Gifted by Juxtabook

They don't make them like this anymore ...

For the last four or five years I've helped been teaching a group of 'gifted and talented' children at a primary school. These year 6 and 7 children are amazingly talented readers and as a former secondary school teacher I go in once a week to deliver literature enrichment lessons.

One of the pleasures of this kind of teaching is that every week these children knock me off my complacent perch as they reveal exactly what they can do with a piece of poetry or prose; they are a continual surprise and delight.

One of the depressing things about this kind of teaching is the poor quality of modern children's non-fiction: all super-glossy, illustration rich, and full of snippets of facts in little boxes. High on graphic design and low on continuous prose. It always reminds me of Irwin's "gobbets" that Hector was so sniffy about in Alan Bennett's The History Boys.

When I start teaching this group each year I remind them of the Ladybird non-fiction books. They will have seen them, and some may have one or two passed down by their parents, but they associate them with younger readers and think they've moved on. I point out to them how little they as 9, 10 and 11 year olds see non-fiction just written in paragraphs and extending to 26 pages (all Ladybird books have 52 pages and half are full page illustrations). I commend the Adventures from History series to them.

Not only does the Adventures from History series cover the popular heroes you would expect (Alfred the Great, Robert the Bruce, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth I, etc) but amongst the 49 titles are some real surprises. What modern publisher would bring out a children's biography of Warwick the Kingmaker, John Wesley or Elizabeth Fry? There is even one of Elizabeth Gaskell.

 

 

I read these books with great pleasure in the 70s and 80s and they were a large motivating factor in my love of history. They have their faults certainly, and no doubt they are a bit over-certain or narrative in style for historians' tastes, but for getting kids interested you can't beat them. Most children don't get the chance to do this kind of reading however.

Another aspect of the teaching I do with this group is on the history of the English language. How English is such a borrower of words and how interesting etymology can be. They look at maps and gradually realise that one local area is full of Norse place names and another a few miles away of Anglo-Saxon ones. They realise that they can see the footprints of the invaders in an OS map. This is one of the most popular parts of the course that I teach. They love it and the National Curriculum hardly goes near it.

Most of you will know of the Ladybird series but if you are looking for children's non-fiction there are others. Ginn did a great little series in the 60s in colour coded shelves for different eras. I've a smashing little book from their 'Blue shelf' in stock at the moment on the history of Books and Writing (again, what publisher would produce this now?).

 

 

It covers the development of paper and writing: papyrus, book rolls, books with leaves, runes, Roman letters, Anglo-Saxon poetry (all riddles and heroes), and the writing culture of the monasteries and St Bede... all in a tiny staple bound little paperback.

 

 

I've a similarly interesting volume called Elizabethan Houses from Ginn's 'Yellow Shelf'. If you have a child or grandchild that likes the Horrible Histories then maybe see if you can interest them in these more detailed books. Apart from improving their history it will challenge their reading no end compared with what is in the school library on the non-fiction shelves.

 

Cross posted at Juxtabook.

Katherine Langrish, Pauline Fisk and retelling stories with children

Children's author Katherine Langrish writes one of my favourite blogs Seven Miles of Steel Thistles. I have flagged her posts up on my main Juxtabook blog before but for those who have yet to read her blog writing this guest post, by fellow writer Pauline Fisk on how as children it is in retelling that we become part of the stories that we fall in love, is wonderful.

Describing Winnie the Pooh hunting honey made me part of the story.  Adventuring with the Famous Five turned them into a Famous Six.  I made those things my own, and I made them real - and simply by writing about them.

Retelling a good, well written story by someone else is great way into writing for children. It stops blank page syndrome ("where do I start?"), and prevents enforced planning sessions boring them to death before they begin. It also makes it easy to differentiate for gifted children. Give bright children a tougher, more complex story to re-write. Ask them to re-write for a specific audience, perhaps a specific age group. Give them a word limit into which they must condense the essentials, but keep the pace and entertainment. let them use a word processor. the possibilities are endless and because they are not summarising, they are writing the story anew, the process is very creative as well as analytical.

When they've finished an extension task for the very brightest could be to write an imaginary letter to a publisher explaining how their abridged version was arrived at for the target audience and what they have chosen to leave out and why.