directions, building, lifting, heating up, sizzling… till the bells goes for lunch – boo!

Responses from teachers and children confirm that whirlwind’s worth – as do the poems produced.

I offer various other topics too (see previous post or Workshops page), also exciting, fun and open-ended for maximum creativity and poetic venture. 

Happy spring!

Kate
Email: katewilliams.poetry@gmail.com